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Traditionally, in Israel all numerical values should be written using Gematria. Gematria (from Greek: Gamma Tria) is an ancient numerical writing system. Although the system can be used for any numerical value, it is currently only used for noting calendar years.
The system is very simple. Each letter represents a number.
For example:
Another example: According to the Bible, today is:
Please note that sometimes this number is written with the interior quotation mark (").
This mark has no special numeric meaning and is used to indicate that the word is an abbreviation. In this case, it is an abbreviation of the phrase (five thousand seven hundred seventy). The mark can simply be ignored.
The first letter represents the thousands digit (according to the table), and the rest are simply the sum of the values from the table.
According to the Hebrew calendar, we are in the 5770th year since the creation of the world.
To convert the Hebrew year to a Christian year, you must subtract 3760 from 5774.
This is an approximation because the Jewish year begins in the middle of September and not on January 1st. But this approximation is usually good enough for identifying coins.
Coin - Example 1:
This example is very interesting because the first letter has been omitted. This is done for simplicity and it is very common to omit the "thousands".
The calculation using the table above is 5000 (omitted) + 400 + 300 + 8 = 5708
And now you must subtract 3760.
Christian year = 5708 - 3760 = 1948
Coin - Example 2:
In this case, the first letter of the thousands is not omitted and again, according to the table above and the Gematria letters:
5000 + 400 + 300 + 40 + 8 = 5748
Christian year = 5748 - 3760 = 1988
Identifying the year on Israeli coins
Written by: Trîmbițaș Sorin and translated by Andrei Diaconescu.Traditionally, in Israel all numerical values should be written using Gematria. Gematria (from Greek: Gamma Tria) is an ancient numerical writing system. Although the system can be used for any numerical value, it is currently only used for noting calendar years.
The system is very simple. Each letter represents a number.
For example:
Another example: According to the Bible, today is:
Please note that sometimes this number is written with the interior quotation mark (").
This mark has no special numeric meaning and is used to indicate that the word is an abbreviation. In this case, it is an abbreviation of the phrase (five thousand seven hundred seventy). The mark can simply be ignored.
The first letter represents the thousands digit (according to the table), and the rest are simply the sum of the values from the table.
According to the Hebrew calendar, we are in the 5770th year since the creation of the world.
To convert the Hebrew year to a Christian year, you must subtract 3760 from 5774.
This is an approximation because the Jewish year begins in the middle of September and not on January 1st. But this approximation is usually good enough for identifying coins.
Coin - Example 1:
This example is very interesting because the first letter has been omitted. This is done for simplicity and it is very common to omit the "thousands".
The calculation using the table above is 5000 (omitted) + 400 + 300 + 8 = 5708
And now you must subtract 3760.
Christian year = 5708 - 3760 = 1948
Coin - Example 2:
In this case, the first letter of the thousands is not omitted and again, according to the table above and the Gematria letters:
5000 + 400 + 300 + 40 + 8 = 5748
Christian year = 5748 - 3760 = 1988