"I have published a pictorial history of Gaussian elimination. People
who worked on "numerical linear algebra" long before it was called
that are shown, and there is a rare picture of a clay tablet that
poses one of the oldest linear algebra problems, from 2000-1600 BC.
The article can be downloaded from the Notices of the AMS. Go to the
June/July issue and follow the link to "Mathematicians of Gaussian
Elimination":
Joseph Grcar"
http://www.ams.org/notices/201106/
