Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Did the Mandaic letters ever carry numeric values in the Semitic alphanumeric manner?

Why it is open. Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic all use their letters as figures, and Mandaic descends from the same Aramaic stock, so the practice would be unremarkable. No alphanumeric numeral system for Mandaic is described in the reference literature consulted, and the modern character standard encodes no Mandaic digits. Nothing states that the practice was absent either, so this is a gap rather than a disagreement.

What would resolve it. A survey of numbering in dated Mandaean manuscripts and inscribed lead rolls, checking colophons, quire marks and folio numbers for letters standing as figures, together with a reading of the standard Mandaic grammars on how numbers are written out.

Field. Semitic palaeography and Mandaean manuscript studies

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