Латын тіліндегі палиндромды сөз шаршысы

Word square with a Latin palindrome

The Sator Square (or Rotas Sator Square or Templar Magic Square) is a two dimensional acrostic class of word square containing a five word Latin palindrome.

The existence of the square was long recognized from early medieval times, and it has been found on the continent of Europe, in Asia Minor, in North Africa (in mainly Coptic settlements), and in the Americas. In 1889, British ancient historian Francis Haverfield identified the 1868 discovery of a Sator square found in ROTAS form scratched on a plaster wall in the Roman settlement of Corinium at Cirencester to be of Roman origin, however, his assertion was discounted by academics who considered it an "early medieval charm". This discovery led to the reexamination of a fragment of a square, again in ROTAS form, that Della Corte had made in 1925 at the house of Publius Paquius Proculus, also at Pompeii (CIL IV 8123). The square at the house of Publius Paquius Proculus was dated between A. D 50 and A. D 79 (based on the style of the interior), and the palestra square find was dated pre A. D 62 (and therefore the earthquake of A. D 62),efn|name=PS|Work by Italian archaeologist Amedeo Maiuri in 1938 showed that graffito on the Pompeii palestra square column associated with the Rotas square, were linked to graffito that would have pre dated the earthquake of A. D 62; this was later confirmed by German classical philologist de in 1948 based on an analysis of the stucco plastering of the specific palestra square columns. Similar translations include: "The farmer Arepo works his wheels", or "Arepo the sower (sator) guides (tenet) the wheel (rotas) with skill (opera)". Some academics, such as French historian Jules Quicherat, The boustrophedon style, which in Greek means "as the Ox plows", emphasizes the agricultural aspect of the square. In 1983, Serbian American scholar Miroslav Marcovich proposed the term AREPO as a Latinized abbreviation of Harpocrates (or "Horus the child"), god of the rising sun, also called Γεωργός `Aρπον, which Marcovich suggests corresponds to SATOR AREPO. This would translate the square as: "The sower Horus/Harpocrates keeps in check toils and tortures".

Irrespective of the theory of its origin, the evidence that the Sator square, particularly in its SATOR form, became adopted into Christian imagery is not disputed by academics. In Cappadocia, in the time of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–959), the shepherds of the Nativity of Jesus are named: SATOR, AREPON, and TENETON. There is an alternative layout proposed with the As and Os positioned at the extreme ends of the Paternoster cross,

A 1969 computer study by Charles Douglas Gunn started with a Roma Amor square and found 2,264 better versions, of which he considered the Sator square to be the best. It also parallels the Roman system of Cardo and Decumanus, being central road crosses through towns. consider the square as being likely of Jewish origin. Vinel addressed a criticism of the Jewish origin theory – why would the Jews have then abandoned the symbol? – by noting the Greek texts that they also abandoned (e. g. the Septuagint) in favor of Hebrew versions. Norwegian philologist Samson Eitrem took the last half of the square starting at N to get: "net opera rotans", which translates as "She spins her works", interpreting it to be a feminine being (i. e. Hecate), a demon, or even the square itself rotating on its TENET spokes, thus giving a peasant Italian pagan origin with the square as a wind indicator. In Germany in the Middle Ages, the square was inscribed on disks that were then thrown into fires to extinguish them. Other examples include Bosnia, where the square was used as a remedy for aquaphobia, and in Iceland, it was etched into the fingernails to cure jaundice.

The oldest Sator square was found in November 1936, in ROTAS form, etched into column number LXI at the it near the amphitheatre of Pompeii (CIL IV 8623). Graffiti associated with the particular columns pre dates the AD 62 Pompeii earthquake,
Four Sator squares were found in 1931–32, all in ROTAS form, etched on the walls of military buildings, at Dura Europos in Syria, dated circa. A. D 200. A Sator square was found in 1966–71, in ROTAS form, scratched into a Roman era wall during excavations of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (along with the Roma Amor, and the Rome Summus Amor palindromes).

The earliest Sator square post Roman times was the 1899 discovery of a ROTAS form square inscribed on a Coptic papyrus by German historians Adolph Erman and Fritz Krebs in the Egyptian papyrus collections of the Berlin State Museums (then the Koniglischen Museen); it has no other explicit Christian imagery. In a similar vein, there is a thirteenth century parchment from Aurillac that offers a Sator square chant for women in childbirth. The phrase sappears on the rune stone Nä Fv1979;234 from Närke, Sweden, dated to the 14th century. It reads "sator arepo tenet" (untranscribed: "sator ¶ ar(æ)po ¶ tænæt). It also occurs in two inscriptions from Gotland (G 145 M and G 149 M), which contain the whole palindrome. The Sator square, with some letters changed, features in eighteenth century books on Pow wow folk medicine of the Pennsylvania Dutch, such as The Long Lost Friend (see image earlier).