Posted on 01/02/2015 3:24:34 PM PST by BenLurkin
An ancient, two-sided amulet uncovered in Cyprus contains a 59-letter inscription that reads the same backwards as it does forwards.
Archaeologists discovered the amulet, which is roughly 1,500 years old, at the ancient city of Nea Paphos in southwest Cyprus.
One side of the amulet has several images, including a bandaged mummy (likely representing the Egyptian god Osiris) lying on a boat and an image of Harpocrates, the god of silence, who is shown sitting on a stool while holding his right hand up to his lips. Strangely, the amulet also displays a mythical dog-headed creature called a cynocephalus, which is shown holding a paw up to its lips, as if mimicking Harpocrates' gesture.
On the other side of the amulet is an inscription, written in Greek, that reads the same backwards as it does forwards, making it a palindrome. It reads:
ΙΑΕW
ΒΑΦΡΕΝΕΜ
ΟΥΝΟΘΙΛΑΡΙ
ΚΝΙΦΙΑΕΥΕ
ΑΙΦΙΝΚΙΡΑΛ
ΙΘΟΝΥΟΜΕ
ΝΕΡΦΑΒW
ΕΑΙ
This translates to "Iahweh(a god)is the bearer of the secret name, the lion of Re secure in his shrine."
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
An even older one would be inscribed Madam I’m Adam...
Mysteries of the English language:
Why is ‘abbreviate’ such a long word?
Why doesn’t ‘palindrome’ read the same frontwards and backwards?
What sicko put the ‘s’ in ‘lisp’???
I’m not up on my Marx Brothers trivia, but that can’t be a coincidence.
mysteries...
Why isn’t phonics spelled the way it sounds?
Oooooo! Perfect!
A sense of humor has been around a long time.
“The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”
“T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang eminating, is sad. I’d assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.”
- Brendan Gill, “Here at the New Yorker”, 1976
And there is no “W” in Greek. Those should be small omegas, not “Ws”! (See the Amulet.)
Perhaps this is like a St. Christopher Medal, something sold at temple to 5th century cypriot tourists in Egypt, perhaps. They use the local language, Coptic or Egyptian, written with Greek letters. (Oddly, icons of St Christopher sometimes depicts him as having a Dogs head.)
I prefer pi
Lonely Tylenol
looks like the toilets were uncomfortable back then. ;’)
:’)
Heh... not a day goes by that I am not thankful for the internet. ;’)
Heh, perfect, shows what sometimes has to be done to make ‘em work.
Years ago, different forum, FReeper berosus noted that Evian (the water brand) is “naive” spelled backwards. That probably explains the price. Bold choice by the company, too. It’s like selling a packaged flatbread under the brand name Munrab and charging $7 for five of ‘em.
For that matter, why do men get hernias, and women historectomies. ;’)
LOL
World’s oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/07/31/us-joke-odd-idUSKUA14785120080731
“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”
The world’s oldest “Yo mama” joke is 3,500 years old
http://io9.com/5880232/the-worlds-oldest-yo-mama-joke-is-3500-years-old
My favorites, first seen in the National Lampoon True Facts compilation, date back to classical Greece and Rome. Here’s a different selection:
11 Jokes From the World’s Oldest Jokebook
http://mentalfloss.com/article/57470/11-jokes-worlds-oldest-jokebook
#2 — “An intellectual came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man’s wife said that he had ‘departed,’ the intellectual replied: ‘When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?’”
Britainâs oldest joke
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2479730/The-worlds-oldest-jokes-revealed-by-university-research.html
...wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral.
It reads: “What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before? Answer: A key.”
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