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There must have been a whole lot of discussion of mathematics and how to solve the problems of managing huge building projects like the pyramids and the temples, and managing the huge work-forces that went with it, and feeding them all.
當時一定有許多 關于如何管理金字塔和廟宇這樣大型的建筑工程，管理數量龐大的建筑工人，并保證工人飲食等問題的數學討論。
How that more sophisticated discussion of mathematics was conducted, or transmitted, we can only guess.
如此復雜的數學討論是如何進行和表達的，我們只能想象。
The evidence that has come down to us is maddeningly fragmentary, because papyrus is so fragile, because it rots in the damp, and it burns so easily.
傳到我們手里的證據都支離破碎，因為莎草紙太易碎，不耐潮，又易燃。
We don't know where the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus came from, but we presume that it must have been a tomb.
我們甚至不知道萊因德紙草書是如何保存下來的，只能推測它來自某座古墓。
There are some examples of private libraries being buried with their owners-presumably to establish their educational and administrative credentials in the afterlife.
歷史上曾有不少私人藏書與主人一起埋葬的例子，大概是為了保證他們來生仍有學識，有成為管理人員的資格。
This loss of evidence makes it very hard to form a view of how Egypt stood in comparison to its neighbours. Eleanor Robson again:
由于證據的缺失，很難了解埃及的數學水平在當時鄰國中所處的位置，也無法確知公元前一五五〇年左右埃及數學的真實水平。埃莉諾羅伯森說：
It's quite difficult to tell exactly how representative Egyptian mathematics is in the early second millennium BC.The only evidence we've got to compare it with at the same time is from Babylonia, southern Iraq.
目前唯一能與之比較的物件來自與它同時代的巴比倫，位于今伊拉克南部。
Because they were the only two civilisations at that point that actually used writing.
它們是當時僅有的兩個使用文字的文明。
So I'm sure that lots of cultures were counting and managing with numbers, but they all did it-as far as we know-without ever writing things down.
我肯定當時還有別的民族也會計數運算，但從目前的發現來看，他們都沒有書寫下來。
The Babylonians we know a lot more about, because they wrote on clay tablets and, unlike papyrus, clay survives very well in the ground over thousands of years.
我們對巴比倫人的情況更為了解，因為他們的書寫載體是黏土板，不像莎草紙，黏土板可以在地下保存數千年。
So for Egyptian mathematics we have perhaps six, maximum ten, pieces of writing about mathematics, and the biggest of course is the Rhind Papyrus.
至于埃及， 我們則僅有大概六份，頂多十份數學記錄，其中最完整的就是萊因德紙草書。
