The Egyptian Triangle

The Egyptians were great engineers. They were therefore very good at Maths. One of the things they used a lot was what is now known as a 3-4-5 triangle. This is a right-angled triangle where, whatever units of measurement you are measuring with, if you make the base 3 and the height 4 then the hypotenuse (the longest side) is 5. The Egyptians found this triangle particularly useful because all the sides were whole-number lengths.

Right angled-triangles like this were later investigated by the Greek Mathematician Pythagoras, from whom we get Pythagoras’ theorem.

This investigation challenges the children to discover the special triangle that the Egyptians used.

Ages 7-9    Printable materials (pdf) - 3 pages of teachers' notes and 1 pupil copymaster.