Beyond the Shepherds: A Retired Woodshop Teacher’s Take on Solving the Shugborough Hall’s Enigmas

O·U·O·S·V·A·V·V

D·                                             M·

The Shepherd’s Monument at Shugborough Hall, nestled in the serene English countryside of Staffordshire, proudly displays a ten-letter inscription that has long captivated the minds of code breakers and treasure hunters. This inscription, coupled with a sculpture of Nicolas Poussin’s masterpiece,  The Arcadian Shepherds, has ignited a thrilling intellectual pursuit, leaving history enthusiasts and code breakers eagerly anticipating the stimulating challenge of deciphering its mysteries.

Shugborough Inscription: Wordplay for the Lords and Ladies, author Dan Mento has proposed three unique solutions to the mysteries of the monument, each carrying historical and linguistic implications. The first solution, DOUOSVAVVM, is a testament to the fleeting nature of life and the enduring power of language, solved using wordplay: anagrams, palindrome, and a macaronic phrase. The second solution, a geometric construct that forms the planet Saturn, reveals Thomas Wright of Durham as the monument’s designer. The third solution, a Baconian-inspired anagram of Et In Arcadia Ego, not only unveils the hidden secret of Poussin’s painting The Arcadian Shepherds but also reveals an anagram, the archaic Latin deai defined as goddesses, Greek Gaia described as Earth’s goddess, and Greek Ceto, daughter of Gaia, represents a primordial sea goddess. Deai, Gaia, and Ceto allude to the author of the Shugborough Shepherd’s inscription, Thomas Anson, and the monument’s dedication to his brother, Admiral George Anson.

Over time, numerous stories have circulated about the inscription, fueling the imagination of many. Some believe it holds the key to hidden treasures, such as Spanish gold, the Holy Grail, or Christ’s bloodline. While Mento’s findings may not have uncovered any buried Templar treasure or divine legacy, they provide an intriguing insight into the minds of those who commissioned and built this enigmatic monument. In these ways, the Shugborough code transforms the estate into an intellectual playground, a powerful testament to the enduring power of wordplay and the unyielding quest for knowledge hidden in veiled symbolism.

Wordplay Unlocks the Inscription

The British aristocracy of the 1600s-1800s harbored a unique fascination with wordplay, particularly anagrams. An anagram is a word game involving the rearrangement of letters to create new words or phrases. It was a form of intellectual expression serving as a pastime and a means to convey secret messages.

Anagrams were not just a game but could also conceal secret knowledge. Sir Francis Bacon, a renowned philosopher, used them to shroud his profound insights. Galileo Galilei, a revolutionary astronomer, used anagrams to hide his groundbreaking discovery: the rings around Saturn (Gebler, 1879). In addition, Robert Hooke, a brilliant scientist, used anagrams to conceal the formulation of Hooke’s Law. Hooke first unveiled his spring law in 1676, publishing it as an anagram and forming the letters “cediinnoopsssttuu.” Two years later, Hooke unraveled the mystery, rearranging the letters to spell “Ut Pondus sic Tensio,” which means “as the extension, so the weight” (Chapman, 2005).

The first puzzle. Courtesy of the author.

The ten-letter sequence DOUOSVAVVM is solved using conventional wordplay puzzle techniques to the two-tier set of letters:  OUOSVAVV top tier and D M bottom tier. Lowering the letters USA from the top to the bottom tier between D and M becomes the archaic Slavic word DUSAM. Dušam is a term of profound cultural significance, meaning soul or spirit, and is an anagram to the Latin adsum, meaning ‘I am present.’ This pairing of dušam and adsum together conveys the presence of a soul or spirit, a symbolism that resonates deeply at the Shepherd Monument, adding to whom it memorializes.

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By Dan Mento