Not for nothing the history of Egypt is considered one of the most mysterious, and the culture of one of advanced. Ancient Egyptians, unlike many people, not only were able to build pyramids and to mummify bodies, but owned the diploma, kept count, calculated heavenly bodies, fixing their coordinates.
Decimal system of Egypt
The modern decimal system of calculation appeared a little more than 2000 years ago, however Egyptians owned its analog at the time of Pharaohs. Instead of bulky individual alphabetic and sign designations of number they used the unified signs – graphics, figures. They divided figures into units, dozens, hundreds, etc., designating each category by a special hieroglyph.
Rule of writing per se of figures was not, that is they could be written in any order, for example, from right to left, from left to right. Sometimes they were even made in a vertical line, at the same time the direction of reading a digital row was set by a type of the first figure – extended (for vertical reading) or flattened (for horizontal).
The ancient Egyptian papyruses found at excavation with figures demonstrate that Egyptians already at that time reviewed various arithmetic examples, carried out calculations and by means of figures fixed result, applied digital designations in the field of geometry. It means that digital record was widespread and standard.
Figures were quite often allocated with magic and sign value what their image not only on papyruses, but also on sarcophagi, walls of tombs confirms.
Type of figure
Digital hieroglyphs of Egyptians were geometrical and consisted only of straight lines. Hieroglyphs looked rather simply, for example figure "1" at Egyptians was designated by one vertical strip, "2" - two, "3" - three. And here some figures written by hieroglyphs do not give in to modern logic, figure "4" which was represented as one horizontal strip, and figure "8" in the form of two horizontal strips is an example. In writing figures nine and six were considered as the most difficult, they consisted of characteristic features under a different inclination.
For many years Egyptologists could not decipher these hieroglyphs, believing that before them letters or words.
Some of the last deciphered and translated hieroglyphs, designating the weight, set. The complexity was objective, some figures were represented symbolically, for example, on papyruses of people, represented with the raised hands, designated one million. The hieroglyph with the image of a toad meant one thousand, and larvae - hundred thousand. However all system of writing of figures was systematized, it is obvious – Egyptologists – claim that over the years hieroglyphs became simpler. Possibly, trained in their writing and designation even the simple people because the found numerous trade diplomas of small shopkeepers were made competently.