Graffito (archaeology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Category:Graffitos as archaeology |
The Graffito (archaeology), (plural Graffiti), has been created by humans since Homo sapiens have been traversing this planet. There are even scratchings, doodlings, drawings, symbols, and art, etc. etched on bone pieces from prehistoric times, and possibly earlier.
Contents |
[edit] Listings of Graffito (archaeology)
The beginning categories of Graffito (archaeology) are:
- Writing system graffiti.
- Picture (glyptic) graffiti, or Iconography.
- Ostraca type graffiti, with pictures.
- Complex, merged, or multiple category graffiti.
[edit] Late (Roman) Demotic graffito
Very Late Egyptian Demotic was used only for ostraca, mummy labels, subscriptions to Greek texts, and graffiti. The last dated example of Egyptian Demotic is from the Temple of Isis at Philae, dated to 11 December 452 CE. See Demotic "Egyptian".
[edit] "Christian Magic square", (the "Sator square")
The Sator square is a Latin graffito found at numerous sites throughout the Roman Empire (e.g. Pompeii, Dura-Europos) and elsewhere (United Kingdom). It is a palindrome-(theory) which forms a word square that may be read in any direction (with theories). See Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas for alternative details, and Talk:Graffito (archaeology). The reason that the palindrome may only be a theory, is because the square may have to be read boustrophedonically.
The square reads as follows (boustrophedon):
-
- R...O...T...A...S
- O...P...E...R...A
- T...E...N...E...T
- A...R...E...P...O
- S...A...T...O...R
The square reads: Sator opera tenet; tenet opera sator, and is approximately: "The Great Sower holds in his hand all works; all works the Great Sower holds in his hand." (See: Boustrophedon and the Ceram Ref., pg 30. (Note: reverse direction after the first "tenet", to repeat tenet (then continue boustrophedon).
Four entry points, one per side, renders the reading of the "Magic Square", the "Sator Square": Right, Left, Upwards, or Downwards. (This is why Ceram concluded that it is the christian Sator Square.)
The "Sator Square"– Pottery sherd from the United Kingdom: [2]
The Sator Square has to begin at "Rotas", so that it can end at "Sator", basically: "The Great Sower", (i.e. the christian). See: The inscribed square
[edit] The Pompeii history
When Professor Matteo Della Corte was uncovering Pompeii in the 19th century, he found the Square scratched on a pillar of the stadium. A Christian cross had also been scratched on a pillar at Herculaneum, so the cross formed by the vertical and horizontal of "TENET", was also implied to mean the Square was christian. The signing of the christian cross doesn't occur till the 2nd century,[1] but the 20th century re-analysis by Ludwig Diehl, and using the boustrophedonic reading, (as in "Hieroglyphic Hittite"), and then repeating "Tenet", and reversing yielded the modern translation:[2]
- SATOR OPERA TENET; TENET OPERA SATOR
- "The Great Sower (God) holds in his hands all works; all works the great Sower hold in his hands"
Apparently as the Sator Square article states, the entire history of Europe, and the medieval world, and Christianity, went in many paths with this graffito, (since early Christianity, and Pompeii's graffito). It began as a "Rotas Square", and ends with "Sator" if read boustrophedonically. If it was to begin with "sator", it could not end correctly, or yield the above boustrophedon interpretation. ("Rotas Square, graffito".)[3]
[edit] Deir el-Bahri religious graffiti
Because of pilgrims, to religious sites, there are ample examples of the Graffito (archaeology) at the Egyptian site of Deir el-Bahri. The pilgrims were of a semi-educated class, and are responsible for some of these graffiti pieces. See the section in Parkinson Ref., pg 92., (4 objects).
[edit] See
[edit] External links
- Sator Square, inscribed, Article; the article uses: "Rotas square"
[edit] References
- ^ Page: The mysterious magic square (with graphic), The March of Archaeology, C. W. Ceram, p 28.
- ^ Page: The mysterious magic square, C. W. Ceram, p 28.
- ^ Archimedes' Laboratory webpage: Sator Square-(i.e Rotas Square graffito)[1]
- Parkinson, R. Cracking Codes, the Rosetta Stone, and Decipherment, Richard Parkinson, with W. Diffie, M. Fischer, and R.S. Simpson, (University of California Press), c. 1999. Section: page 92, "Graffiti" from a temple at Deir el-Bahri. British Museum pieces, EA 1419, 47962, 47963, 47971.
- Ceram, C.W. The March of Archaeology, C.W.Ceram, translated from the German, Richard and Clara Winston, (Alfred A. Knopf, New York), c 1958.
