Chronogram - WikiHQ

thumb|upright=1.3|Chronogram on the [[Belfry of Thuin in Belgium: " reæDIfICor baptIstæ CherMan̄e soLertIa"]]

thumb|Portrait of Henry van Gameren, with Chronogram

A chronogram is a sentence or inscription in which specific letters, interpreted as numerals (such as Roman numerals), stand for a particular date when rearranged. The word, meaning "time writing", derives from the Greek words chronos (χρόνος "time") and gramma (γράμμα, "letter").

In the pure chronogram, each word contains a numeral; the natural chronogram shows all numerals in the correct numerical order, e.g. AMORE MATVRITAS = MMVI = 2006. Chronograms in versification are referred to as chronosticha if they are written in hexameter and chronodisticha if they are written in distich.

In the ancient Indonesian Hindu-Buddhist tradition, especially in ancient Java, chronograms were called chandrasengkala and usually used in inscriptions to signify a given year in the Saka calendar. Certain words were assigned their specific number, and poetic phrases were formed from these selected words to describe particular events that have their own numerical meanings. For example, the chandrasengkala "sirna ilang kertaning bumi" ("the wealth of earth disappeared and diminished") (sirna = 0, ilang = 0, kerta = 4, bumi = 1) corresponds to the year 1400 in the Saka calendar (1478 CE), the date of the fall of the Majapahit Empire.

Roman numerals

Chronograms from the Roman Empire are reported but not confirmed. The earliest confirmed chronograms using Roman numerals were devised in the mid 14th century but retrospective chronograms which express earlier dates are known. Chronograms were particularly popular during the Renaissance, when chronograms were often used on tombstones and foundation stones to mark the date of the event being commemorated. They were popular during the Baroque as well. In 1711, Joseph Addison compared chronograms to "anagrams and acrostics". Examples include:

left|thumb|Chronogram at a statue in [[Dolany (Olomouc District)|Dolany, Czech Republic. In honoreM InsIgnIs athLetae DIVI fLorIanI IneXstrVCta 1729]]

thumb|Chronogram at cross in [[Uničov, Czech Republic. TVrpIs aMor VeXat ChrIstI DILeCtIo sanat aD CrVCeM pLan- gens eXVo tVrpe nefas 1775]]

thumb|Chronogram above the entrance of the [[Hospital of the Five Wounds, Hildesheim|Hospital of the Five Wounds in Hildesheim, Germany. CVra BonIfaCII, PrIMo, QVo PraefVIt Anno Abbas SpeCtatos CoLLoCat HosCe Lares. 1770.]]

My Day Closed Is In Immortality is a chronogram commemorating the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England. The initial letters of the words read MDCIII, which corresponds to 1603, the year of Elizabeth's death.
ChrIstVs DuX ergo trIVMphVs ("Christ the Leader so a triumph"), on a coin struck by Gustavus Adolphus in 1627, gives MDCXVVVII or 1627. Although chronograms are relatively scarce on coins, many inscriptions on medals incorporate chronograms.
In a work entitled Hugo Grotius his Sophompaneas, published in 1652, the date is indicated by the author's name: FranCIs GoLDsMIth. This gives MDCLII or 1652.
An example of a short chronogram is on the monument commemorating the 1764 Massacre at Madéfalva in Transsylvania. The script Siculicidium (in Latin, meaning "murder of Székelys") written SICVLICIDIVM, gives exactly 1764. Only the beginning letter "S" is not used from the one-word chronogram.

Many lengthy examples of chronograms can be found in Germany and the countries that had been part of the Holy Roman Empire, such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. These often commemorate the building of houses in the form of prayers or quotations from the Bible. For instance, SVRGE O IEHOVA ATQVE DISPERGE INIMICOS TVOS ("Rise, oh Jehovah, and destroy your enemies", a slightly altered version of Psalm 68:2) gives 1625 as the year of building. One double chronogram, in Latin and English, on the year 1642, reads, "'TV DeVs IaM propItIVs sIs regI regnoqVe hVIC VnIVerso." – "O goD noVV sheVV faVoVr to the kIng anD thIs VVhoLe LanD." The English sentence demonstrates that the origin of the letter w as a double v or u was recognised historically.

In Hildesheim in the North of Germany, the inscription "CVra BonIfaCII, PrIMo, QVo PraefVIt Anno Abbas SpeCtatos CoLLoCat Hos CeLares " showing the year 1770 can be read above the entrance of the Hospital of Five Wounds which was built in the year indicated.

Modern (1993) stealth chronogram under the balcony of the Grand Ducal Palace, Luxembourg

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Hebrew numerals

The great popularity of chronograms in Jewish tradition, and the extent to which they have been cultivated, may be explained by the fact that they are a variety of the Jewish mystical practice of Gematria.

Arabic numerals

The letters of the Arabic language also each have a numerical value, which can be used for chronograms in languages which use the Arabic alphabet.

In epitaphs

The tomb of the Persian poet Hafez in Shiraz has engraved on it the Persian words ḵāk-e moṣallā 'dust of Musalla' (Musalla was a park or pleasure ground in Shiraz made famous in Hafez's poem Shirazi Turk and other works); the letters of this phrase add up to the Islamic date 791 (equivalent to AD 1389/1390).

In books

The art of chronograms—where words or phrases are crafted so their letters, when interpreted using numerical values (such as the abjad system), reveal a specific year—has long been used in Islamic literature for recording dates of composition, events or dedications.

Imam Ahmad Raza Khan was highly proficient in the science of chronograms. Not only his works, but the treatises within his works have titles in this manner; see his work Fatawa Razawiyyah. The following is just one example of his work النمیقۃ الانقی فی فرق الملاقی والملقی ("a refined treatise on the distinction between received water and poured water"), whose numerical value of the individual letters (in accordance with the abjad system, which assigns each letter of the Arabic alphabet a number) yielded the date of the work 1327 AH when added together.

{| class="wikitable"

|+The work النمیقۃ الانقی فی فرق الملاقی والملقی ("a refined treatise on the distinction between received water and poured water") yield the date of the work 1327 AH

!Component

!Arabic letters

!Abjad values

!Subtotal

|النمیقۃ

|ا، ل، ن، م، ی، ق، ة

|1 + 30 + 50 + 40 + 10 + 100 + 5

|236

|الأنقی

|ا، ل، ا، ن، ق، ی

|1 + 30 + 1 + 50 + 100 + 10

|192

|فی

|ف، ی

|80 + 10

|90

|فرق

|ف، ر، ق

|80 + 200 + 100

|380

|الملاقی

|ا، ل، م، ل، ا، ق، ی

|1 + 30 + 40 + 30 + 1 + 100 + 10

|212

|والملقی

|و، ا، ل، م، ل، ق، ی

|6 + 1 + 30 + 40 + 30 + 100 + 10

|217

|Total abjad value

|1327

In names

The use of chronograms in Islamic scholarship extended beyond books and epigraphs; in some cases, scholars applied this numerical symbolism to names as a way to commemorate significant dates, such as birth or death years.

Just as chronograms were used in the titles of his works, they were also applied to names. In the same manner as explained above, Imam Ahmad Raza Khan chose the historical name المختار (al-Mukhtar), whose letters—when calculated using the abjad system—yield the year 1272 Hijri, corresponding to the year of his birth.

Notes

References

External links

Modern chronograms
Chronograms at Bad Salzuflen
Chronogram Explorer and Solver (Javascript)
Chronogram → anno Website-program to calculate of the year from chronogram. (HTML/JavaScript; languages: hu:, en:, de:).