Arcadia Discussion Zone

I've decided to open a new thread on the coded parchment (note the singular!). This is mainly in response to Mariano's reply to a post of mine - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3753&start=25

I'll now briefly reply to the points he made in his analysis of what I believe was originally a double-sided parchment.

“Probably when the author chose the CT GIT stone and he found only 119 letters, he had to find 9 additional letters - and he used the REDDIS stone - in order to get 128 letters“.

Let's assume that this was exactly the impression what the creator/s wanted. The two sources make it look as if the CT GIT stone was not composed with a code in mind, and that the coded text was adapted to what was available.

“Moreover, we have no documentary proof of the existence of REDDIS stone except for recent pictures in some way linked to "treasure hunters", and no one has ever seen it (the oldest text with the PS PRAECUM letters is the report attributed to Ernest Cros, which deals with the 1959 events)”.

True, but even so it’s far more likely that the REDDIS stone did exist (but lacked the PS PRAE-CUM devices), and that the CT GIT stone never did. (In 1709, the Abbè Delmas recorded this stone on a document acquired by the Marquis de Chefdebien, that passed Dr Courrent, and after his death was acquired by Pierre Plantard).

“Probably the author of this parchment is the same one who created the first picture of the stone - possibly on the basis of older material - needing it to get 128 letters and giving its reproduction for the first on the booklet by Madeleine Blancasall”.

Yes, I’m almost certain of this, but the 128-letter text had already been created. The Blancasall reproduction was based on an earlier one that came into Pierre Plantard’s possession.

“The CT GIT stone has a more solid history, having been reported by a team of archaeologists from the Société d'études scientifique de l'Aude (SESA)”.

But it hasn’t! It’s history is actually more elusive than that of the REDDIS stone. The Tisseyre article is not at all what it seems. The outing of 24 June 1905 (indeed, if it ever took place) certainly didn’t see the CT GIT stone for such a stone has never existed.

“The CT GIT stone epitaph was written in 1781, and it is a typical mortuary text; the BERGERE message shows all the typical properties of an anagram“.

The CT GIT text wasn’t written in 1781, but in 1900-1905. True, it's a typical mortuary text of the 18th century, but with orthographic anomalies (rather too many). The BERGERE message is intended to look like a typical anagram, because it has to conform with the constraints required by a complex numerical system (I’ll have more to say on this).

PAX DCLXXXI, which clearly seem to be used in order to "recycle" the great number of Roman numerals in the CT GIT stone.

No, this is necessary in order to conform with numerical requirements.

Pierre Plantard was aware of the possibility, suggested by Euler, of changing the starting square. According to Jean-Luc Chaumeil (6), Pierre Plantard presented a shifted version of the correct (and cyclic) Knight's Tour in his Rennes-le-Château conference at Corbu's Hotel de la Tour on juin 6th, 1964.

Yes, he was, because this information was included in the documents he had acquired. I have no idea about Pierre Plantard's presentation, but if true, it proves or disproves nothing.

Probably the author obtained the text from a book published in Oxford in 1889: the Novum Testamentum Latine Secundum Editionem Sancti Hieronymi by bishop John Wordsworth and Professor Henry Julian White (download). The hypothesis was suggested for the first time by Bill Putnam and John Edwin Wood (12).

Why would they choose a book published in Oxford, when a better candidate had been published in Paris? Even before they Putnam & Wood's book I realised the text was obtained from an edition of the Biblia Sacra, published in Paris in the late 19th century by Letouzey and Ané (I can confirm the date later) - who also published Vigouroux's Dictionnaire de la Bible in 1895 - from which the shorter text was derived. This was only a few years after Saunière stayed at Ané's, one of whose daughters was married to Letouzey. Like the Wordsworth and White version the textual differences
are very minor. Significantly, it was Robert Estienne (of Gaillon) who published the first edition, and Poussin designed the occult frontispiece.

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/ps ... ussin.html

I have several unpublished articles on this subject -

Serious errors in the Bergère cipher - this compares several versions:Circuit, Pierre et Papier, Franck Marie, Lincoln (two).
De Chérisey’s deliberate cipher text errors
The stele and the cipher - hidden relationships.
A further cipher decryption - Féral 1982, deliberate errors
De Chérisey’s 101-letter cipher text
Squares in the ciphertext

To these I'll later be comparing the analyses of Ted Cranshaw and Mariano Tomatis. I also have unpublished material concerning the Codex Bezae connection.

