New puzzle for war code breakers

BBC ^ | 11 May, 2004 | N/A

[swilhelm73]

Specialists from the Buckinghamshire code-breaking centre hope to decipher words etched on a garden ornament at Shugborough in Staffordshire.

The Shepherd's Monument in the grounds of the stately home displays an inscription that has never been solved.

Second World War veterans using the celebrated Enigma machine are joining Bletchley's current team of experts.

'Unusual challenge'

The code breakers are at Shugborough, the ancestral home of the Earls of Lichfield, on Tuesday.

Christine Large, Bletchley Park's director, said: "This is such an unusual challenge that my colleagues and collaborators, who include veteran code breakers and modern day decoding experts from Bletchley Park's 'offspring' GCHQ, cannot resist."

Shugborough's general manager, Richard Kemp, said: "The Anson family, who built the estate, commissioned the monument but it had unproven connections with the Knights Templars.

"The inscription is rumoured to indicate the location of the Holy Grail, which must rank as one of the world's great mysteries."

It is estimated that work carried out at The National Codes Centre at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes helped to shorten the Second World War by two years.

The site is now a popular tourist attraction.

[Ciexyz]

Calling Indiana Jones!

[coloradan]

I fyo uca nrea dthi syo uca nge t agoo djo b.

[fqued]

Okay, so what is the inscription?

Give it to a 15 year old with a computer, and he'll have it solved in about as much time as it takes to rescue the Princess on the 5th level.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: I fyo uca nrea dthi syo uca nge t agoo djo b.

ofkls ripod kijsm kllsj wamks nunkc ximns opysin cinxs

[Rightone]

ahtway isway oingay onway?

[Judith Anne]

Ica ntre adath ingy ous ay.

[swilhelm73]

Well the best and brightest code breakers in the world have been working on the Voynich manuscript for decades without success...

http://www.voynich.nu/s_intro.html#intro

[ThinkDifferent]

xif sfe pjt jho vq?

[MistrX]

Tucked away within the 900-acre grounds, they found their puzzle: a stone monument built around 1748, containing a carved relief of Nicholas Poussin's Les Bergers d'Arcadie II in reverse. The picture shows a female figure watching as three shepherds gather around a tomb and point at letters within an inscription carved upon it, which read: Et in Arcadia Ego! (And I am in Arcadia too.) Beneath it the letters O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. are carved, and underneath them a D and an M.

[Riley]

At the mention of 'Bletchley Park', my face is twitching like Chief Inspector Dreyfuss in the later 'Pink Panther' films.

When I was laid up after heart surgery for a month and a half in 2000, I spent a LOT of time with the History Channel. And they were spending a LOT of time on Bletchley Park.

Now, the mere mention of the name is almost enough to make me flee the room.

[Ed_in_NJ]

Isn't this out of an old Monty Python film (Holy Grail, and all)?

Sounds like a classic British jack.

[Tommyjo]

If you like puzzles then try the following from GCHQ:


http://www.gchq.gov.uk/codebreaking/puzzle1.html

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/codebreaking/puzzle2.html

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/codebreaking/puzzle3.html

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/codebreaking/puzzle4.html

Or try the GCHQ Challenge:

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/codebreaking/index.html

[John Locke]

Y'all might find the following analysis interesting.

[gcruse]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting that.

[Walkingfeather]

w her edo Iap pl y?

[fqued]

Well the best and brightest code breakers in the world have been working on the Voynich manuscript for decades without success...

In the last few months, they've come up with evidence indicating that the VM was an early hoax, and is in fact, nonsense made to appear as if it's some great mystical writing. That's why the 15 year olds with computers couldn't break it.

[fqued]

. . .an inscription carved upon it, which read: Et in Arcadia Ego! (And I am in Arcadia too.) Beneath it the letters O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. are carved, and underneath them a D and an M.

interesting. Note that the first portion is in Latin in which U and V are interchangeable {although one could argue that the V is the semi-vowel equivalent of the full-vowel U).
But in the next part there is a U and also several V's. Therefore the abbreviations probably do not stand for a Latin expression.

[SoCal Pubbie]

"Okay, so what is the inscription? "

Klaatu barada nicto.

[swilhelm73]

Link?