五 without the top stroke in Edo period Japanese


While looking at an antique, I noticed that what I assume is the character
「五」is missing the top stroke. It's written this way three times. Below are two
examples, which I think read 十五人 and 明和五. The second one seems to indicate it
is from 1769, so the writing is very old. Is this 五? If so was it common to
write it like this?

![Example one](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UHNp4.png) ![Example
two](https://i.stack.imgur.com/y8MWf.png)




This is an alternative form of the character 五【ご】 ("five"), as you correctly
surmised. [The entry at the English
Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AB%9D%80#Chinese) currently
only lists this as used in Chinese, but [the corresponding entry at the
Japanese Wiktionary](https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AB%9D%80) lists this
under the more general heading of 「漢字【かんじ】」, and describes this as
『「五【ご】」の俗字【ぞくじ】。』 ("informal variant for 五【ご】").

I think this form might have arisen from handwriting. I've seen images of 五
where the writer starts the top stroke, but doesn't draw the line all the way
across, and after a very short horizontal, they start the downward vertical
stroke. In certain cases this can look like the top stroke has been mostly
omitted.




This is an alternative form of the character 五【ご】 ("five"), as you correctly
surmised. [The entry at the English
Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AB%9D%80#Chinese) currently
only lists this as used in Chinese, but [the corresponding entry at the
Japanese Wiktionary](https://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%AB%9D%80) lists this
under the more general heading of 「漢字【かんじ】」, and describes this as
『「五【ご】」の俗字【ぞくじ】。』 ("informal variant for 五【ご】").

I think this form might have arisen from handwriting. I've seen images of 五
where the writer starts the top stroke, but doesn't draw the line all the way
across, and after a very short horizontal, they start the downward vertical
stroke. In certain cases this can look like the top stroke has been mostly
omitted.

