This is Enrique Morales's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following Enrique Morales's activity
Enrique Morales
Recent Activity
If X=Xristus and O=Omnipotens (and first "R"=visual pun), we could also read [In] Nomine Domini Xristi, Omnipotentis Xristi, CHristi, Wictoriam Deo, CHristo Domino, Xristo Omnipotenti RogaVI.
In the Name of Christ Our Lord, Christ Almighty, Christ, for victory to God, to Christ Our Lord, to Christ Almighty I prayed.
But I have my doubts about the same word being represented with two different initials (and not once), especially if we consider van Hasselt's evidence about XOX and DXO. In the Name of God, the Trinity and Christ, for victory to God, Christ and the Trinity I prayed: this sounds more symmetric and lapidary to me.
Help us decipher this inscription
In 2015 we blogged about the medieval sword then on loan to the British Library’s exhibition Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy. We have been thrilled by the huge number of suggestions we have received about it, from all corners of the globe. But all correspondence about the sword and its inscrip...
Or XOX & DXO refer to the Trinity, =trinitatis & trinitati.
Help us decipher this inscription
In 2015 we blogged about the medieval sword then on loan to the British Library’s exhibition Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy. We have been thrilled by the huge number of suggestions we have received about it, from all corners of the globe. But all correspondence about the sword and its inscrip...
Here my humble opinion.
Accepting van Hasselt's idea that XOX and DXO refer to the Holy Ghost, the inscription might read:
[In]
Nomine
Domini
XOX (=Spiritus Sancti)
CHristi,
Wictoriam
DomiNo
CHristo
DXO (=Spiritui Sancto)
RogaVI
I read the mysterious central "R" as an "N", different from the first one because it is not an initial. Another possibility: it is just a visual pun; in that case, both D's could be God, Dei & Deo. Letter "W" could have been used by mistake to represent the latin semivowel "u" or "v": the inscriber is a germanic-speaking person who uses "W" for the same sound in his every day life (might even have the word "win" in mind, common to english, dutch, german...).
Enrique Morales Lara, PhD in Classical Philology.
Help us decipher this inscription
In 2015 we blogged about the medieval sword then on loan to the British Library’s exhibition Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy. We have been thrilled by the huge number of suggestions we have received about it, from all corners of the globe. But all correspondence about the sword and its inscrip...
Enrique Morales is now following The Typepad Team
Aug 8, 2015
Subscribe to Enrique Morales’s Recent Activity