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We recommend a culturally neutral way of designating years BC ("Before Christ"). This has long been seen as desirable, but alternatives so far proposed leave much to be desired.

Previous Solutions

(1) The alternative "BCE," which is meant to abbreviate the phrase "Before the Common Era," only works in English (not in French or German). Even in English, it is often construed as "Before the Christian Era," thus defeating its original purpose. And any abbreviation is cumbersome with hyphenated dates which cross the base year, such as

40 BC - AD 37

Joseph Needham used a minus sign for years and centuries BC, leaving the plain numbers to represent years and centuries AD. but though that eliminates abbreviations, it gives in the above example

-40 - 37

and for a span within BC from -40 to -37, presumably we would have to write

-40 - -37

A practical convention should not give rise to such monstrosities.

(2) The minus sign as a convention for "BC" also conflicts with the astronomical convention. Regrettably, astronomers recognize a Year Zero between 1 and -1. This leads to "astronomical years" being one lower than the corresponding "historical years." Those who have wrestled with, or been tricked by, this difference in the translations of Legge (who on the advice of the Astronomer Royal used "astronomical years") will not need to be told that this solution is full of problems for the expert as well as the novice reader.

Our Solution

Years. We recommend a prefixed zero for years and centuries BC. This avoids all abbreviations. The above spans are then written as 040-37 and 040-037. This is much cleaner on the page, and it eliminates all ambiguity. It is also compatible with a prefixed c for "circa," as in "040-c037."

Centuries. A postfixed c for "century" (as in "03c") is a natural extension of these suggestions.

None of these proposals, as far as we know, causes the slightest problem in practice. Suggested herewith.

21 Mar 2014 / Contact The Project /