theban letters
alright, this may not be the best idea, but i'm at the end of my rope with this shit so here goes.
last wednesday, july 15th i arrived home from work to discover a letter with a blacked out return address waiting from me. the postmark proclaimed "Anchorage AK" 11 july 2009. inside was this.
it is a single sheet of 8.5 by 11 white computer paper containing 13 lines in theban, a magical cipher language from round about the 16th century. there is a one to one correspondence between theban and the letters in the old latin alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_alphabet
so i recognize this curiously enough, having read a bit on theban in the past, and i make myself a cipher and work it for a few hours. now, i would like to point out here that i did realize this was pretty weird at the time, but then again i have a lot of weird friends and i did just turn 25 on the 8th. so i figure this could be some kind of elaborate birthday message, and that the theban will translate out to "happy birthday jerkface" or some such thing. however, this was not the case. below is pictured my working cipher page.
what ended up coming out of the theban is what looks like a poem. some of the individual words seem to be in latin. but others suggest a later form of "church" or vulgar/vernacular latin or even proto italian. i'm fairly confident that i worked the cipher correctly, but it is possible that i mixed up a letter or two, so bear with me. below is the complete text as translated from the theban.
oculi lacertarum
vident te
sempeo oculi
lacertarum incumbunt te
noli dice de lacertis
noli cogitl de
lacertos
dentes lacertarum sunt
acutissimi
unoua lacertarum sunt
dioissima
noli vel commemora
lacerta umquam
a few words on thetranslation of latin/whatever the fuck this is: i do not claim to be a latin scholar or indeed a scholar of any kind. what i do have is two years of highshool latin, a serviceable latin/english dictionary and the internet. using these scant resources i've managed to hash out a few key words, but without the proper grammatical context. this is what i could manage so far:
oculi=see/to see/eye
lacertarum=lizard
sempeo=always
noli=to be unwilling
commemora=to remind/relate/to keep in mind.
dentes=teeth
again, this is rough, and it has no grammatical context, so i don't know. it does however mention lizards SEVEN times. seven fucking times. which is a little weird. but wait. it gets much weirder.
the following day, thursday july 16th i receive ANOTHER anonymous letter. this one has no blacked out return address, or indeed any return address what so ever. the handwriting for my address is different from the first alaska letter, and this one is postmarked "Boston MA" 15 july 2009. it contains the exact same letter. thirteen lines in theban. identical font. things are starting to get weirder.
but wait! the day after that, friday july 17th. you guessed it. another letter. this one postmarked "Denver CO" 14 july 2009. the handwriting on my address would seem to indicate yet a third style distinct from the other two. it contains the same letter. identical.
three identical coded letters in three days from three different people in three different cities. all addressed to me.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
right now i have a few people asking a few other people who apparently know latin much better than i what they can make of it, but i'll tell you, it's slow going. i mean, maybe if i knew for certain it was actually latin, but it's clearly something else. so i don't have a solid translation yet. even once i get a solid translation, what then? what does any of this mean? who are these people and why are they doing this? why the lizard business? why the theban and the latin and the thirteen lines? why me?
i have to say, it's more than a little exciting, but also creepy as shit. i've always wanted something like this to happen and now that it has my feelings are mixed. i've been obsessing about this for five days now, talking to damn near every one i know. pouring over sites on latin, witches, ciphers, lizard conspiracies, ground roots discordian type movements...i don't know. should i be expecting more letters? or for shadowy people to just show up at my job or home? or is this just a harmless prank? possibly even perpetrated by someone i know. i just don't know.
i'm reminded of a quote from alan moore i heard recently. it goes something like "with magic, being in many respects a science of language, you have to be very careful with what you say, because if you suddenly declare yourself to be a magician, without any knowledge of what that entails, then one day you are likely to wake up and discover that that is exactly what you are."
needless to say i'm still on the case, but this is kind of a brick wall i've run into. so really, if any of you out there are latin scholars or know a latin scholar or have any inkling what so ever about what this is or who may be doing it, please let me know.
All hail eris
All hail discordia
For the very WEDGE
May you find water and shade
Bless the maker and his water. Bless his coming and his going.
