The meaning of a 250-year-old cryptic inscription etched on a garden monument remains a mystery today despite initial efforts to solve the riddle by Second World War code-breakers from Bletchley Park.
Past and present experts from the Buckinghamshire centre gathered at the Shepherd’s Monument in rural Staffordshire after being invited to visit the site as part of attempts to decipher the letters, rumoured to point the way to the Holy Grail.
The marble slab, depicting a mirror image of a painting by Nicholas Poussin, with the letters D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M. etched beneath, was constructed circa 1748.
'Fraid we can't find a decent rendering of the monument or the inscription. The closest we could come is from this page:
">Iron Age tool marks move to steel
A tiny Iron Age tool found in Holland is one of the oldest objects unearthed in Europe made from the alloy steel.
The 6cm-long punch has a carbon content (2%) rarely seen in iron-based objects from the region at the time.
The 4th Century AD tool, which may have been used as a nail, was probably made using the process of furnace smelting.
The discovery, which occurred at the site of Heeten, is reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science by Matthijs van Nie and Evelyne Godfrey.
"We think it is the earliest ultra-high carbon steel from Europe," Godfrey, of the University of Bradford, UK, told BBC News Online.
Medieval mansion uncovered on Old Town building site
THE remains of a medieval "mansion" have been uncovered on a building site in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
Archaeologists carrying out an extensive excavation of the site beside Old Fishmarket Close have unearthed the well-preserved ground-floor remnants of the house.
It is thought the half-metre tall wall and foundations date back to the 15th century, when the Cowgate was home to some of Edinburgh’s wealthiest inhabitants, including judges and aristocrats.