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Roman numbers Number way of writing with letters [Home] [Search] [Forum] [Links] [Contact] [Imprint] [Sitemap]
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On many old buildings, we encounter annual details that are written in numbers not at all similar to our Arabic numerals: roman numerals, named after the ancient Romans that used to use these numbers. Numerals:
System: Since numbers like 18 didn’t have symbols of their own, several symbols were put together to make the right result, where as the biggest symbols where on the left side and the smallest on the right: Hence: 18 = XVIII Because XVIII equals 10+5+1+1+1 is 18. To write a number like 9, the Romans had to write VIIII. But because this is much too long winded, they just said: 9 is the same thing as 10-1. The smaller number is written in front of the bigger one to indicate to the “minus”. That means: 9, is the same as 10-1 and it is written IX. This way, only two signs were needed instead of five. Important: the Romans only did this procedure with numbers like 4 (VI), 9 (IX), 14 (XIV), 19 (XIX) and so on. For the number 8 they wrote normally again: VIII. To write a complicated number like 1928, you just have to combine the symbols following certain rules: That means:
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