The Origin and Date of the ‘Sator’ Word-Square

Abstract

The recent extensive article on this subject by the distinguished French Scholar Dr. Jérome Carcopino provides an opportunity to return to a subject which I have already discussed in a paper published shortly before the War. Since its publication fresh evidence has come to light which may be thought to bear upon the subject, and various explanations of the origin of the square have been put forward which seem to invite comment. The exhaustive article of Fr. de Jerphanion, which is largely summarized by Carcopino, makes necessary only the briefest sketch of the development of our knowledge of the square. In its later form (beginning with Sator, fig. 2) it can be traced in a more or less complete form from the sixth century to modern times over an area extending from France to Ethiopia, Nubia, and even to South America, where its prophylactic virtues were accepted in the nineteenth century. The discovery of its earlier form (beginning with Rotas, fig. 1) incised on Roman wall-piaster at Cirencester in 1868 caused little interest, and it remained almost exclusively a matter for the medievalist for many years. In 1926 it was observed by Grosser that twenty-one of the letters of the square were made up of the word ‘Paternoster’ twice over (but necessarily arranged as a cross since the N, the middle letter, appears only once) and that the remaining four letters are two A's and two O's (fig. 4).