Unit 7: Pythagoras and the world as numbers
Lesson 1: Pupil Resource Sheet 1
How did mummies do maths?
Mummies didn’t do a lot of maths – dead people don’t - but most people do when
they’re alive. It would be hard to get along without numbers.
Counting, for instance – how would you be able to tell someone how old you are?
How many kittens your cat has just had? How many players in a rugby team? How
many hours till dinner time? How much pocket-money you are owed?
The Ancient Egyptians were some of the first people in the world to develop a system
of counting numbers.
This is their sign for 1:
l
This is their sign for 10:
η
So this is how they wrote 28:
llllllll η η
All very useful for counting canopic jars, pyramid building blocks and river hippos!
It’s hard to get by without measuring things too.
In Ancient Egypt, your body came in very useful for measuring – you just used it like
a ruler!
The width of four fingers was a palm.
The length of an arm from finger-tip to elbow was
a cubit.
Seven palms were supposed to equal one cubit.
Measure the width of four fingers. This is your palm.
Now draw the length of your arm from finger-tip to elbow on a piece of paper. How
many of your palms can you fit along it? Exactly seven – or not?
Oh dear! Not exactly accurate. Who would you send out to buy four cubits of papyrus
paper? Not the smallest person in the family for sure!
So the Egyptians invented a standard length – the Royal Cubit. Now they could buy
measuring sticks 1 cubit long (about 52 cms in our metric system) and could start
building those amazing pyramids. They used cords 100 Royal Cubits long for their
measurements.
Can you believe that the greatest mistake they
made when building the great Pyramid was to
make one of the 230 metre-long sides just 20
cms too long!
Science and Religion in Primary Schools
Unit 7: Pythagoras and the world as numbers