Irmine has obviously done his/her homework,
I agree that this is a great way forward. My approach is based on ground work and I have unpublished work. I have found Tim Axon's working on the cipher to be sound but to date there is nothing forthcoming as to the author of the cipher text. It seems to have certainly predated the Plantard era. The text works from a practical standpoint and I have walked the route and filmed along the way. Plenty of stone but not the paper.

Or in this case, plenty of paper but no headstone.
Regards
Nic

Bulldonic commented;
Actually a very very old stone head-shaped but unfortunately split in half looking like it was from back to the Visi era! But it has been replaced by a later marker stones at the same location from 2 later eras so it would not disappear.

Bill, you must surely mean the head that's now at Galamus.

No, this is a different place and is not the starting point for the bergere trail. I located this site by straight calculation based on three other points all clearly defined. I found that it had been clearly marked out over a twenty metre area.
I have had to delay publication as there is a lot going including the design work BS did on the RLC Church.

I see, so this must be another stone head split into two, not the one found by Boudet in December 1884, and mentioned in LVLC (the one identified in 'Stüblein' as representing St Dagobert).

Any discussion about the Bergère... text must take into account the SESA article attributed to Elie Tisseyre published in 1906. Entitled Excursion à Rennes-les-Bains, far too much faith has been put in it. Too many researchers have based the coded text on the alleged stele inscription of Marie de Nègre, as shown in that article. They assume incorrectly that the 128-letter text is derived from this 119-letter inscription, along with 9 additional letters derived from Marie de Nègre’s alleged dalle inscription, as depicted in a work attributed to Eugène Stüblein, Pierres Gravées du Languedoc. The latter work has long been suspected of being a piece of Prieuré ‘intoxication’, the original having never been found, and the only example existing being part of the Prieuré document by Antoine L’Ermite (a member of the Liège group, also known as the ‘Marquis de B.’).

I’ll now try to prove that the Tisseyre article is also a piece of disinformation (it also has an occult meaning - as does L’Ermite’s, but I won't cover this here). For an article produced under the name of a scholarly society this one is written in a chatty, rather trivial way and also contains the following bizarre errors:

1. Although the title claims the outing took place on 25 June 1905, the text gives the date as 24 June, i.e. significantly the Feast of John the Baptist (old Midsummer).
2. The route taken from Couiza railway station passing the château of the Joyeuse family, didn’t exist in 1905.
3. It gives the date of RLC church as 1740. This date has no significance and the stone at the entrance is inscribed 1646.
4. The ‘tower of recent construction’ could only be the Tour Magdala, which was incomplete in 1905, and had no staircase, yet the party claim to have viewed the surrounding countryside from the top.
5. From the tower they could see Couiza and the ruined castle at Coustaussa, neither of which are visible from here.
6. Described as ‘very crudely engraved’ and broken in the middle, the illustration shows an unbroken stone with a very clear inscription.
7. The article speaks of a dalle, not a stele.
8. The measurements given are very different to those of the ‘effaced’ broken stone that exists today at RLC.

Suspiciously, no examples of Volume XVII of the SESA Bulletin appear to exist, however this particular article was also published as a separate booklet by Victor Bonnafous, who also published LVLC for Abbé Boudet (despite it retaining the Pomiès printer's name). We must ourselves ask why. Gérard Jean, SESA archivist, claimed that later in 1905, a member from Carcassonne collected the stone (from the ossuary) and took it back. In the 1980s his heirs donated it to the Musée Lapidaire in Carcassonne, who showed no interest. It remains in the family today, and is supposed to look like the one shown by Tisseyre, except that it is broken in two. (If true, the stone must have been engraved in around 1900, but I doubt this). Antoine Captier has written to the present owner in the hope of having it returned.

Once this SESA article was published it was essential to make the true stone disappear to prevent any comparisons being made. In the archives at Carcassonne there is a transcript of the text from the original stone, and none of the anomalies are present. (It doesn’t only relate to Marie. I have this text, and will try to find it).

