Early Christian Cryptogram

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

Salve,

i got this one from my father:
In Herculaneum they found a so-called Sator-square. It is a square formed by 5 words:

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

Apparently, if you read it as it is, you'll get something like "'The Great Sower holds in his hand all works". but is you arange the letters correctly, you can write pater noster horizontally and a vertically. The remaining a's and O's can be taken as Alpha's and Omega's. According to what i understand it is a Christian symbol. Has anybody more info on this?

see also the site on wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sator_square

[Carlton Bach]

Alf Önnerfors in 'Antike Zaubersprüche' (Stuttgart, Reclam 1991) disputes the clear Christian connection, though he argues that it was adopted into Christian folk magic early and has origins in monotheistic or henotheistic ideas.

His reading is in boustrophedon: Sator opera tenet, tenet opera sator (meaning 'the creator maintains his works').

It has also been read as a formula for a Christian paternoster cross

[pre]
A
P
A
T
E
R
A P A T E R N O S T E R O
O
S
T
E
R
O
[/pre]
the leftover A and O standing for 'the Alpha and Omega', being Jesus

Or a satanic formula (Satan, ter oro te, reparato opes! - Satan, I thrice pray thee to restore my riches!)

Make of it what you will. Personally, I think it was a really nifty palindrome that later generations figured *had* to mean *something*!

A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!

[Moderator Edit: use the "pre" format to preserve tabs... -Dan]

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

thanks! Wiki claims that
"others were found in excavations at Corinium (modern Cirencester) and Dura-Europos (in modern Syria).

Other sator squares are on the wall of the Duomo of Siena, on the pavement outside the church of the Knights in Valetta, Malta and on the tombstone of composer Anton von Webern, who experimented with the sator square in a musical way.

A sator square found in Manchester is considered by some authorities to be the earliest evidence of Christianity in Britain

Other authorities believe the sator square was Mithraic in origin.

The sator square is a four-times palindrome, and some have attributed magical properties to it, considering it one of the broadest magical formulas in the occident; for example, the 19th-century Pennsylvania Dutch used it to protect cattle from witchcraft ."

So apparently the palindrome got quite reputation!