Editing Chronogram (section)

===In epitaphs===
It is evident, therefore, that for a period of five hundred years chronograms occurred in the [[epitaph]]s of European Jews. Thus the dates of the epitaphs of the family of [[Asher ben Jehiel]] in the first half of the fourteenth century are indicated by chronograms (Almanzi, "Abne Zikkaron", pp.&nbsp;4, 6, 9); and among sixty-eight [[Frankfurt]] epitaphs of that century four chronograms have been preserved (Horowitz, "Inschriften... zu Frankfurt-am-Main", Nos. 8, 29, 36, 68). The German Jews seem to have possessed little skill in the composition of chronograms, there being only about twenty-five (and these very simple) in a total of some 6,000 inscriptions. In [[Bohemia]] and [[Poland]], chronograms in epitaphs occur more frequently, and are often very clever; for example, the epitaph of the physician Menahem b. Asher Mazzerato, who died at [[Prague]] in 1680, reads as follows: '''א'''יש '''צ'''דיק '''י'''שר '''ח'''כם '''ו'''ענו '''ה'''אלוף '''מ'''הר״ר '''מ'''נחם '''ר'''ופא '''מ'''ומחה (Lieben, "Gal 'Ed," p.&nbsp;36); and the numerical value of the marked initial letters therein amounts to 440; i.e., 5440, the Jewish year in which Menahem died. The year of death of the associate rabbi of Prague, Zalman, who perished in the great fire of 1689 (=5449 Jewish era), is indicated by the words ''''באש יצא מא'''ת '''ד''' (bolded letters equal 449) (ib. No. 59).<ref name="jewish_encyclopedia" />