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mortality
Uh...which one?

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:21 pm
surfzoned
FC

I've been busy applying "letter frequency analysis" to the cipher. On lunch break right now working on it. I should be closed to finished with it very soon.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:20 pm
petunia
Okay, so far I count 32 different characters (not counting the column of circles & slashes on the right side). Some show up many times, a few show up only once, some are rotated versions of others, and some only show up in one orientation.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:55 pm
WolfHawk
mortality wrote:
Imagine you're writing on lined paper. A "dropped" letter, like q or g, extends beneath the line. A "raised" letter, like h or d, stays above the line and extends upward.

Thank You. I was thinking of raised letters as in braille or old typewriter keys and dropped letters as in inscribed on a tablet. Now it's making more sense.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:35 pm
mortality
Imagine you're writing on lined paper. A "dropped" letter, like q or g, extends beneath the line. A "raised" letter, like h or d, stays above the line and extends upward.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:28 pm
petunia
I agree, some do look Phoenician.

I looked for stuff on the Hawthorne Group, Shannon, and the Scarpelli "Black Library" back when I first got into this because they sounded intriguing, but I couldn't find anything. There's at least two RL, OOG Hawthorne Groups that appear unrelated to this.

The circles & slashes on the right side of the new document remind me of something my work computer does when it's booting up... while still in DOS mode, it does this thing to indicate that it's working on something, since it doesn't have an hourglass icon or whatever. What it does is show a succession of straight-line characters (like -, /, |, \) one by one, but in the same spot so it kind of looks like a line that is rotating. (Wow, that's a really long explanation for something that would be really easy to show you, if I just knew how. Embarassed ) Anyway, it may be something everybody's familiar with, but this is the first comp I've ever seen it on. Basically it goes like this:

|
/
-
\
|
/
-
\
|

Like a hand on a clock. If you were to think of the filled circles on our doc as "|"s and the open circles as "-"s, then the sequence on the document would give us one full revolution.

So I was thinking maybe that might be a clue as to the orientation of these characters. OTOH, I see for example letters than look like an A, and an upside-down A, and an A pointing to the left; but none pointing to the right. So, I dunno.

If I have time I'll try to sort these letters into recognizable Greek, Phoenician and "other".

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:27 pm
WolfHawk
Re: In reply

petunia wrote:
Random thought: Could the painter's tape itself be a clue somehow? Confused

WolfHawk wrote:
surfzoned wrote:
Using the rule set I wrote above the sample text "I want a big banana."
when enciphered would become "X#xx-xxXxx, Xxxxxx."

I'm sorry, I still don't see how one makes the other.


I don't either, I'm afraid. The section between the # and the , has me totally confused. Let me make sure I understand the rule set:
capital letters = X#
small letters that aren't raised or dropped = x
raised letters (ex. t, b) = X
dropped letters (ex. g) = ,
two consonants together (ex. nt) = x-x or x-X

So wouldn't "I want a big banana." become: (I'll put in spaces so it's clearer where the word breaks are):
X# xxx-X x Xx, Xxxxxx.

What is "raised" and "dropped?"

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:21 pm
mortality
Some of them look like Phoenician characters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet

And no, I don't think we can be certain that the characters were written in their proper orientation.

Reply from Ethan
Quote:
Dear Mort,

The Scarpelli were a minor aristo family who came to notice at around the time of the Medici. I believe they were regional in their influence and did not play heavily in the state or continental politics of the time. Their one claim to fame is that they amassed a sizable, and very well-preserved, library. A couple documents from the late 18th century mention the family's library and make reference to a large section of it devoted to very rare, and in some cases unique, books on various esoteric subjects. It was around this time that the library began being referred to as the "Black Library" in certain circles.

The Scarpelli line was almost completely wiped out during WWII when the family estate outside of Brescia was destroyed, killing all of the Scarpelli direct descendants except for young Roberto Scarpelli, who had been sent to America to stay with distant relatives.

The family's wealth had been deposited elsewhere during the war and when Roberto reached maturity he put most of it into the creation of the Scarpelli Family Trust; a philanthropic organization whose primary mission is to increase literacy worldwide. As far as I know, the library has only been in the care of the family until it was turned over to Hawthorne.
The Hawthorne Group is a fairly small NPO devoted to the preservation of ancient books and making their contents available to the public.

