<p>Unit 7: Pythagoras and the world as numbers</p><p>Lesson 1: Pupil Resource Sheet 1 How did mummies do maths?</p><p>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.</p><p>This is their sign for 1: l</p><p>This is their sign for 10: η</p><p>So this is how they wrote 28: llllllll η η</p><p>All very useful for counting canopic jars, pyramid building blocks and river hippos! It’s hard to get by without measuring things too.</p><p>In Ancient Egypt, your body came in very useful for measuring – you just used it like a ruler!</p><p>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. </p><p>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?</p><p>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. </p><p>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!</p><p>Science and Religion in Primary Schools Unit 7: Pythagoras and the world as numbers</p>