Hi all, I used to think that, in dialling (rather than clocks), the IIII form was gradually replaced with the "modern" IV. However, I have recently come across a case where an old vertical dial (a wooden great decliner) was replaced by covering it with a newer one. The original dial has been dated at 1590-ish, and has the IV form. The newer one, which I would put at the mid 1700s, uses IIII! I have no explanation of this, other than the personal preferences of the makers. The two dials are very similar in layout, so the space resrtictions are the same in each case.
Cheers, John --------------------------------------------------- Dr J R Davis Flowton, UK 52.08N, 1.043E email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sundial mailing list <sundial@rrz.uni-koeln.de> Sent: 21 July 2000 08:50 Subject: IIII at IV > I've been following the discourse on 'Nought at noon' and > this has reminded me of an anomoly which has puzzled me for > years. > > In my school technology course we undertake a project on > time and so we get a lot of clocks and sundials which the > students design and make. > > A question I am often asked is why do English clocks with > Roman numerals have IIII (instead of IV) at the '4' > position and most Continental and American clocks appear to > have the correct IV? > > Was this an error on the part of some early clockmaker > which was continued eventually to become a tradition or is > there some other reason? > > Get your own zoom email - click here - http://www.zoom.co.uk/ >