FNORD FNORD FNORD.
~Mat.
last wednesday, july 15th i arrived home from work to discover a letter with a blacked out return address waiting from me. the postmark proclaimed "Anchorage AK" 11 july 2009. inside was this.
it is a single sheet of 8.5 by 11 white computer paper containing 13 lines in theban, a magical cipher language from round about the 16th century. there is a one to one correspondence between theban and the letters in the old latin alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_alphabet
so i recognize this curiously enough, having read a bit on theban in the past, and i make myself a cipher and work it for a few hours. now, i would like to point out here that i did realize this was pretty weird at the time, but then again i have a lot of weird friends and i did just turn 25 on the 8th. so i figure this could be some kind of elaborate birthday message, and that the theban will translate out to "happy birthday jerkface" or some such thing. however, this was not the case. below is pictured my working cipher page.
what ended up coming out of the theban is what looks like a poem. some of the individual words seem to be in latin. but others suggest a later form of "church" or vulgar/vernacular latin or even proto italian. i'm fairly confident that i worked the cipher correctly, but it is possible that i mixed up a letter or two, so bear with me. below is the complete text as translated from the theban.
oculi lacertarum
vident te
sempeo oculi
lacertarum incumbunt te
noli dice de lacertis
noli cogitl de
lacertos
dentes lacertarum sunt
acutissimi
unoua lacertarum sunt
dioissima
noli vel commemora
lacerta umquam
a few words on thetranslation of latin/whatever the fuck this is: i do not claim to be a latin scholar or indeed a scholar of any kind. what i do have is two years of highshool latin, a serviceable latin/english dictionary and the internet. using these scant resources i've managed to hash out a few key words, but without the proper grammatical context. this is what i could manage so far:
oculi=see/to see/eye
lacertarum=lizard
sempeo=always
noli=to be unwilling
commemora=to remind/relate/to keep in mind.
dentes=teeth
again, this is rough, and it has no grammatical context, so i don't know. it does however mention lizards SEVEN times. seven fucking times. which is a little weird. but wait. it gets much weirder.
the following day, thursday july 16th i receive ANOTHER anonymous letter. this one has no blacked out return address, or indeed any return address what so ever. the handwriting for my address is different from the first alaska letter, and this one is postmarked "Boston MA" 15 july 2009. it contains the exact same letter. thirteen lines in theban. identical font. things are starting to get weirder.
but wait! the day after that, friday july 17th. you guessed it. another letter. this one postmarked "Denver CO" 14 july 2009. the handwriting on my address would seem to indicate yet a third style distinct from the other two. it contains the same letter. identical.
three identical coded letters in three days from three different people in three different cities. all addressed to me.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
right now i have a few people asking a few other people who apparently know latin much better than i what they can make of it, but i'll tell you, it's slow going. i mean, maybe if i knew for certain it was actually latin, but it's clearly something else. so i don't have a solid translation yet. even once i get a solid translation, what then? what does any of this mean? who are these people and why are they doing this? why the lizard business? why the theban and the latin and the thirteen lines? why me?
i have to say, it's more than a little exciting, but also creepy as shit. i've always wanted something like this to happen and now that it has my feelings are mixed. i've been obsessing about this for five days now, talking to damn near every one i know. pouring over sites on latin, witches, ciphers, lizard conspiracies, ground roots discordian type movements...i don't know. should i be expecting more letters? or for shadowy people to just show up at my job or home? or is this just a harmless prank? possibly even perpetrated by someone i know. i just don't know.
i'm reminded of a quote from alan moore i heard recently. it goes something like "with magic, being in many respects a science of language, you have to be very careful with what you say, because if you suddenly declare yourself to be a magician, without any knowledge of what that entails, then one day you are likely to wake up and discover that that is exactly what you are."
needless to say i'm still on the case, but this is kind of a brick wall i've run into. so really, if any of you out there are latin scholars or know a latin scholar or have any inkling what so ever about what this is or who may be doing it, please let me know.
All hail eris
All hail discordia
For the very WEDGE
May you find water and shade
Bless the maker and his water. Bless his coming and his going.
FNORD FNORD FNORD.
~Mat.