Egyptian Mathematics

• The Egyptians had a writing system based on hieroglyphs from around 3000 BC. Hieroglyphs are little pictures representing words.
• The Egyptians had a base-10 system of hieroglyphs for numerals.
• In hieroglyphs, a line is equivalent to 1.

  
• In hieroglyphs, a loop is equivalent to 10.

  
• In hieroglyphs, a rope is equivalent to 100.

  
• In hieroglyphs, a flower is equivalent to 1,000.

  
• In hieroglyphs, a finger is equivalent to 10,000.

  
• In hieroglyphs, a tadpole is equivalent to 100,000.

  
• In hieroglyphs, a god is equivalent to 1,000,000.

  
• Count this hieroglyphs writing: 1,333,330

  
• Note that the examples of 276 and 4622 in hieroglyphs are seen on a stone carving from Karnak,dating from around 1500 BC, and now displayed in the Louvre in Paris.
• Fractions to the ancient Egyptians were limited to unit fractions. A unit fraction is of the form 1/n where n is an integer and these were represented in numeral hieroglyphs by placing the symbol representing a "mouth", which meant "part".
• The "part" symbol was just placed over the "first part" of the number. [It was the first part for here the number is read from right to left.]
• We should point out that the hieroglyphs did not remain the same throughout the two thousand or so years of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. This civilisation is often broken down into three distinct periods:

  Old Kingdom - around 2700 BC to 2200 BC

  Middle Kingdom - around 2100 BC to 1700 BC

  New Kingdom - around 1600 BC to 1000 BC
• Another number system, which the Egyptians used after the invention of writing on papyrus ,was composed of hieratic numerals.