The Eye of Horus

First off, Aakriti in Grade 7 would love Egyptian mythology connection to math, and I still do! According to the Egyptian myth, Horus was an ancient sky god whose eyes were said to be the soon and the moon. The ancient myth describes a battle where Horus lost his left eye in a struggle with Seth. The eye was magically restored by Hathor, at which point it is given the name “Wadjet” ( whole or healing) and this restoration came to symbolize the process of making whole and healing. In this myth, it is specifically stated that it is Horus´ left eye that has been torn out, so the myth relates to the waxing and waning of the moon during which the moon appears to have been torn out of the sky before being restored once every lunar month. In another myth, Horus gifted the eye to Osiris, god of the underworld to help him rule. Osiris consumed the eye and was restored to life. Thus as a result it became a symbol of life and resurrection as well. 

The eye is divided into six parts, representing the shattering of Horus’ eye into six pieces. Each piece was associated with one of the six senses and a specific fraction. As per my research, The Eye of Horus was divided into six different parts called the Heqat fractions. The Eye of Horus fragments was organized together to form the whole Eye, similar to the myth, and these fragments were given a series of numerical values with a numerator of one and dominators to the powers of two: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64. The 1/2 accounts for the sense of smell, the 1/4 represents sight, the 1/8 represents thought, the 1/16 represents hearing, the 1/32 represents taste, and the 1/64 represents touch. From today’s perspective, this collection of numbers makes up the first six terms of a geometric series whose sum converges to one. It is interesting that the symbol for “whole” would only sum to 63/64 in Egyptian times. Some scholars think that the missing 1/64 represents the magic used to reassemble the eye to make it whole. Some consider it intentionally imperfect because mortals cannot achieve the perfection of the gods. Still, others think it has value in relation to the Egyptian unit fraction ro. Whatever the reason may be, this collection of sacred unit fractions of the form 1/2ⁿ is just one of many forms of Egyptian mathematics that are derived from the fraction 1/2.

Numbers and their associations with stories are always present. The infamous number 13, is considered so unlucky that my buildings and hotels do not have level 13. Personally, 13 has always been a lucky number for me. Many people consider 8 as a lucky number, my own car plates are 888, which my parents are so reluctant to part with. Superstitions surrounding number is interesting as well, I have heard it is unlucky to leave a 45 to anything. 10:45, 9:45, you should always wait till 46 or leave before 45. Some people believe in angel numbers, such as 111. 11:11 is also an example, considered to be a time when whatever you say or wish for comes true. I am sure that there are explanations to these with stories, but these count as a few examples. 

References:

https://3010tangents.wordpress.com/tag/eye-of-horus/

https://www.journeytoegypt.com/en/blog/eye-of-horus

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eye-of-Horus