Blog Response 5

Upon researching the Eye of Horus symbol, I learned that the Eye represented prosperity and protection, and it originated from a mythological battle between good and evil. Moreover, the Eye of Horus can be split into six pieces, each associated with a sense and a unit fraction:

The 1/2 depicts a nose and represents the sense of smell.

The 1/4 depicts a pupil and represents the sense of sight.

The 1/8 depicts an eyebrow and represents the sense of thought.

The 1/16 depicts an ear and represents the sense of hearing.

The 1/32 depicts a rolled tongue and represents the sense of taste.

The 1/64 depicts the somatosensory pathway to the brain and represents the sense of touch.

I found it interesting that the sum of all these parts are very close to 1 (63/64), but cannot reach 1 based on these unit fractions alone. I hypothesize that there may be other components to the Eye of Horus that the Egyptians may or may not have accounted for, such that the sum of the unit fractions is 1.

I cannot think of any numbers that have special meaning to me, besides superficial facts about myself such as my birthday or student number. 

Reference:

ReFaey, Karim et al. “The Eye of Horus: The Connection Between Art, Medicine, and Mythology in Ancient Egypt.” Cureus vol. 11,5 e4731. 23 May. 2019, doi:10.7759/cureus.4731

Comments

  1. Amanda FritzlanNovember 9, 2022 at 11:55 AM

    David, I like your theory that there may be other components of the Eye of Horus that would make it add to one. And thank you for sharing your experience of no special meaning with numbers, only superficial number facts about you.

    ReplyDelete

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