Neugebauer 1952, p. 9 notes that as early as the 3rd millennium BCE, in Egypt's Old Kingdom, in the Pyramid texts' "Spell for obtaining a ferry-boat", the ferryman might object "Did you bring me a man who cannot number his fingers?". This spell was needed to cross a canal of the nether-world, as detailed in the Book of the Dead. Neugebauer, Otto E. (1952). The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Acta Historica Scientiarum Naturalium et Medicinalium. Vol. 9. Princeton University Press. pp. 1–191. ISBN1-56619-269-2. PMID14884919.; 2nd edition, Brown University Press, 1957; reprint, New York: Dover publications, 1969; reprint, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1993.
