( = , "the minor era"); but as neither the former nor the latter is employed throughout the respective editions, many errors arise. The following chronogram, which Rabbi Samuel Schotten adds to his work "Kos ha-Yeshu'ot" (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1711), shows how artificial and verbose chronograms may be: "Let him who wishes to know the year of the Creation pour the contents out of the cup [i.e., count the word "kos," כוס with defective spelling = 80] and seek aid [ = 391; together 471] in the sixth millennium." The days of the month and week are indicated in the same way. Many important years in Jewish history are indicated by their respective chronograms; e.g., the year 1492 by מזרה ("scatterer" = 252, after Jer. xxi. 10, which says that God scattered Israel). This was the year when the Jews were expelled from Spain (Abravanel's Introduction to his Commentary on Kings). In poetry Neo-Hebraic poetry, which laid especial stress on the formal side of verse, also cultivated chronograms. A number of Hebrew poems were produced in the first half of the 19th century, in which the letters of each verse have the same numerical value, being generally the year in which it was written. A New-year's poem in this style, written in the year 579 (=1819), is found in Shalom Cohen's "Ketab Yosher" (ed. Warsaw, p. 146). Two years later Jacob Eichenbaum wrote a poem in honor of a friend, each line of which had the numerical value of 581 ("Kol Zimrah", ed. Leipsic, pp. 50–53). While this poem is really a work of art, in spite of the artifice employed, Eichenbaum's imitators have in their translations merely produced rhymes with certain numerical values. Gottlober (in "Ha-Kokabim", i. 31) wrote an excellent satire on these rimesters, each line of his poem having the numerical value of 618 (=1858). The first two verses of the poem are as follows: But even poets like I. L. Gordon and A. B. Lewensohn have a great weakness for the לפקים ("minor eras"), though employing them only in the super-scriptions to their poems. See also Abjad numerals (Arabic chronograms) Gematria Isopsephy Epitaph Ancient Hindu methods of chronograms Memento mori Vicarius Filii Dei Notes References External links Modern chronograms Chronograms at Bad Salzuflen Chronogram Explorer and Solver (Javascript) Chronogram → anno Website-program to calculate of the year from chronogram. (HTML/JavaScript; languages: hu:, en:, de:). Monuments and memorials Numeral