page_title: Shugborough inscription
section_title: Monument
hierarchical_section_title: Shugborough inscription / Monument
caption_attribution_description: Shugborough Shepherds Monument
context_page_description: The Shugborough Inscription is a sequence of letters – O U O S V A V V, between the letters D M – carved on the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in the grounds of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England, below a mirror image of Nicolas Poussin's painting the Shepherds of Arcadia. It has never been satisfactorily explained, and has been called one of the world's top uncracked ciphertexts.
  In 1982, the authors of the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail suggested that Poussin was a member of the Priory of Sion, and that his Shepherds of Arcadia contained hidden meanings of great esoteric significance. The book makes a passing reference to the Shepherd's monument and the inscription, but offers no solution. In 2003 Dan Brown copied many elements of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in his bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, but made no mention of the Shugborough inscription. However, the book led to renewed interest in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. In 2004 Richard Kemp, the then general manager of the Shugborough Estate, launched a promotional campaign with the Bletchley Park Museum and two former Bletchley Park Employees - Shiela Lawn and Oliver Lawn.
context_section_description: The monument, commissioned by Thomas Anson, was built sometime between 1748 and 1756. The outer form of the monument is a portico featuring two doric columns. These support an entablature decorated by a frieze comprising three metopes depicting laurel wreaths, and two containing carvings of stone heads. One head shows a smiling bald-headed man; the other bears a likeness to the goat-horned Greek god Pan. The entablature is topped with an antefix using an anthemion design. 
  Inside the portico is a rusticated arch, which frames a relief fashioned by the Flemish sculptor Peter Scheemakers. The relief is a copy of the Poussin painting Et in arcadia ego and shows a woman and three men, two of whom are pointing to a tomb. On the tomb is carved the Latin text Et in arcadia ego ("I am also in Arcadia" or "I am, even in Arcadia"). The carving displays a number of small alterations from the original painting, including the addition of an extra sarcophagus placed on top of the main tomb. Below the relief is a stone plaque displaying a ten-letter inscription. The inscription is broken into two lines. There are eight letters on the first line, and two below on the second line, placed at either end of the letters on the first line. The letters on the second line, D M, were commonly used on Roman tombs to stand for Dis Manibus, meaning "dedicated to the shades".
caption: The Shepherds Monument, enclosed in its rustic arch
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