Sator square

Duncan Fishwick, On the Origin of the Rotas-Sator Square, The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Jan., 1964), pp. 39-53

something strange happened here

SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS The SATOR Square - In this Magic Square the words read the same backwards and forwards, horizontally and vertically. It was used for protection and for overcoming dange…

A 16th century German 'oath skull' (a human skull on which defendants swore their oath in Vehmic courts) - engraved with the 'magical' Roman 'Sator square', mysterious palindromic word-squares found across the Roman world, comprising the words SATOR, AREPO, TENET, OPERA, ROTAS.

Sator Square at Oppède - Category:Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas - Wikimedia Commons

Found in the ruins of Pompeii, the Latin inscription SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS (“The sower Arepo holds the wheels with effort”) may be the most symmetrical sentence ever composed. If it’s written conventionally, it’s a palindrome, reading the same forward and backward. And if it’s written into a square: … it reads the same left to right, top to bottom, right to left, or bottom to top.

Sator Magic Square