The Shepherd's Monument Code

May 17th, 2004

While recent Templar interest has been on Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, recent events have seen the attempts to crack a real life code at Shugsborough.

Shugborough in Staffordshire is the ancestral home of photographer Patrick Lichfield, but it is also the home of The Shepherd's Monument. This monument, based on the famous painting Shepherds of Arcadia by Nicholas Poussin, features an inscription at its base that has riddled people since its construction in 1748.

What is interesting is that the monument depicts a mirror image of Possin's painting. The reason for which has never been understood, but if the code breakers are successful, we may just understand not only the reversed image, but the meaning behind the letters, "D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M." found beneath the carving.

The National Codes Centre at Bletchley Park have been brought in to attempt to do what nobody has been able to do in 256 years. Bletchley Park were instrumental in cracking the enigma code during the Second World War, which enabled the Allies to launch the D-Day Invasion 60 years ago.

Initial response to the Shepherd's Monument code is that it is in either Latin or Greek.

The current owner's Great Grandmother believed the inscription to refer to an old poem about a shepherdess:

"Out of your own sweet vale Alicia vanish vanity twixt Deity and man, thou shepherdess the way."

Perhaps the riddle of the Shepherd's monument code is as simple as that or perhaps, as many hope, it offers the secrets as to the location of the Holy Grail.