Unexpected links between Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics

Mesopotamian mathematics is known from a great number of cuneiform texts, most of them Old Babylonian, some Late Babylonian or pre-Old-Babylonian, and has been intensively studied during the last couple of decades.

In contrast to this Egyptian mathematics is known from only a small number of papyrus texts, and the few books and papers that have been written about Egyptian mathematical papyri have mostly reiterated the same old presentations and interpretations of the texts.In this book, it is shown that the methods developed by the author for the close study of mathematical cuneiform texts can also be successfully applied to all kinds of Egyptian mathematical texts, hieratic, demotic, or Greek-Egyptian.

At the same time, comparisons of a large number of individual Egyptian mathematical exercises with Babylonian parallels yield many new insights into the nature of Egyptian mathematics and show that Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics display greater similarities than expected.Sample Chapter(s)Chapter 1: Two Curious Mathematical Cuneiform Texts from Old Babylonian Mari (830 KB)Contents:Two Curious Mathematical Cuneiform Texts from Old Babylonian MariHieratic Mathematical Papyri and Cuneiform Mathematical TextsDemotic Mathematical Papyri and Cuneiform Mathematical TextsGreek-Egyptian Mathematical Documents and Cuneiform Mathematical TextsReadership: Mathematicians, historians of science, egyptologists and assyriologists.