CLASSIC PUZZLES FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE MODERN ERA

The Ishango tribe that lived in Zaire in Africa used a bone with an inscription containing three sets of numbers in the forms of columns of scratches marked into its sides. What mathematical processes do the other two sides indicate, and where do the remaining five and seven from the first side fit? The Ancient Egyptian cult of Isis began some time before 2500BC. Osiris, God of the Underworld, was said to have been chopped into 14 parts, representing the 14 days of the Moon's waning. The cult had only two possible whole-number perimeter values of a rectangle which encloses the same area as its own length. Which two numbers are they? The Moscow Papyrus, Triangles of Babylon, the Egyptian Scribe Ahmes's Loaves. The Rhind Papyrus is a well known puzzle which has survived through the centuries travelling via Rome to end up in 18th century Europe and on to the modern era. A wealthy priest owns seven houses. Each of these houses contains seven cats. Each cat must eat seven mice, because each mouse can eat seven sheaves of wheat. A sheaf of wheat can produce seven hekats of grain. Houses, cats, mice, sheaves, grain: how many in total fall within the priest's domain? Here are fractional issues, dates, squaring the circle, the Ramses' Star, Riddle of the Sphinx, The Cistern Problem, Sun Tzu's classic problem, Alcuin's Riddle composed for the Emperor Charlamagne in AD781, and Archimedes' Revenge which has a certain poetic beauty, The Book of Precious Things, medieval riddles, memory wheels, there are one or two puzzles posed per page with beautiful decoration and line artworks for all 90 puzzles which have tested intelligent humans throughout history. 144pp.