The Influence of Ancient Egypt on Greek and Other Numeration Systems

Abstract

You may have learned how the ancient Egyptians wrote numbers. For example, for the number 600, you would write a symbol for a scroll six times. Actually, ancient Egypt had two main systems of writing: hieroglyphic and hieratic. Hieroglyphics, dating back over 5,000 years, were used mainly for inscriptions on stone walls and monuments. Hieratic writing was a cursive script suitable for writing on papyrus, the Egyptian form of paper. Much of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian mathematics comes from a papyrus written by the scribe Ahmose around 1650 B.C.E. Although he wrote in hieratic script, recent historians transcribed this document and others into hieroglyphics, giving readers the impression that all Egyptian writing was in hieroglyphics, the system that you may have learned.