  The study of the mathematics and geometry of ancient civilizations is a task
which seems to be very difficult or even impossible to fulfil, if few written
documents, or none at all, had survived from the past. However, besides the
direct information that we can have from written documents, we can gain some
indirect evidence on mathematics and geometry also from the analysis of the
decorations we find on artifacts. Here, for instance, we will show that ancient
Egyptians were able of making geometric constructions using compass and
straightedge, quite before the Greek Oenopides of Chois, who lived around 450
BC, had declared some of their basic principles. In fact, a wood panel covered
by an overlapping circles grid pattern, found in the tomb of Kha, an architect
who served three kings of 18th Dynasty (1400-1350 BC), evidences that some
simple constructions with compass and straightedge were used in ancient Egypt
about nine centuries before Oenopides' time.
