Shugborough inscription
Encyclopedia
Shugborough Hall
Shugborough is a country estate in Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England, 4 miles from Stafford on the edge of Cannock Chase. It comprises a country house, kitchen garden, and model farm...
in Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, below a mirror image of Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
's painting, the Shepherds of Arcadia
Et in Arcadia ego
"Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin . They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb...
. It has never been satisfactorily explained, and has been called one of the world's top uncracked ciphertext
Ciphertext
In cryptography, ciphertext is the result of encryption performed on plaintext using an algorithm, called a cipher. Ciphertext is also known as encrypted or encoded information because it contains a form of the original plaintext that is unreadable by a human or computer without the proper cipher...
s. The inscription became widely known after being mentioned in the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
by Michael Baigent
Michael Baigent
Michael Baigent is an author and speculative theorist who co-wrote a number of books that question mainstream perceptions of history and the life of Jesus. He is best known as co-writer of the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail....
, Richard Leigh
Richard Leigh (author)
Richard Harris Leigh was a novelist and short story writer born in New Jersey, USA to a British father and an American mother, who spent most of his life in the UK. Leigh earned a BA from Tufts University, a Master's degree from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D...
, and Henry Lincoln
Henry Lincoln
Henry Lincoln is an English author, television presenter, scriptwriter and former Supporting actor. He co-wrote three Doctor Who multi-part serials in the 1960s, and —starting in the 1970s— authored a series of books and inspired documentaries for the British television channel BBC2,...
.
The Monument
Thomas Anson (MP)
Thomas Anson , FRS was a British Member of Parliament, traveller and amateur architect.Anson was the son of William Anson and Isabella Carrier, sister-in-law to the Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield. The family estate was Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire...
, paid for by his brother, Admiral George Anson
George Anson, 1st Baron Anson
Admiral of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson PC, FRS, RN was a British admiral and a wealthy aristocrat, noted for his circumnavigation of the globe and his role overseeing the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War...
, and fashioned by the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers
Peter Scheemakers
Peter Scheemakers was a Flemish Roman Catholic sculptor who worked for most of his life in London, Great Britain....
. The relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
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
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
text Et in arcadia ego
Et in Arcadia ego
"Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin . They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb...
("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
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
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
Pan (mythology)
Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...
.
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 Diis Manibus, meaning "dedicated to the shades
Manes
In ancient Roman religion, the Manes or Di Manes are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent the souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the Lares, Genii, and Di Penates as deities that pertained to domestic, local, and personal cult...
".
Theories
Josiah WedgwoodJosiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...
, Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
are all said to have attempted to solve the enigma and failed.
No solution has yet been proposed which rests on a solid cryptanalytic
Cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
footing.
However, in recent decades, investigators have proposed several possible solutions. Some of these are acrostic
Acrostic
An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...
, interpreting each letter as the initial letter of a word.
- One suggestion is that the eight letters are a coded dedication by George Anson to his deceased wife. In 1951 Morchard Bishop speculated that the letters might be an acronymAcronym and initialismAcronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...
for the Latin phrase Optimae Uxoris Optimae Sororis Viduus Amantissimus Vovit Virtutibus ("Best of wives, Best of sisters, a most devoted Widower dedicates (this) to your virtues").
- Steve Regimbal interprets the letters as standing for a new Latin translation of the phrase "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity." , namely Orator Ut Omnia Sunt Vanitas Ait Vanitas Vanitatum. He has speculated that the phrase may be the source of the earlier inscription "OMNIA VANITAS" which may have been carved on an alcove at the estate of one of Thomas Anson's associates, George LyttletonGeorge Lyttelton, 1st Baron LytteltonGeorge Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton PC , known as Sir George Lyttelton, Bt between 1751 and 1756, was a British politician and statesman and a patron of the arts.-Background and education:...
- Margaret, Countess of Lichfield has claimed that the inscription was a love message, referring to the lines Out Your Own Sweet Vale, Alicia, Vanishes Vanity. Twixt Deity and Man Thou, Shepherdess, The Way, but no source for these words has ever been traced.
- A. J. MortonA. J. MortonA. J. Morton is a writer and researcher specialising in the history of the west coast of Scotland. He has been a consultant, contributor or writer for The Sunday Times, Irvine Times, Fortean Times, The Sunday Post, and The Herald....
observes that some of the letters match the names of the residents of Shugborough in the early 19th century, and believes that the inscription denotes the words: Orgreave United with Overley and Shugborough, Viscount Anson Venables Vernon
Non-acrostic efforts include:
- a work by Peter Oberg where the letters stand for numbers which sum to 2810, the distance in miles 2810 miles from Shugborough to the so-called "Money Pit" on Oak IslandOak IslandOak Island is a island in Lunenburg County on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada. The tree-covered island is one of about 360 small islands in Mahone Bay and rises to a maximum of 35 feet above sea level...
, in Nova ScotiaNova ScotiaNova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
- a suggestion that relies on pronouncing 'UOSV' as 'Iosef', interpreted as a reference to the biblical prophet JosephJoseph (Hebrew Bible)Joseph is an important character in the Hebrew bible, where he connects the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt....
.
- a proposal that 'VV' should be read as 'TEN', with reference to Roman numerals, and the 10 letters then read as an anagram of 'DEVOUT MASON'.
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 SionPriory of Sion
The Prieuré de Sion, translated from French as Priory of Sion, is a name given to multiple groups, both real and fictitious. The most notorious is a fringe fraternal organisation, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard...
, and that his Shepherds of Arcadia contained hidden meanings of great esoteric significance.
In 2003, Dan Brown
Dan Brown
Dan Brown is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown's novels, which are treasure hunts set in a 24-hour time period, feature the recurring themes of cryptography, keys, symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories...
developed similar themes in his bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
, 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, or the location of the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
. As part of the Shugborough promotion, some individuals who had previously worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
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
Jesus bloodline
A Jesus bloodline is a hypothetical sequence of lineal descendants of the historical Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or some other woman, usually portrayed as his alleged wife or a hierodule...
which allegedly descends from a non-divine Jesus and was preserved by the Priory. 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.
External links
- 2011 Da Vinci Code Riddle SOLVED
- The Final Solution of The Shepherd Monument
- www.templarstreasure.com
- Images of the monument
- The Changing Face of Poussin's Pentagon, by Geoff Bath
- Shugborough Hall and the Holy Grail, by Graham Phillips
- New puzzle for war code breakers (BBC)
- Bletchley veterans tackle 'toughest puzzle yet' (The Guardian)
- Da Vinci Code at Shugborough Hall (BBC)
- Holy Grail 'clue' at stately home (The Times)
- The Solution to the Shugborough code and the location of the Holy Grail