The Eye of Horus

According to the Egyptian mythology, Horus and Set had a battle to claim the throne of Egypt. During the battle, Horus lost his eye and it was ripped into six pieces. However, the god Thoth collected and restored Horus's eye. Hence, the Eye of Horus symbolizes health and wholeness. The Egyptians ascribed six unit fractions, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64, to each piece of the Eye of Horus. One of the most interesting facts was that the Egyptian only used the Eye of Horus's unit fractions to measure and divide grains. It makes me wonder what beliefs and values they ascribed to grains and foods.

One of the examples of numbers having stories is that 4 was often symbolized as "death" in South Korea because Chinese character that means "death" sounds alike with 4 in Korean. Chinese and Korean languages are closely related, if you did not know. Hence, the buildings in South Korea, especially the old ones, often represent fourth floor as floor "F" or skip fourth floors. 

Also, I recall that 7 was associated with good luck because of "lucky seven". 

I personally like the number 23 because my birthday is on 23rd. I think 23 looks nice. I also like the fact that 2 and 3 are two consecutive numbers.


Reference:

Windigo23. (2015, February 23). Egyptian Fractions: From Mythology to Computation. 
            3010tangents. https://3010tangents.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/egyptian-fractions-from-      
            mythology-to-computation/ 

Comments

  1. Amanda Fritzlan9 November 2022 at 12:43

    Yubin, I did not know that Chinese and Korean numbers were so similar. Thank you for telling me about the meanings surrounding number 4. I appreciate that you like 23 on several levels. I also think it looks nice!

    ReplyDelete

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