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Article by NRICH team

Published 2011 Revised 2016

The Art of Celtic Knots


About 1200 years ago Irish Monks worked for years to create a masterpiece in 'illuminated' script, called the Book of Kells . This ancient book is now kept in Trinity College Library in Dublin.



Look closely at this piece of one page (above) and you will see a Celtic Knot design inside the huge fancy letter. This type of design has been studied by many people. Some people like Celtic Knots for artistic reasons, others are fascinated by the mathematics of the designs. 

Many Celtic knots are continuous - as if they are made from one long piece of string. So they are 'mathematical' knots. Others are made up of sections, with each section made so that if you trace along the line you come back to where you started. So these are 'links' of mathematical knots.

Are these examples 'continuous' or 'linked' knots?



We also have a good article on our website called Links and Knots .

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This article for pupils describes the famous Konigsberg Bridge problem.

More on Mazes

There is a long tradition of creating mazes throughout history and across the world. This article gives details of mazes you can visit and those that you can tackle on paper.

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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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