I started researching websites etc earlier this month having looked at problem no 14 on the volume of a truncated pyramid over 15 years ago.

T. E. Peet, Brunner Professor of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, left posterity with an article on Mathematics in Ancient Egypt as an amplification of a lecture given in the Rylands Library on 11th February 1931.

This article includes the following comment on problem number 14 in the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (MMP):

‘Several attempts have been made to show how the Egyptians obtained this formula. Some suggest that it was found by cutting the truncated pyramid up into smaller and simpler solids, others as an average of three areas, and yet others that the solid was treated as the difference between the original pyramid and the smaller one removed from its top. However this may be, the formula remains, a testimony to Egyptian genius of 2000 B.C. and earlier.’

Has the MMP been debated on this forum? Has anyone on this forum considered the matter?

I think the first paper on the subject was by Gunn and Peet who proposed that the truncated pyramid could be dissected and the formula constructed using algebra, but I can't find a free copy of the paper on the internet. (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology)

I think the second paper on the subject was by Vogel who objected to the Gunn-Peet hypothesis because algebra is not known to be in the skill set of the ancient Egyptians. Again I can't find a free copy of this paper on the internet.

There is a review of problem no 14 in the MMP in the British Museum publication on the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (RMP) with a diagram showing abstract geometry.

I noticed that the seked in MMP does not conform to the convention of the seked in the RMP.

Mark