High school students study mathematics papyrus

By Bruna Cronfli

Considering the content of Ancient Egypt covered in the History discipline, High School (Y10)  1st year-students were invited to research different numeral systems, from that time and currently, in Mathematics classes.

During history classes, they learned about how Napoleonic expeditions in the 19th century made it possible to rediscover the ancient kingdom of the pharaohs and their connections with the Greek world. They also investigated how the Rosetta stone made the translation of several Egyptian texts possible, including Rhind’s mathematical papyrus. In mathematics classes, they were divided into groups to research the following topics: the papyrus of Rhind, papyrus of Amos, Egyptian number systems, Egyptian fractions, and Hindu-Arabic numerals.

Thus, after comparing Egyptian and Hindu-Arabic numerical systems, students created a presentation with the findings. To develop social skills, research, self-management, communication, and thinking, the teacher distributed papyrus with different problems so that students could solve them in groups.

Why were these problems created? How were they solved with another number system? Are they still valid? What were the difficulties in solving them? These were some of the questions raised to deepen the discussion on solutions and other mathematical concepts.