Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos Over 600 tattoos from books, poetry, music, and other sources.

2Aug/095

Sator Square

satortat

This tattoo belongs to Mirabai Knight:

This is my Latin palindrome tattoo. It's not from any specific literary work; it's actually a piece of graffiti dating back at least 2,000 years. It's been found inscribed on walls and stones in cities all over Europe, from Herculaneum to Manchester. It literally translates to "The sower Arepo holds the wheels at work", and might have its origins in the worship of Mithras, Persian god of the sun, though not much is conclusively known. It's the only sentence in any language that can be arranged in a grid to read identically in four different directions.

You can read more about the Sator Square on Wikipedia.

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  1. If anything deserves to be tattooed, it's this. Congrats on your truly fantastic ink!

  2. I couldn't add anything else to what ophelia wrote.

    One of the best tattoos I've seen. It moves away from the latin cliches and it's very unusual!

    Aplause

  3. SPQR looks better…I’ve got it writ on my left buttock!

  4. My five year old word-nerd thinks this is pretty cool. So do I :)

  5. hey i was on this site the other day and remembered your post when i came across this:

    http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/05/18/7669/

    not quite so mystical/historical, but thought you'd like that!


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