Ahmes the Scribe

Ahmes (Iah-mes, He-of-the-Moon), the principal copyist of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, was born about 1680 BCE at Thebes of the principal Second Intermediate Period of Egypt, in the principal Hyksos-Theban administrative environment of the principal Fifteenth or Sixteenth Dynasty, of a scribal family of the principal Theban chancery tradition.

He was raised across the principal opening decades of the Second Intermediate Period — and was instructed in the principal hieratic scribal canon of the principal Theban chancery school, the principal mathematical canon of the principal Middle Kingdom Theban tradition (the principal Egyptian arithmetic of unit fractions, the principal geometric series and the principal proto-algebraic word problems), and the principal Egyptian astronomical canon of the principal decanal star-clocks of the New Kingdom royal funerary record.

He transcribed about 1650 BCE the principal Rhind Mathematical Papyrus — a five-and-a-half-metre hieratic scroll comprising eighty-seven mathematical problems and tables of unit-fraction multiplication, the principal foundational mathematical text of the Egyptian scribal tradition. The principal Papyrus opens with the principal scribal colophon — the principal first signed mathematical text of the global historical record: 'Accurate reckoning for inquiring into things, and the knowledge of all things, mysteries... all secrets. This book was copied in regnal year thirty-three, month four of Akhet, under the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Awserre Apophis, given life. From an old copy made in the time of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Nimaatre. The scribe Ahmes wrote this copy.'

He documented in the Papyrus the principal Egyptian mathematical canon of the Middle Kingdom tradition: the principal 2/n table of unit-fraction decompositions; the principal arithmetic of integer and fractional multiplication and division; the principal geometric calculation of the area of the triangle, the rectangle, the trapezoid and the circle (by the principal Egyptian approximation π ≈ (16/9)² ≈ 3.16); the principal volumetric calculation of the cylinder and the truncated pyramid (the principal frustum); the principal proto-algebraic 'aha' word problems; and the principal practical applications to bread-and-beer rationing, granary measurement, and pyramid-batter calculation.

He died about 1620 BCE at Thebes of natural causes, at about sixty. The principal Rhind Mathematical Papyrus was recovered in 1858 at the principal Ramesseum of Thebes by the Scottish antiquarian Alexander Henry Rhind, acquired in 1865 by the British Museum, and constitutes the principal foundational mathematical text of the global archaeological record. He is honored here as the principal copyist of the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus of the Egyptian Second Intermediate Period.