Numbers don't have the same meaning in all cultures. Five is considered a most holy and lucky number in Egypt. But in Ghana, the Ashanti people consider five to be an unlucky number. To give someone five of anything is to wish the person evil. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians thought the number four was a perfect number symbolizing unity, endurance, and balance However, the Chinese consider the number four to be unlucky because it sounds like the word for death.
The number that seems tobe almost universally considered unlucky is 13.No other number had such a bad reputation for so long. The ancient Romans regarded it as a symbol of death, destruction, and misfortune. One of the earliest written stories about the number 13 appears in Norwegian mythology. This story tells about a feast at Valhalla to which 12 gods were invited. Loki, the god of evil, came uninvited, raising the number to 13. In the struggle to throw out Loki, balder, the favorite of the gods, was killed.