The ancient Egyptians used mathematics every day: to measure fields after the flood, to count grain and taxes, and to plan pyramids and temples. Their methods were practical rather than theoretical, but they worked with impressive accuracy.
Numbers
Egyptians used a base-10 system with separate signs for 1, 10, 100, 1,000 and so on up to a million, which was shown as a man raising his arms in amazement. They wrote fractions mainly as unit fractions, such as 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4.
The Rhind Papyrus
Our best source is the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, copied by a scribe named Ahmes around 1550 BC and now in the British Museum. It contains 84 problems with solutions, covering division, fractions, the areas of fields and the volumes of granaries, and the slope of a pyramid. It even gives a method for the area of a circle that is very close to the true value.
Mathematics in stone
The precise right angles, levels and orientation of the Great Pyramid show what Egyptian surveyors could do with ropes, plumb lines and careful observation of the stars. Read about how the pyramids were built.
