One of the most enduring symbols from Ancient Egypt is the Eye of Horus. A talisman for protection and healing, it was believed to grant insight beyond the visible.

According to myth, Osiris – Egypt’s first king and civilizer – was betrayed by his jealous brother Seth. Seth trapped him in a coffin and cast him into the Nile.

Osiris’s son Horus vowed revenge and fought Seth, who tore out Horus’s eye. The god Thoth reassembled the pieces of the eye, but added a magical tear to complete it.
Horus triumphed, and his eye became a symbol of rebirth—so sacred that it was wrapped in Tutankhamun’s mummy.

Egyptians also used the eye in mathematics. Its parts represented fractions:
1/2 (nose), 1/4 (pupil), 1/8 (eyebrow), 1/16 (ear), 1/32 (mouth), 1/64 (ground). The total? 63/64.

The missing 1/64?

That was the tear—reminding us that precision always has its limit.

Brilliant, isn’t it?

 

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