COLOR: Ancient Egyptian Math Texts

Ancient Egyptian Math Texts

Although there are many artifacts, not many Egyptian texts survived. Among the few texts which remain is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The two great mathematical texts that have survived, the Moscow and the Rhind papyri, come from the Middle Kingdom. Both texts contain sophisticated mathematical formulas and problems. However, there is a strong possibility that more sophisticated work was on other papyri which did not survive the passage of time.

Egyptian priests were secretive about their writings, and so not many copies of their work were made. Indeed, given the sophistication of the pyramids and Egyptian civilization, very few papyri of any kind have survived to inform how they achieved such accomplishments. Also, the papyrus as a material for preserving texts, is not as durable as clay tablets used by other civilizations. However, these texts were designed to be lightweight, portable, practical teaching aids - and were not designed to survive thousands of years.

Nevertheless, the sparse clues left by scribes, when interpreted by unbiased scholars, reveal many mathematical achievements, including formulas for the summation of arithmetic and geometric series and the measurement of the area of a curved surface.

Rhind Mathematical Papyrus

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It was taken from Egypt by a Scott, Henry Rhind, and bears his name. The papyrus, a scroll about 6 metres long and 1/3 of a metre wide, was written around 1650 BC by the scribe Ahmes who is copying a document which is 200 years older. This makes the original papyrus and the Moscow papyrus both date from about 1850 BC.

The papyrus includes numerous examples of math problems, solutions and general principles. For example, the papyrus (61B), ends with a solution and the statement: "Behold! Does one according to the like for every uneven fraction which may occur.". The Rhind text also contain the use of irrational numbers, arithemetical and geometrical progressions, in problems 40 and 79.

Moscow Mathematical Papyrus

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The text contain the use of mechanical knowledge and a theoretical knowledge of the volume of a truncated pyramid. The mathematical operations performed in the papyrus is consistent with the use of various modern formulas, including the measurement of the surface area of a semicylinder or hemisphere, even though the order and notation might be different.

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