Ryan he/him Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 Something in the broadsheet caught my eye. Centered below the title are six metal symbols that look like they're supposed to be read as a number. This, combined with the symbols at the head of each chapter, led me to think that there is a numbering system that uses the metal symbols as numerals. The only clue I've found as to the meaning of the numerals are the chapter headings themselves. If we assume the chapters are numbered both in our numerals and in metal numerals, it's easy to see which symbols represent which numbers. The trouble comes in deciphering numbers higher than 16. At first I thought it would be a base-16 system, which would make a great deal of sense considering the importance of the number 16 as well as there being 16 symbols. But it doesn't appear to be a positional notation at all, being more analogous to Roman numerals. Chapters higher than 16 are numbered with two symbols. 17 is numbered as "16 1", 18 is "16 2", and so on up to 20, which is the highest chapter number in the book. But this isn't enough to decipher the system, especially since the prologue and epilogue use symbols that aren't assigned to any metal, and the six numerals at the top of the broadsheet also use two symbols that don't belong to any metal. The broadsheet number is: "* 15 * 6 16 10" (using *'s in place of symbols whose value is unknown). Now, I'm at a dead end. I don't think there's enough information in the book to decipher the whole system. We know how to count to 20, sure, but beyond that I'm stumped. Has anyone seen any clues I'm missing, or have any further insights?
Guinevere she/her Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 This is so weird! I posted this exact same topic at the exact same time!
Ryan he/him Posted November 12, 2011 Author Posted November 12, 2011 And then we both posted the same reply to each others' topics. Are you sure you're married? You may just be my soul mate. (Joking, of course, in case it wasn't obvious...)
Guinevere she/her Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 That's really really funny. Yeah, my husband and I are just sitting here, laughing like crazy that this happened. We may want to consolidate this instead of just writing back and forth on both topics.
Ryan he/him Posted November 12, 2011 Author Posted November 12, 2011 Ok, I copied my first post in this topic into my first reply to your topic. Let's have all further discussion there.
KChan she/her Posted November 12, 2011 Posted November 12, 2011 Closing this topic, then, to prevent any further confusion. Thanks for consolidating!
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