The Symmetry of the Ornament on a Jewel of the Treasure of Mycenae

Abstract

It is well known that many mathematical theorems were grasped intuitively long before the systematic development of mathematics. As is known, geometry was developed systematically by the Greeks of the fourth and third centuries B.C., but long before that, in Egypt, we find ornaments that achieve complicated symmetries, that is, those based on an entirely non-trivial group. There appears to be a case of an ornament inspired by a geometric theorem among the treasures found in the shaft graves of Mycenae. It appears that up to now the Mycenaean culture has barely been studied from the point of view of the history of the sciences; this small note seems therefore warranted.

Originally published as “La symétrie sur un bijou du trésor de Mycènes,” Annali dell’Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze, Anno I, Fascicolo 20, 1976.