The Eye of Horus (Wedjat)[1] (previously Wadjet and the Eye of the Moon; and afterwards as The Eye of Ra[2] or "Udjat")[3] is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and royal power from deities, in this case from Horus or Ra. The symbol is seen on images of Horus' mother, Isis, and on other deities associated with her.
In the Egyptian language, the word for this symbol was "Wedjat".[4][5] It was the eye of one of the earliest of Egyptian deities, Wadjet, who later became associated with Bast, Mut, and Hathor as well. Wedjat was a solar deity and this symbol began as her eye, an all seeing eye. In early artwork, Hathor is also depicted with this eye.[6] Funerary amulets were often made in the shape of the Eye of Horus. The Wedjat or Eye of Horus is "the central element" of seven "gold, faience, carnelian and lapis lazuli" bracelets found on the mummy of Shoshenq II.[7] The Wedjat "was intended to protect the king [here] in the afterlife"[8] and to ward off evil. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors would frequently paint the symbol on the bow of their vessel to ensure safe sea travel.[9]
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Horus was the ancient Egyptian sky god who was also associated with the sun god Ra, pictured in the form of a falcon. The right eye represents a Peregrine Falcon's eye and the markings around it, that includes the "teardrop" marking sometimes found below the eye. As the wedjet (also udjat or utchat), it also represented the sun, and was associated with Horus' mother, Isis, and with Wadjet, a cobra goddess, as well as the sun deity Ra. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth).[10]
| wedjet - Eye of Horus in hieroglyphs |
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Seven different hieroglyphs are used to represent the "eye"-(human body parts). One is the common usage of the verb: to do, make, or perform. The other frequently used hieroglyph is the Wedjat, a sacred eye symbol that gives a mummy the ability "to see again", called the Eye of Horus after his cult rose to prominence as the son of Osiris.
It is also often referred to as the symbol of Visual communication.
In the Ancient Egyptian measurement system, the Eye Of Horus defined Old Kingdom number one (1) = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64, by throwing away 1/64 for any rational number. Eye of Horus numbers created six-term rounded-off numbers. The Old Kingdom definition had dropped a seventh term, a remainder 1/64, that was needed to report exact series. During the Middle Kingdom that included the eleventh through fourteenth dynasties, exact series definitions and applications were often written by 6-terms, or less. The Egyptian fraction notation scaled to volume unit remainders to 1/320 hekat. For example, the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll, the RMP 2/n table and the Akhmim Wooden Tablet wrote binary quotients and scaled remainders. The metaphorical side of this information linked Old Kingdom fractions 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64, to separate parts of the eye, as noted by:
In the Middle Kingdom the 1/64 symbol denoted 'rest' and 'healing' as connected to the hekat, with the word dja being attached.
The 'Eye of Horus' fractions were further discussed in the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll following elementary definitions that built the Egyptian fraction system. Weights and measure subunits of a hekat were also connected to Eye of Horus numbers in the quotient, and as an exact remainder, the remainder including an Egyptian fraction and a ro unit, correcting the Eye of Horus 1/64 roundoff error. The ro unit, 1/320 of a hekat, is cited in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and applied in the medical texts, i.e. Ebers Papyrus in two ways. The first replaced the hekat by a unity, 64/64 (in RMP 47, 82 and 83), and the second by 320 ro (in RMP 35–38). Exact divisions of 64/64 by 3, 7, 10, 11 and 13, written as 1/3, 1/17, 1/10, 1/11 and 1/13 multipliers, are also found in the Akhmim Wooden Tablet.
 Arithmetic values |
 Wooden case |
 Faience vessel, Bes holding Eyes |
The Eye of Horus was an important symbol in ancient Egypt. It was the symbol of protection and Royal Power from Ra or Horus.
Horus was an ancient Egyptian sky god in the form of a falcon. The right eye represents a peregrine falcon's eye and the markings around it. This includes the "teardrop" marking sometimes found below the eye. As the wadjet (also udjat or utchat), it also represented the sun, and was associated with the Sun God Ra (Re). The "mirror image", or left eye, represented the moon and the God Tehuti (Thoth). [1]
| Eye of Horus in hieroglyphs |
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In the ancient Egyptian measurement system, the Eye Of Horus defined an Old Kingdom rounded off number one(1) = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64, by throwing away 1/64.
  | Akhmim (Cairo) Wooden Tablet - Akhmim Wooden Tablet |
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