Egyptian civilization flourished in the Nile River Valley around 3150 BC.

The
periodic flooding of the Nile provided Egyptians with rich and fertile soil for
agriculture, which was essential to the development of the civilization.
It is well known that Egyptians built monuments in the form of huge
geometric objects: The Great Pyramid. The largest one, The Great Pyramid
of Giza, was built in 2560 BC.
The Great Pyramid of Giza was constructed with geometric precision:
i. The base is a near-perfect square;
ii. The four sides of the square are aligned to North, South, East
and West with great precision;
iii. The ratio of the perimeter of the square and the height of the
pyramid is very close to 2.
The Papyrus
The primary sources of Egyptian geometry are the two surviving papyri (a
paper-like material produced from a special kind of plants which was once
abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt) containing collection of mathematical
problems with their solutions. They are Rhind Papyrus and Moscow Papyrus.
Both papyri consist of geometry problems, which are mainly
computations of the areas and volumes of geometric objects.
Problem 50 in Rhind Papyrus
The problem is stated as follows:
A circular field has a diameter 9 khet. What is its area? (Khet is a
length unit used by ancient Egyptians.)
Here is the written solution on the papyrus:
Step 1: Subtract the diameter by 1/9 of the diameter (9-1*1/9=8)
Step 2: Square the previous result to obtain the answer (8 2=64)
The answer is 64 setat. (Setat is an area unit equal to khet.)
The Egyptians value of Pi is 256/81.
Problem 48 in Rhind papyrus
Problem 48 does not contain any statement. It only
consists of a poorly drawn circle inside a square,
accompanied by the calculation of 82=64 and 92=81.
The calculations are obviously related to Problem 50,
where the area of a circle with diameter 9 khet is
computed.
One hypothesis is that the circle is in fact an
octagon (an 8-sided polygon) inside the square, which
was used to approximate the area of a circle with diameter 9 khet.
Circle on a Grid

Historical evidence shows that the Egyptian stonemasons used rectangular

grid to help them carve out a circle. The second hypothesis is that Egyptians
used a grid to find a square whose area is equal to a given circle. Consider
the following experiment:
Use a grid paper to draw circles
with radius one unit, two units
and so on.
Find the circle such that it
intersects the grid points in the
right places to give out the
square inscribed in the figure.
We assume that the area of the circle is well approximated by the area
of the square.
Egyptian fractions
According to Rhind Papyrus, we know that Egyptians value of Pi is 256/81,
which is a fraction. Egyptians have a very specific way to express fractions
because in their numeral system, they only have symbols for unit fractions i.e.
fractions whose numerators are 1.
Therefore, any other fraction is expressed as a sum of unit fractions,
which is called an Egyptian fraction. For example:
=256/81=3+1/9+1/27+1/81
In fact, any fraction can be written as an Egyptian fraction. The idea of
proof goes like this:
Suppose you have a fraction p/q in the simple fore, where 1<p<q. Find
the smallest positive integer r such that 1/r<p/q. Then consider the fraction
m/n=p/q-1/r. It can be easily shown that m<p. If m=1, then p/q is an Egyptian
fraction. If not, repeat the subtraction process until we obtain a unit fraction.
Therefore, p/q is an Egyptian fraction.
Problem 10 in Moscow Papyrus
Egyptians also knew how to find surface areas and volumes of geometric
solids.
The statement of the problem is as follows:
You are given a basket with a mouth of 4 units. What is its
surface area?
In this problem, the basket is assumed to be a hemisphere and the
mouth is its diameter. The solution given in the papyrus is as follows:
Step 1-2 times the diameter (2*4 1/2=9)
Step 2-Then multiply by 8/9 twice (9*8/9*8/9=64/9)
Step 3-Then multiply by the diameter and get the answer
(64/9*4 1/2=32)
Therefore, the answer is 32 sq. units.

What is the formula of the surface area of a hemisphere used by

Egyptians? How does it relate to the formula used by us?
Solution:
Let d be the diameter of a hemisphere. According to Egyptians
method, the surface area of the hemisphere is
2d*(8/9) 2*d=128/81 d2
Using Egyptians Pi, which is 256/81, the formula becomes Pi
2
d /2. According to the formula used by us, the surface area of the hemisphere
is
1/2*4 Pi (d/2) 2=Pi d2/2
Problem 14 in Moscow Papyrus
In Problem 14 in Moscow Papyrus, Egyptians tried to find the volume of a
frustum.
The statement of the problem is as follows:
Find the volume of the frustum of a square pyramid such that its
base is a square of side 4, its top is a square of side 2 and its height is 6.
Formula for the Frustum
The volume of the frustum is the difference between
the volumes of two similar pyramids as shown in the
following figure:
By similarity, (k+h)/a=k/b. Hence k+h=ak/b and k=bh/
(a-b)
Therefore, the volume of the frustum is
1/3(a2 (k+h)-b2k)
=1/3(a3k/b-b2k)
=1/3(a3-b3)/b*bh/(a-b)
=H/3(a3-b3)/(a-b)
=H/3(a2+ab+b2)
Summary
i.
ii.
iii.

iv.
v.

Egyptian civilization flourished around Nile River Valley in 3000

BC.
Rhind Papyrus and Moscow Papyrus are the two primary
sources of our knowledge about Egyptian geometry.
Like Babylonian geometry, Egyptian geometry mainly consists of
the measurements of lengths, areas and volumes of various
geometric objects.
Egyptians have a god approximation of Pi (=256/81=3.16). In
fact, it is more accurate than Babylonians approximation.
Egyptians knew the formulas for the surface area of a
hemisphere and the volume of a frustum of a square pyramid.