Best Regards,

Ethan Grant
Associate Researcher
The Whitechapel Foundation

ethanSPLATwhitechapelfoundation.org
www.whitechapelfoundation.org

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:59 pm
THESB
I've looked through tons of greek and mathmatical symbols but they don't all seem to be represented here. Many of the lines begin with the same symbol, so it seems unlikely that the symbols uniformly represent letters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_mathematical_symbols


-Just as an idea, here are the number of lines in each symbol (counting rounded lines as a single line) I'm not sure how to count the dots, so they're listed as periods. This may not be helpful at all, but sometimes it helps to look at something in a different way.

3322.132244
3322.3..233.
3322.32422342422224233223

2223.4.32331222233322

22222.1323233.112331
3.322333224232

223343243322432332.
43323332332433223.3

2232.22432123313233.242242233
2222322323232222333

2332223233.32323.243..223

23333321233133222222132
2232323.42332

223221243223333422333323242
3(dot)22322223323222432222133
133343242

(along right side) .111.111.

------------------------------------

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:08 pm
mortality
Emailed for background info on OC0702
Just so's we don't duplicate

Quote:
Hey Ethan,
You mentioned that the new case was found in a book that's part of a library in the Hawthorne Group's care. Can you provide us any more information about the Hawthorne Group or the Scarpelli Library and its previous owners?

Thanks,
Mort


From my digging:
Quote:
This Italian surname of SCARPELLI is a nickname which was applied to a poor man or for a miser. The name was derived from the Old Italian word SCARSO (scarce, scant) and rendered in ancient documents in the Latin form EXCARPSUS. [...] Other spellings of the name include SCORSESE, SCORSI, SCARSI, SCARSO, SCARSELLO, SCARSELLI and SCARSINI. Despite evidence that hereditary surnames were in use in the Venetian Republic as early as the 10th Century, the origin of many Italian surnames is unclear. There is still a great potential for research into medieval Italian records while documented evidence indicates the adoption of the father's name as a surname is the most common form. The familiar endings of "i" and "o", meaning to be a member of a certain family, bears this out. A notable member of the name is Martin SCORSESE [...]


Most of the hits for Scarpellis turn out to be 20th century actors and writers.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:52 am
surfzoned
too little sleep

Are we sure that the orientation of the symbols is correct?

<--Clerk

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:44 am
noam
Just some image analysis so far on OC-0702. The angle made from the horizontal is about 30 degrees. this would mean that the angle between the two red lines is 60 degrees. There are two semicircles in the drawing as well. Could this, if this case is related to the first one, be an indication of something to do with the Simson Line?

I was originally going to say that the small black dots in the cipher are spaces, but I don't think that's the case. Some of these symbols are greek, (I see delta, Theta, something that looks like Xi, Zeta, and others), but some look cyrillic or mathematical.

The author of Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae (Amphitheater of Eternal Wisdom) was Heinrich Khunrath. It's about alchemy. If you want to read the whole text, it's here.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:07 am
petunia
Yay! I forgot to ask though: Who is "Clerk"? He commented on Ethan's blog yesterday.

OC0702: Looks like Greek to me. Badumbum. ARG

PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:44 pm
Sylvia
new open case: OC 0702

Just got email from Ethan: New open case OC0702

http://whitechapelfoundation.org/opencases/
oc0702_pagewangle.jpg
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 Filesize   610.41KB
 Viewed   90 Time(s)

oc0702_pagewangle.jpg


PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:28 pm
petunia
Re: In reply

Random thought: Could the painter's tape itself be a clue somehow? Confused

WolfHawk wrote:
surfzoned wrote:
Using the rule set I wrote above the sample text "I want a big banana."
when enciphered would become "X#xx-xxXxx, Xxxxxx."

I'm sorry, I still don't see how one makes the other.


I don't either, I'm afraid. The section between the # and the , has me totally confused. Let me make sure I understand the rule set:
capital letters = X#
small letters that aren't raised or dropped = x
raised letters (ex. t, b) = X
dropped letters (ex. g) = ,
two consonants together (ex. nt) = x-x or x-X

So wouldn't "I want a big banana." become: (I'll put in spaces so it's clearer where the word breaks are):
X# xxx-X x Xx, Xxxxxx.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:22 pm
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