The Sator Square or Rotas Square is a word square containing a Latin palindrome featuring the words SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS written in a square so that they may be read top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, left-to-right, and right-to-left. The earliest datable square was found in the ruins of Pompeii which was buried in the ash of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Examples may be carved on stone tablets, or engraved into clay before firing as pottery. Among other interpretations, the square is regarded as a cryptic marker for the outside of an Early Christian house, as the letters resolve into a cross-shape reading PATERNOSTER ("Our Father") both down and across, with two each of A and O, Alpha and Omega in Greek, left over.
Read more about Sator Square: Translation, Appearances, Christian Associations, Magical Uses
Famous quotes containing the word square:
“Interpreting the dance: young women in white dancing in a ring can only be virgins; old women in black dancing in a ring can only be witches; but middle-aged women in colors, square dancing...?”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)