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Egyptian Number System
Last updated at November 24, 2025 by Teachoo
Class 8 (Ganita Prakash & Old NCERT)
Chapter 3 Class 8 - A Story of Numbers (Ganita Prakash)
- Introduction
- The Mechanism of Counting
- Some Early Number Systems
- Roman Numerals
- Figure it out - Page 60, 61
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Egyptian Number System
- Variations on the Egyptian System and the Notion of Base
- Adding Egyptian Numerals
- Multiplying Egyptian Numerals
- Distributive Law – For Egyptian Numerals
- Abacus that Makes Use of the Decimal System
- Shortcomings of the Egyptian System
- Figure it out - Page 69
- Mesopotamian Number System
- Mayan Number System
- Chinese Number System
- Hindu Number System
- Evolution of Ideas in Number Representation
- Figure it out - Page 80
Transcript
Egyptian Number SystemThe ancient Egyptians used a system very similar to the "Base-10" system we use today, but with a major difference: they didn't use Place Value. In our modern system, the digit '1' can mean 1, 10, or 100 depending on where it sits (like in the number 111). In the Egyptian system, they had a specific picture (symbol) for each "Landmark Number" (powers of 10). Infact, the Egyptian Number System is a simpler version of the Roman Number System In the Egyptian number system, each landmark number is 10 times the previous one. Since 1 is the first landmark number, they are all powers of 10. The following are the symbols given to these numbers Let’s list them out one-by-one Egyptian Numerals Symbol Value Meaning 1 Stroke 10 Heel Bone/Arch 9 Coiled Rope/Spiral Lotus Flower P Bent Finger Burbot/Fish/Tadpole Man with arms up Sun
