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Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin ( Ancient Greek: Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν), meaning "Wash the sins, not only the face", [2] or "Wash my transgressions, not only my face", [3] is a Greek palindrome [fn 1] that is said to be first inscribed upon a holy water font outside the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: [4]
Origin
The phrase is attributed to the fourth-century Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. [3]
When the sentence is rendered in capital letters, as would be usual for an inscription (ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ), all the letters are vertically symmetrical except for the Ν. As a result, if the N is stylized Ͷ in the right half (ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟͶΑͶΟΨΙͶ). The sentence is not only a palindrome but also a mirror ambigram.
Examples
The inscription can also be found in the following places:
- above the Hagiasma ("Holy Spring") of the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae in Istanbul;
- around the baptismal font at St. Michael's Cathedral in Barbados;
- at the Vlatadon Monastery, Thessaloniki, Greece. [5]
- at a fountain inside the church Panagia Ekatontapiliani in Parikia on the island Paros, Greece
- the font of several churches in Paris, including: St. Stephen d’Egres, Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Paris, St. Martin des Champs, St. Pierre de Chaillot, and Basilica of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris;
- in several churches in Britain, including: St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, Tewkesbury Abbey (Gloucestershire), Worlingworth (Suffolk), Harlow (Essex), Knapton (Norfolk), St Martin, Ludgate (London), St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate (London), and Hadleigh (Suffolk);
See also
References
Footnotes
- ^ The romanization is not a palindrome because the Greek letter ψ ( psi) is transcribed by the digraph ps. The modern diacritics, which are not symmetrical, are usually omitted from inscriptions of the sentence.
Citations
- ^ "Παναγία Μαλεβή: Το Άγιο Όρος της Πελοποννήσου". Dinfo.gr (in Greek). Archived from the original on 2023-11-15. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
- ^ Blake, Barry J. (2010). Secret Language: Codes, Tricks, Spies, Thieves, and Symbols. Oxford: University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-19-957928-0.
- ^ a b Preminger, Alex; Brogan, Terry V.F.; Warnke, Frank J. (1993). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (3rd ed.). Princeton University Press. p. 874. ISBN 0-691-02123-6.
- ^ Langford-James, R. A Dictionary of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ayer. p. 61. ISBN 0-8337-5047-X.
- ^ "Wash the sins, not only the face". Flickr. 2012-07-20. Retrieved 2013-10-01.