Now... I'll admit I'm skeptical of the Egyptians and advanced math (as compared to the Babylonians.) Here's the things that didn't connect with me:

* They were terrible astronomers (in terms of tables and star positions) and seem to have learned from the Greeks as there were no astrologers in Egypt until the time of the Greeks.
* this paper says that the Babylonians were solving quadratics in 1800-1600BC, which would be before the New Kingdom: [www.math.tamu.edu]
(see also [en.wikipedia.org])
* Babylonians also solved linear equations.
* could the "got it from Egypt" be the sort of mystical legend that they concocted to prove antiquity and mystical significance? The "it came from Egypt" paradigm is used for a lot of things, incorrectly.
* Wikipedia also notes that the Egyptian astronomy of the Ptolemaic times was actually a blend of Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek. It may have developed at the research center of the Library of Alexandria: [en.wikipedia.org]

I'm not an all-consuming expert here, but I don't see these questions addressed in the paper, and surely someone familiar with ancient Egypt would want some of these answered.

-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at