The Shepherd's Monument
The Shepherd's Monument has been internationally well-known since 1982, when the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail drew attention to the mysterious Shugborough inscription. Carved by an unknown 18th-century craftsman, this has been called one of the world's top uncracked ciphertexts. Theories have abounded, including some which suggest it may indicate the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, an idea fuelled by the Anson family's ancestral ties to the Knights Templar.
In January 2011 the British press revealed that A. J. Morton had solved the code. The letters O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V. & D.M., the Times explained, were probably created for, by, or in memorial of, Viscount Anson and his wife Mary Vernon-Venables.
In recent years, codebreakers from the National Codes Center at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire have tried unsuccessfully to decipher it. Before them, it is said that Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens also tried, and similarly failed.
Numerous explanations have been put forward, linking the code to the Priory of Sion, the Holy Grail and UFO's.
One more modest and romantic theory is that the inscription is a secret message between two lovers.
Read more about this topic: Shugborough Hall
Famous quotes containing the words shepherd and/or monument:
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)