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Originally Posted by Shawnee123
The Great Clock (in the Clock Tower which houses Big Ben) the numbers are correct. This article lists the exceptions.
I had never noticed the 4 before. |
3foot's link says
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Interestingly, though, the most famous tower clock in the world, Big Ben, uses the IV form. There is also a hypothesis that the first clocks to use the IV form were clocks which had the rare feature of "Roman Striking." This used two bells, a higher pitch bell representing a one and a lower pitch bell representing a five. Thus four o'clock would be struck by one stroke of the small bell followed by one stroke of the big bell; six would be struck by one stroke of the big bell followed by one stroke of the small bell. This is a very efficient system, but died out almost entirely in the early 18th c..
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Notice the word
hypothesis which means they don't know for sure.
Also Big Ben was built after the time the 2 bell system was supposed to have faded. Does Ben ring 2 different bells?
I think that all sundials made prior to the 19th century used IIII and that IV was an abreviation for the god Jupiter is significant.