Part 3: History and More Information

Although the Egyptian approach to division is not the oldest, it might be instructive to start this brief historical account with an Egyptian division problem. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a papyrus was found in Thebes, in the ruins of a small building near the memorial temple called Ramesseum. It was purchased by Sir Alexander Henry Rhind (1833–1863) in 1858. After his death, the papyrus was acquired by the British Museum. It had been copied from another papyrus, about 200 years older by the scribe Ahmose and is universally referred to as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus.