Alexx Kay just updated his Dragaeran timeline < http://world.std.com/~alexx/timeline.txt > which started a private conversation between us about how those weird formal dates work. Most interesting (and problematic) are the "long form" dates with numbers and slashes that Paarfi uses to date his Prefaces. The problem is that he only uses 4 digits instead of all 6 (Great Cycle, Cycle, Reign, Phase, Turn, Year). Luckily, we do have one that does include six digits, from Pamela Dean's Preface to FHYA, which led Alexx to the following speculation (this is copied from the above referenced timeline): : Long-form dates often leave out one or more of these items, : but this may be translation error. Perhaps Dragaeran : writing includes some way of indicating what part each : number in the date plays, but the translator isn't very : good at catching that level of detail. [...] : If we look at the curious form of the Preface to _Five : Hundred Years After_ ("2:1/2:1/2/12"), there is some : support for the theory that the numbers after the colons : (Cycle and Phase) might be left out. Which led me to make the following chart including all those omitted values, as well as a pure base17 way of representing dates (with "first year" = 0), and what I consider to be some errors (Alexx is still disagreeing with me on some points, esp. those Turns which seem to be always wrong). ===== The following table gives the date in decimal, base 17, long form, and by House (with Phoenix = 1). The base17 column and numbers in parentheses are my calculations. Dec base17 long GC Cy Re Ph Tu Ye Mo Da ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. (1) 100,000 (2:1/1:1/1/1) (2) 17 1 1 (1) 1 2. 532 100,1e4 (2:1/1:2/15/5) 2 1 1 2 14 5 3. 244 100,0e5.00 (2:1/1:1/15/6) 2 1 1 13 (15) 6 1 1 4. 309 100,112.g7 2(:1)/1(:2)/2/3 2 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 16 8 5. 11 101,00a.22 R2:1/2:1/2/12 (2) (1) (2) (1) (1) 11 3 3 6. 179 101,0a9.h2 (2:1/2:1/11/9) 2 1 2 1 10 9 17 3 7. 181 101,0aa 2(:1)/2(:1)/10/11 (2) (1) (2) (1)(11)(11) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. tPG ix; should be Cycle Phoenix 2. FHYA ix; should be Turn Teckla 3. Phx 151-152; should Phase Phoenix 4. tPG ix, xvi 5. FHYA ix, xxi; should probably be 2:1/2:1/1/11 6. tPotD 11; should be Turn Iorich 7. tPotD 24; should be Turn Iorich ======= Any comments? --KG