Rumi Number Ten

𐹩 is the historical Rumi/Fasi sign for ten. Read it as one number sign, not as the modern digit string “10.” Rumi numerals are non-positional: each value has its own sign rather than being built from digits by place value.

The wider family draws on Coptic and Greek-Coptic number traditions used in Egyptian texts. Related Zimām numerals are documented in Egyptian administrative and commercial circles by the tenth century. Rumi/Fasi forms appear in Mozarabic manuscripts from Christian communities under Muslim rule in Iberia, and in Toledan manuscripts, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Unicode reference shape follows a copy of a handwritten mathematical work by Ibn al-Banna completed in 1503; the date identifies the model, not the numeral's origin.

Where did Rumi numerals appear?

In manuscripts, accounts, and recordkeeping. They marked page numbers, chapters, and quires (bundles of folded pages used in bookmaking) and appeared in religious, scientific, mathematical, and accounting manuscripts; related forms also appeared on astronomical instruments. In Egypt, Zimām numerals appear in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic accounts (Arabic written in Hebrew script) and administrative records. Rūmī, Fāsī, and Toledan are labels tied to different historical settings; related Rumi/Fasi forms remained in Moroccan legal and commercial use into the seventeenth century. The value stays ten while regional styles and uses shift.