Shugborough inscription

Still a mystery: the eight letters 'OUOSVAVV', framed by the letters 'DM'

The Shugborough Inscription is a sequence of letters - O U O S V A V V, between the letters D M - carved on the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in the grounds of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England, below a mirror image of Nicolas Poussin's painting, the Shepherds of Arcadia. It has never been satisfactorily explained, and has been called one of the world's top uncracked ciphertexts.[1]

The Monument

The Shugborough relief, adapted from Nicolas Poussin's second version of The Shepherds of Arcadia
The Shepherds Monument, enclosed in its rustic arch
Fingers touching the letters 'N' and 'R' in the phrase "ET IN ARCADIA EGO'
Carved bald head of a smiling man
Carved head with goat-like horns

The monument was built sometime between 1748 and 1763, commissioned by Thomas Anson, paid for by his brother, Admiral George Anson, and fashioned by the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers. The relief copy of the Poussin painting is contained within a rustic arch, and shows a woman and three shepherds, two of whom are pointing to a tomb. On the tomb is carved the Latin text Et in arcadia ego ("I am also in Arcadia" or "I am, even in Arcadia"). The carving displays a number of small alterations from the original painting, and an extra sarcophagus has been placed on top of the main tomb. Above the Poussin scene are two stone heads, one showing a smiling bald-headed man, the other bearing a likeness to the goat-horned Greek god Pan.

Below the relief carving on the monument, an unknown craftsman carved the mysterious eight letters, contained within the letters 'D M'. On Roman tombs, the letters 'D M' commonly stood for Dis Manibus, meaning "dedicated to the shades".

Theories

Josiah Wedgwood, Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens are all said to have attempted to solve the enigma and failed.[2]

In recent decades, investigators have proposed several possible solutions. Some of these are acrostic, interpreting each letter as the initial letter of a word.

Non-acrostic efforts include:

Despite the many theories, staff at Shugborough Hall remain skeptical of all proposed solutions. A spokesman for the property (now owned by the National Trust) was quoted in 2014 asserting, "We get five or six people a week who believe they have solved the code so we are a bit wary of them now." [5]

Priory of Sion and the Holy Grail

In 1982, the authors of the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail suggested that Poussin was a member of the Priory of Sion, and that his Shepherds of Arcadia contained hidden meanings of great esoteric significance.

In 2003, Dan Brown developed similar themes in his bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, and in 2004 Richard Kemp, the general manager of the Shugborough Estate, launched a promotional campaign which asserted a connection between Shugborough, and in particular the Shugborough inscription, and the Holy Grail.

Speculation then grew that the inscription may encode secrets related to the Priory of Sion,[8] or the location of the Holy Grail. As part of the Shugborough promotion, some individuals who had previously worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park pursued this line of investigation. Oliver Lawn proposed that the letters may encode the phrase Jesus H Defy, where the H supposedly stands for "Christos" (Greek for "Messiah") and the reference is to a Jesus bloodline which allegedly descends from a non-divine Jesus and was preserved by the Priory.[2] Sheila Lawn, his wife, preferred the love story theory. Despite the couple's previous employment, neither of their suggestions enjoyed reliable cryptanalytic support and both were presented as speculative.

Notes

  1. Belfield, Richard (August 2007). The Six Unsolved Ciphers: Inside the Mysterious Codes That Have Confounded the World's Greatest Cryptographers. Ulysses Press. ISBN 1-56975-628-7.
  2. 1 2 Tweedie, Neil (2004-11-26). "Letters remain the holy grail to code-breakers". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2008-11-25.
  3. 1 2 "The Shepherd's Monument". Staffordshire County Council. Retrieved 2008-11-25.
  4. Andrew Baker. "Hidden Meanings?". Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  5. 1 2 "200-year-old mystery of Shugborough Code 'solved'". The Birmingham Post. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  6. "Shepherd's Monument 'code' was 19th century graffiti". Daily Telegraph. 2011-02-01. Retrieved 2011-03-01.
  7. Ramsden, Dave (December 2014). Unveiling the Mystic Ciphers: Thomas Anson and the Shepherd's Monument Inscription. Dave Ramsden. ISBN 1503119882.
  8. "Code points away from Holy Grail". BBC. 2004-11-26. Retrieved 2008-11-25.

External links

Coordinates: 52°48′5″N 2°0′45″W / 52.80139°N 2.01250°W / 52.80139; -2.01250

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