Prior absence of knotted-rope arithmetic constructions in the literature

Determine why arithmetic constructions using the Egyptian knotted rope, including multiplication, division, doubling, and halving by segment stretching and cloning, have not previously appeared in the mathematical literature.

Background

The paper presents the Egyptian knotted rope as a primitive calculating tool capable of performing basic arithmetic through a change in how the rope is held and stretched. The author notes that these techniques are elementary and appear sufficiently natural that they should have been known previously, yet reports finding no comparable discussion in the literature.

The unresolved issue is whether the absence reflects a genuinely overlooked construction or merely the author's failure to locate an existing reference.