Elie Tisseyre was a friend of Abbé Boudet, and it’s almost certain that Boudet (working with Jourde and Vannier) is behind this article. The Bergère... text was therefore not adapted from a pre-existing gravestone text, but the two were created at the same time (between 1900 & 1906). This means that the revised dalle text (as in Stüblein) probably dates from the same period, for the 9-letters PRAE CUM are necessary.

The errors are deliberate and intended to draw attention to the essentially occult nature of the article, which I believe relates to the original ‘Coume Sourde’ stone - the one recently rediscovered by the Catalan group.

The excursion had never taken place. The inscription had never existed. The Bergère... text cannot have been composed in the latter half of the 20th century. Saunière did not pass his nights engraving or effacing any stones, but one was removed (in Feb 1895 Dominique-Olivier d’Hautpoul complained to the mayor over the removal of his family‘s gravestone - to the ossuary). The article’s aim was to discreetly introduce information relating to the new coded parchments and this necessitated the invention of the inscription. It was no accident that Saunière’s domain was completed in the same year - 1906. The interior church decoration was completed in 1897, and the tomb at Les Pontils rebuilt on its old foundations in 1903. By 1906, everything was in place to draw the attention of a select group to Rennes-le-Château.

No, Unfortunately this stone was rather friable and was head shaped but very weathered and when I was moving it from off a square-shaped flat stone with some useful markings on it split in two. Perhaps it was similar to the one you mention. Anyway, both halves are still there and I had planned to bring some glue to stick them together next time.
Added Note:
On the back cover of 'Journal of the Rennes Alchemist' Feb 2005 is a picture of The Sandstone Maiden head which was also rather degradeable stone.
On page 4 of that issue is the Tim Axon article 'The Shepherdess Cipher: In Search of a Solution'
(Copy right Jan 2005).
By the way this bergere trail is not the same one as the 'Thesaurus Regalis' site described in the bottle message from Sauniere. But Sauniere knew about this one as well as did Poussin and seems to be more important.

Irmine mentions the following..
When I stayed at the Chateau Joyeuse in Couiza it looked as though it had been there for many years with its great stone staircase so I am surprised that it was not there in 1905. But obviously if the research is correct it could well be so.

I assumed it was the road that was being discussed here....muster up the old brain cells and read it again.



and therein lies the problem.

That's the point: That person who wrote that article obviously has never been to RLC.

Irmine states,
.
Certainly at Couiza the 17th Century Chateau des Ducs de Joyeuse existed in 1905 and the Quillan map does not show any contours that would prevent line of sight problems nor do any photos of the area indicate any problems. It may not have to be the Tour Magdala but just mentions a tower in the text. So I can't go along with the logic on this basis alone. With the RLC issues there is so much that needs sifted and tested. It is always a headache especially if it is a stone one.

Anyone who's visited the Chateau des Ducs de Joyeuse will testify that it looks far older than 20th century origin.

Heavens...can't people read anymore..

The route taken from Couiza railway station (passing the château of the Joyeuse family), didn’t exist in 1905.

......is that easier for you all to understand.

Thanks Sheila. I thought it was clear enough, but maybe those brackets will help!

The present building dates from around 1640.

Exactly. The text CI GIT is the text you expect on a tombstone. The BERGERE text shows the typical anagram problems: not fluent, a mix of terms without connectors, etc.



Not in the well known text by Abbé Delmas, "Antiquités des Bains de Monferran, communement appelés les Bains de Rennes", Société des Antiquaires de France, 1709 (Archives départementales de l'Aude, cote 2 J 46).
So where?



If you go to Carcassonne and ask the SESA, they show you the original 1906 article with the stone printed on it.
There is no doubt about it.



?! As all the texts engraved on tombstones of the XVIII century, it was almost certainly created an engraved in 1781. And it first appeared in print in 1906.

irmine wrote:

I still haven't found any documentary evidence of any "acquirement" of documents by Plantard.
Where did you find it?

I see a deeper problem in our conversation: if we don't agree on the nature of the items (i.e. documents vs. artifacts/props designed explicitely for the game) involved in the analysis, I don't think we'll ever find a common point of view. I trust SESA's Bulletin, I don't trust a Delmas document not available anywhere.

Rather than address all your points, Mariano, I only really need to address the SESA Bulletin comment. I'm not at all saying the Bulletin doesn't exist. Of course it does; this is well attested. What I am saying is that the CT GIT stone never existed, and the excursion probably never took place either. The original inscription (and the only one) has been recorded and exists in the archives at Carcassonne.

