VOJL. XXXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3p 



Remarks on the foregoing Ancient Dale, over a Gate-way, near the Cathedral, 

 at Worcester. By John IVard, F. R. S. N° 439, P- 136. 



Mr. Ward having lately communicated to the Royal Society some remarks 

 on an ancient date, carved in wood, that was found at Widgel-Hall near 

 Buntingford in Hertfordshire, with the characters 21^ 1 6 ; which had been read 

 10l6, supposed to be mixed numbers, the 319 Roman, ^"d the two others 

 Arabian or Indian, as they are indifferently called. This led him to consider 

 two other dates of the like kind, formerly published in the Philos. Trans. ; one 

 found at Helmdon in Northamptonshire, in mixed characters expressing, as 

 was thought, iH^ '33; and the other at Colchester, said to denote the year 

 lopo, wholly in Arabian figures. But on searching into the origin of those 

 figures, and the time when they were first brought into these parts of the 

 world, he could meet with no examples of them in any manuscripts, before 

 some copies of Johannes de Sacro Bosco, mentioned by Dr. Wallis, who died 

 in the year 1256, which was 123 years after the latest of the three dates above- 

 mentioned. As it could not therefore but seem very strange, that workmen 

 should have made use of those figures for such common purposes, so long be- 

 fore they appear in the writings of the learned ; so on a closer examination, 

 and further inquiry, he found there was no reason, from any of these dates, to 

 suppose it was really true in fact. For the Helmdon date, instead of M) 133, 

 should be read 21^233; the Colchester date 14gO, instead of JO9O; and that 

 at Widgel-Hall has no Arabian figures in it, the characters 1 and 6 not being 

 numbers, but the initial letters of two proper names I G, in the usual form of 

 those letters in that age. 



But there had been soon after read before the Society, an account of a date 

 at Worcester, more ancient than any of the 3 former; namely OtIOj or 97^, 

 in which the unit is a Roman numeral, and the other two are taken for Indian 

 figures. Now Mr. Ward observed in his former paper, that such mixtures 

 were sometimes found in ancient numbers; though in what manner they were 

 so used, he did not then explain, but for brevity contented himself with refer- 

 ring to Dr. Wallis's Algebra. The Doctor thought it necessary to take notice 

 of this, in order to account for his way of reading the Helmdon date, in which 

 the a? only is a Roman numeral. And Mr. Ward had met with a few instances 

 of it in Dr. Mead's manuscript of Boethius, as 00029 'Jnd docSs, where the 

 hundreds are numeral letters, and both the decimals and units Arabian figures, 

 (De Arith. lib, ii.) But it is observable, that this is not done promiscuously ; 

 for the larger numbers are always letters, and the less figures ; as in the Helm- 



