Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll

It was sent to the British Museum in 1864, along with the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, but it was not chemically softened and unrolled until 1927 (Scott, Hall 1927).

[3] Of the 26 sums listed, ten are Eye of Horus numbers: 1/2, 1/4 (twice), 1/8 (thrice), 1/16 (twice), 1/32, 1/64 converted from Egyptian fractions.

The British Museum examiners found no introduction or description to how or why the equivalent unit fraction series were computed.

[5] Some of the problems would lend themselves to a solution via an algorithm which involves multiplying both the numerator and the denominator by the same term and then further reducing the resulting equation: This method leads to a solution for the fraction 1/8 as appears in the EMLR when using N=25 (using modern mathematical notation): The EMLR has been considered a student scribe test document since 1927, the year that the text was unrolled at the British Museum.

Reading available Middle Kingdom math records, RMP 2/n table being one, modern students of Egyptian arithmetic may see that trained scribes improved conversions of 2/n and n/p to concise unit fraction series by applying algorithmic and non-algorithmic methods.

The following chronology shows several milestones that marked the recent progress toward reporting a clearer understanding of the EMLR's contents, related to the RMP 2/n table.