Rosslyn Chapel Runes Cracked
For 600 years, historians, cryptologists, clergy and celts have visited Rosslyn Chapel in Edinburgh, Scotland to decipher the strange symbols on the chapel’s arches. They knew the architects were trying to tell them something, but no one could figure it out. The runes even figured prominently in Dan Brown’s Davinci Code novel.
It turns out that the code was a song. And the runes is the pattern produced when individual notes are played next to a drumhead covered with sand!
The musicians who decrypted the song will be performing a live concert of the music at the chapel next week.
From Reuters here:
A Scottish church which featured in the best-selling novel “The Da Vinci Code” has revealed another mystery hidden in secret code for almost 600 years.
A father and son who became fascinated by symbols carved into the chapel’s arches say they have deciphered a musical score encrypted in them. Thomas Mitchell, a 75-year-old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker, and his composer and pianist son Stuart, described the piece as “frozen music.”
The 15th Century Rosslyn Chapel, about seven miles south of the Scottish capital Edinburgh, featured in the last part of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” the bestselling novel that was turned into a Hollywood film.
Stuart Mitchell said he and his father were intrigued by 13 intricately carved angel musicians on the arches of the chapel and by 213 carved cubes depicting geometric-type patterns.
Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches. The two men matched each of the patterns on the carved cubes to a Chladni pitch, and were able finally to unlock the melody.
The Mitchells have called the piece The Rosslyn Motet and added words from a contemporary hymn to complete it.
Click here to hear part of the song.
Click the video below to see how this was figured out, including an obvious overlooked clue where an angel holds a musical staff and points to three keynotes in the song.
