The Eye of Horus

 In researching the Eye of Horus, or "Wedjat Eye" was an image composed of smaller symbols, each representing sacred fractions. 

In my research, I discovered a story related in a book on the Rhind Papyrus that told of Horus' eye being ripped out by Seth. Apparently, Thoth, the god of mathematics among other things, is the one who repaired it. This story itself was very interesting to me as someone who has a more than passing interest in ancient mythologies, but even more interesting was the description of the symbol's mathematical significance.

It is clear that we can sum the elements of the Eye of Horus to get 63/64, a fraction extremely close to 1. While I don't have conclusive evidence of this from the source I was examining, the idea that the eye when reassembled was missing some small part is very interesting to me. The source did note that Egyptians were more than capable to realizing that this sum was very close to one, although I would be curious to know if they understood that the series when continued in geometric progression did, in fact, lead to one. 

The thing that is so cool about this is that, in a way, the Eye of Horus does actually represent unity, if one imagines extending the pattern of its creation. There are all sorts of geometric ways to demonstrate that this is the case geometrically, so it's well within the range of possibility that they might have discovered this fact. 




Comments

  1. AmandaOctober 21, 2020 at 10:57 AM

    Jacob, this is a good exploration of the conversations surrounding the mathematical significance Eye of Horus. I appreciate that you consider the limits of different sources. Are there any numbers that are significant to you personally?

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