MYS0D1M8XQA42K0·Mystery · object

The Shugborough inscription

The Shepherd's Monument stands in the park of Shugborough Hall, the Anson family's house in Staffordshire. Thomas Anson commissioned it between 1748 and 1756. Inside a rustic arch is a relief by Peter Scheemakers copying, in mirror image, Poussin's painting of shepherds reading the words ET IN ARCADIA EGO on a tomb. Below the relief is a stone tablet with eight capitals, O U O S V A V V, and below them, at either end and on a lower plane, D and M⁠[1]⁠[2].

D M stands for Dis Manibus, "to the spirits of the dead", on Roman tombs, which makes the tablet a funerary dedication in form. The eight letters are first recorded in 1817⁠[3]. They became widely known after 1982, when The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail tied Poussin's painting to the Priory of Sion, and in 2004 the estate ran a publicity exercise with two Bletchley Park veterans⁠[1]⁠[4]. No reading has been confirmed. Of the 3 questions on this site, 0 are answered. The most likely answer to “What do the letters OUOSVAVV stand for?”, not yet confirmed: they are the initials of a Latin funerary dedication to a named person, matching the D M frame.

Key questionsset by the editors

What do the letters OUOSVAVV stand for?Most likely: they are the initials of a Latin funerary dedication to a named person, matching the D M frame

All 3 questions

The object

The monument has two Doric columns carrying an entablature with carved heads, one of a smiling bald man and one horned, like Pan. The relief adds a sarcophagus on top of the tomb that is not in Poussin's painting⁠[1]. The letters are cut in a single line between the D and the M, which sit slightly lower. U and V are distinguished, as in English inscriptions of the period, so the cutter used U for a vowel and V for a consonant or a capital V⁠[3]. The monument has been Grade II* listed since 1953 and belongs to the National Trust, which treated it for damp in 2010⁠[2].

Shepherd's Monument and its inscribed tabletNaggie34 (English Wikipedia), 1748. Public domainArtifact

Map of the siteOpen the full map

Site plan Region

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Shepherd's Monument, ShugboroughMonument

Within 100 m

Shugborough Hall, StaffordshireEstate

Within 1 km

MappedWithin 1 kmBase map © OpenStreetMap contributors

Timeline

Timeline

Squeezed where little happened. Each mark is a published claim, by how it stands:AcceptedMost likelyStill possibleDisputedRuled out

What is known

First page of Clifford's history of Tixall (1817), with the first printed record of the letters — Clifford's history of Tixall (1817), with the first printed record of the lettersThomas and Arthur Clifford; scan by the University of Toronto Libraries, 1817. Public domainArtifact

There is no record in the Anson papers of who designed the monument or what the letters mean⁠[3]. The relief can be dated to about 1748 to 1750, since a poem of 1750 by Sneyd Davies seems to describe it, but the letters are not mentioned before 1817; that they existed by Thomas Anson's death in 1773 rests on a family story⁠[3]. The 1817 date matters, because one reading takes them to be 19th-century additions⁠[5].

What has been tested

Little has been tested in the strict sense. The 2004 Bletchley Park exercise, in which Oliver and Sheila Lawn reviewed proposed readings, ended without a conclusion⁠[4]⁠[6]. Proposed readings have instead been tested against Latin grammar and epigraphic practice: the classicist Duncan Fishwick argued that Stonor's expansion is ungrammatical and that Latin abbreviations cannot be expanded at will⁠[7], and Jack Mitchell tested the leading Latin readings against the Anson family's circumstances⁠[3]. The estate said in 2014 that it heard from five or six people a week who believed they had solved it⁠[1].

The readings

Latin initialisms. Oliver Stonor (1951) proposed Optimae Uxoris Optimae Sororis Viduus Amantissimus Vovit Virtutibus, "a most loving widower dedicates this to the virtues of the best of wives and sisters"; Sheila Lawn favoured it, but the grammar fails and no Anson widower fits the date⁠[1]⁠[7]⁠[3]. Keith Massey proposed Oro Ut Omnes Sequantur Viam Ad Veram Vitam, "I pray that all may follow the way to true life", which is grammatical but sits oddly under a pagan D M⁠[1]⁠[3]. Mitchell proposed Optimae Uxoris Optimi Sodalis Viri Annae Venables-Vernon, a memorial to Anne Venables-Vernon (d. 1742), wife of George Venables-Vernon, a neighbour and fellow member for Lichfield; he concedes that a friendship between the two men is assumed, not proven⁠[3].

English initialisms and local names. A. J. Morton read the letters as Orgreave United with Overley and Shugborough, Viscount Anson Venables Vernon, a 19th-century addition; the Countess of Lichfield's reading drew on a poem that has never been traced⁠[5]⁠[1].

Ciphers. Proposals that the letters are a polyalphabetic cipher for "Magdalen", or that they encode the latitude and longitude of Admiral Anson's buried treasure, come from self-published books and give no way to test them⁠[1].

Published claims

Published claims and their status

Year	Who	Claimed	Status	Reason
1951	Oliver Stonor⁠[3]	The letters stand for Optimae Uxoris Optimae Sororis Viduus Amantissimus Vovit Virtutibus: a most loving widower dedicates this to the virtues of the best of wives and sisters.	Disputed	Sheila Lawn of Bletchley Park favoured it in 2004⁠[1], but the Latin is faulty and no Anson widower fits the date⁠[7]⁠[3].
1983	Margaret, Countess of Lichfield⁠[3]	The letters stand for the English line Out Your Own Sweet Vale, Alicia, Vanishes Vanity.	Disputed	It rests on a poem that has never been traced, and Mitchell likens her method to divination⁠[1]⁠[3].
2011	A. J. Morton⁠[5]	The letters are early nineteenth-century graffiti by later residents of Shugborough, the initials of local places and families.	Still possible	The letters are first recorded only in 1817, which allows a late date, but the way the letters are shared out among the names looks arbitrary⁠[3].
2012	Duncan Fishwick⁠[7]	Stonor's expansion is ungrammatical, and Latin abbreviations cannot be expanded at will; a reading must follow the epigraphic practice of the time.	Most likely	Later work applies the same tests to every Latin reading⁠[3], though they rank readings rather than prove one.
2014	Keith Massey⁠[3]	The letters stand for Oro Ut Omnes Sequantur Viam Ad Veram Vitam: I pray that all may follow the way to true life.	Still possible	Grammatical, but a Christian prayer sits oddly under the pagan D M, and Ad should be In⁠[3].
2014	Dave Ramsden⁠[8]	The letters are a polyalphabetic cipher that spells the name Magdalen.	Disputed	Self-published, with no test that could fail, and not taken up by scholars⁠[1].
2022	Jack Mitchell⁠[3]	The letters stand for Optimae Uxoris Optimi Sodalis Viri Annae Venables-Vernon, a memorial to Anne Venables-Vernon (d. 1742), wife of a neighbour of Thomas Anson.	Still possible	Grammatical and fits a person known to the Ansons' circle, but the friendship it needs is assumed, and Mitchell concedes it cannot be proven from the stone⁠[3].

What would settle it

A document from the Anson family or their circle that names the dedicatee or quotes the expanded wording would settle it. Short of that, a reading has to meet four tests to be worth taking seriously: grammatical Latin (or plain English) in which every letter is the start of one word; abbreviations that follow 18th-century epigraphic practice; a dedicatee or sense consistent with D M on a funerary tablet; and a person or event known to the Ansons at the right date. Several readings pass the first two; none yet passes the last with a document. Dating the cutting of the letters, by tool marks or by finding them in an account before 1817, would also narrow the candidates.