As for the Delmas material, long ago I studied the one you speak of looking for this reference, and I agree entirely that it's not mentioned here. I have a copy and I have no problem with this. It is the itinerary related in the Tisseyre article that is just as important as the CT GIT inscription. The many basic errors made by 'Tisseyre' are no accident, and are intended to draw our attention to the true (occult) purpose of this work. As with many seemingly innocuous works, one must look for apparent careless errors, odd language, trivialities, layout, numbers, etc. These can all be signs of occult intent, and they have been used in obituaries, short articles, pious booklets, etc.... I'll have more to say on this and the Tisseyre article in the future.

On what basis do you trust the SESA article (especially knowing that it is littered with errors)?

I have a bit more time now, so I'll make a fuller reply.



As I said: It was the impression its creators wanted. They succeeded.



No, not there - but he does mention the tomb of Pompeius in that text. However, I can say that a 'cemetery' is clearly marked at Les Pontils on the 1815 cadastre, so we do have an early link with tombs there. The tiny hamlet of Les Pontils never warranted its own cemetery, being within a larger parish. Before the Revolution the land at Les Pontils belonged to the Joyeuse family of Couiza and Arques.



Maybe they've found it again. I'm not denying that it once existed, either. We need to ask why would Boudet's publisher (Victor Bonnafous) publish this rather amateurish and inaccurate article as a separate booklet? Can anyone explain this?



I can see no reason to believe that the CT GIT text existed anywhere before 1900. A copy of the original 18c stele was found in the Carcassonne archives, and it bears no errors. There's no reason to suspect this is a fake.



True. I once put my faith in the Tisseyre article, but in the light of new discoveries, I cannot any longer. This article was part of a plan which began before 1880, and this and its related elements were the last phase, beginning in 1898 and ending in 1906/7 . This phase included: the Stüblein work (with signatures by Emile Stüblein, brother of Eugène and a teacher in Alet, member of SESA, friend of Julien Sacaze), the Tisseyre article, the original Serpent Rouge, the 'cryptogram', the revised double-sided parchment, the Bergère... text, the Coume Sourde fake, etc. All of these are "artifacts/props designed explicitly for the game".

You say: "I trust SESA's Bulletin, I don't trust a Delmas document not available anywhere." I fully understand why you don't trust the Delmas document. (But as it related to secrets we can't expect it to have been published). However, putting your trust in a SESA article, littered with factual errors (more than in my list), is foolish. Like you, I once naively assumed a scholarly society such as SESA could be trusted, simply because of who they were! I'm not asking anyone to believe in a non-accessible document, but to have an open mind, and to be very suspicious of Tisseyre - for very good reasons. As well as the CT GIT illustration, we must examine the route taken on this imaginary excursion, and also ask ourselves why the only two illustrations relate to engraved stones.

We do agree on the nature of the items, i.e. two inscriptions supposedly taken from gravestones, which are used to create an encrypted text. Of that we can be certain.

A question for latin experts. Evidently the latin text of the parchment allegedly discovered by Sauniere had some mistakes which indicated the text was authored by somebody not very good with latin. Also, it seems the latin text on the Bas-relief of Mary Magdalene (now destroyed) had mistakes as well. Are the mistakes on both of these items similar in nature? Could the same person, making the same type of mistakes have authored both of these texts?---Bill


sorry, I lied, thats two questions

Hi Wayward,

I will pass your question on to a philologist i know, who reads Latin and manuscripts.

Will get back to you.

Thanks Sandy, Not knowing much, about latin (oops, I mean,"nothing"), I wouldn't know a mistake if it bit me. It seems as if the parchment in question may have been composed in Sauniere's time, and perhaps by Sauniere himself with a little help from his friends. I'm thinking that maybe Berenger skipped classes some during the latin segment.

Irmine had made the comment that Tisseyre and Boudet were friends, if he happens to read this I would like him to expound on that statement.

Thanks Sheila, That was written in 05, but still interesting. I love this quote "perhaps before long everthing will be clarified by Chaumeil." Do you happen to know what the mistakes (if any), were in the latin on the bas-relief of Mary Magdalene?

What elements have changed since 2005?