Egyptian numerals

The system of ancient Egyptian numerals was used in Ancient Egypt from around 3000 BCE^[1] until the early first millennium CE. It was a system of numeration based on multiples of ten, often rounded off to the higher power, written in hieroglyphs. The Egyptians had no concept of a place-valued system such as the decimal system.^[2] The hieratic form of numerals stressed an exact finite series notation, ciphered one-to-one onto the Egyptian alphabet.^{[citation needed]}

Digits and numbers[]

The following hieroglyphs were used to denote powers of ten:

Value	1	10	100	1,000	10,000	100,000	1 million, or many
Hieroglyph
Gardiner's sign list ID	Z1	V20	V1	M12	D50	I8	C11
Description	Single stroke	Cattle hobble	Coil of rope	Water lily (also called lotus)	Bent finger	Tadpole	Heh[3]

Multiples of these values were expressed by repeating the symbol as many times as needed. For instance, a stone carving from Karnak shows the number 4622 as:

Egyptian hieroglyphs could be written in both directions (and even vertically). In this example the symbols decrease in value from top to bottom and from left to right.On the original stone carving, it is right-to-left, and the signs are thus reversed.^{[citation needed]}

Zero and negative numbers[]

nfr	heart with trachea beautiful, pleasant, good

By 1740 BCE, the Egyptians had a symbol for zero in accounting texts. The symbol nfr (