Hello Clive,
I wrote, '... which is just one of the reasons why there is disagreement over the detail of this particular Problem.'
You reply, 'Then why did you ask me to read this problem?'
My answer is: because I consider it germane to the topic under discussion.
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I wrote, 'It has been suggested that this particular Problem might have been pennned, so to speak, by an amateur scribe.'
> You reply, 'Silly suggestion.'
Why so?
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I wrote, 'I don't know enough about it to comment one way or the other.'
You reply, 'I know, and I also know that you believe what these people write...you shouldn't, because they are wrong...absolutely wrong !
If by 'these people' you mean Peet, Chace, Neugebauer, Robins & Shute, Lumpkin, Laeur, Struve, Gillings, Rossi, Clagett and other authorities on Egyptian mathematics, then your statement is utterly ludicrous.
Perhaps you would now care to try and regain some credibility here by outlining in what respects these various authorities (I’m assuming you do mean them) are in your opinion "wrong...absolutely wrong".
Yes, there is disagreement over what some of the Problems in the EMP mean, and the different interpretations of MMP 10 are a classic example of this.
But by no stretch of the imagination could one argue from this that the EMP authorities "are wrong...absolutely wrong".
If there is a weakness in the EMP as evidence, then it is in their post-dating the 4th Dyn. pyramids.
The Rhind papyrus, for example, is alleged to date back to Amenemhet III who reigned some 1000 years after Khufu.
I do not consider it impossible that mathematical knowledge more advanced than that seen in the EMP existed and became lost (for whatever reason) during that 1000 years, but I do think it improbable.
Unless and until mathematical texts from the 4th Dyn turn up, I shall continue to be guided by the EMP and the likes of Gillings and Rossi; but remain ever mindful that the 4th-5th Dyn Egyptians just might have known more than the EMP suggest they did.
MJ