# The year is the small part

> An R and an E share one upright on a band of pecked stone, with 1687 set much smaller underneath. The person is large, the date is not, and that settles the order.

August 21, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-letters-cut-into-a-window-lintel

A band of stone across the shirt, pecked all over, running off the left edge and off the right.

Standing proud of it, two capitals: an R and an E overlapped so closely that they share one upright,
which makes the pair read as a single device rather than as two letters.

Underneath, at a fraction of the size, four figures: 1687.

Most of what people put into a building for its own protection was made to disappear into it. This
one was set over a window, in daylight, at the size of a head.

## Why do two letters sharing an upright stop reading as letters?

Because a shared stroke fuses them into one shape, and a shape is recognised before it is read.

The R's stem and the E's back are the same piece of stone here, so the eye has no gap to separate
them at. What arrives first is a silhouette — an outline with a bowl on the left and three arms on
the right — and only afterwards does it resolve into two capitals. That is the difference between
lettering and a device. Lettering is read at reading speed. A device is identified at a glance and
then belongs to somebody.

## Why are the initials so much bigger than the date?

Because the person is the subject and the year is a fact attached to them.

At the same size the two would make a date stone, a record of when a piece of work was done. With
the figures at a fraction of the height of the letters, the order inverts: this is about whoever
RE was, and 1687 is the smaller thing underneath. A signature is unusual in this material. [The
things that went into the ground under the lowest course of stone](/stories/what-went-into-the-foundations)
went in unsigned and were covered over the same day.

## What does raised lettering take that a sunk letter doesn't?

Everything around it. A cut letter takes away the letter; a raised one takes away the field.

The R and the E stand up from the surface, which means the whole rest of the panel was worked back
to leave them standing. The pecked texture across the band is that removal — small
strikes across a field many times the size of the letters, which are left smooth. A
sunk inscription is the strokes and nothing else. This is the strokes plus the entire ground they sit
in, which puts the work in hours rather than minutes, and is why the letters look lit rather than
shadowed.

## Why does the band run off both edges of the shirt?

Because a wall does not have edges at the size a person can see, and a plaque does.

The stone leaves the garment on the left and on the right, so the print never resolves into an object
you could lift down and carry. A rectangle with all four sides showing would read as a picture glued
on to the chest, which is the failure mode for anything printed from a photograph of a flat surface.
Running it out both ways also puts the lettering where lettering of this kind actually goes: over an
opening, which is [where this material collects on a
building](/stories/protection-always-sits-at-an-opening).

## Whose initials can go on a band of stone?

Your own, with nobody to ask. The R, the E and the 1687 in this print were invented for it.

They are not transcribed from a building, they do not belong to a family, and no real house is being
quoted. Letters and figures are not a work, so an invented pair of initials over an invented year has
no author standing behind it. Copying a specific inscription off a specific building is a different
question with a workable answer: the wall belongs to its owner and the photograph or the measured
drawing belongs to whoever made it, and both are licensable when a particular one is the point. Style
has no owner. A work does.

## Does this work with something other than initials?

Yes. The layout is a large mark over a small figure, and the mark can be anything that fuses.

Two people's initials interlocking, a single capital, a shape that is not a letter at all: each of
them sits in the same relation to a date underneath. A geometric mark works the same way, and [a
rosette struck out with a pair of compasses](/stories/the-six-petal-mark-on-the-beam) has the
advantage of naming nobody, which some people want and others specifically do not. A year that means
something to the wearer does the rest of the work, whether or not anyone reading it can tell what
happened that year.

## Does it print well?

Yes, once the relief is reduced to flat tones instead of a soft blend.

Raised lettering reads by light and shadow, and a smooth wide gradient on cotton goes grey and
muddy. Built from three flat values — a light face, a mid ground, a hard shadow down one side of each
stroke — it keeps the same three-dimensional read and survives washing. The pecked texture wants to
be coarser and sparser than the stone really is, since strike marks that fine sit below what a weave
can hold and fill in to a flat patch. Sand, oatmeal or bone for the garment, with warm stone greys
for the ink, and no border anywhere.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the panel at [JustOG](/) — which letters share the upright, what year sits under them, and
how rough you want the ground.
Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to
order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Two letters, one upright, and a date that comes second. Somebody wanted the front of the house to
say who.