Talk:Theban alphabet

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[edit] Comment 1

I changed "with origins lost to the flow of time" to "with unknown origins." There is a quote on the omniglot webpage (external link) that says "The origins of the Theban alphabet are lost in the mists of time." Come on, change the wording a little bit more so you don't flagrantly violate someone else's intellectual property rights.

I've removed the "word separator" that was included in the transliteration list. This is not a traditional way of separating words written in Theban. I suspect that the font used for the images is a font that I created a few years ago (here), which included a couple of "separators" for decorative purposes. If words are going to be separated with anything other than spaces, it is generally for the purpose of disguise, making the cipher that much harder to crack. In this case the separating characters are very similar in style to the alphabet letters. Fuzzypeg 12:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

In my defence, I wrote the article pretty much from scratch using the font itself and a few hand-written notes taken at various Agrippa talks, so that resemblance is purely co-incidence. --Veratien 21:17, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm very sorry, I believe my accusation was quite unjust, and I've retracted what I said. I shouldn't jump to conclusions like that. I guess the phrases just looked very similar. I'm gradually learning to be a bit less judgemental on Wikipedia. Please accept my apologies. Fuzzypeg 03:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A possible precursor alphabet: but I've lost the reference!

I was going to add in some information about an alchemical alphabet that I believe predates Agrippa, and bears a strong resemblance to Theban. This is it, as I copied it down (being quite careful with the shapes):

Image:Alchemical Script Anonymous 3.jpg

Unfortunately I've lost my record of where I found it. It may be in one of Nigel Pennick's books, or it may be in a rather large book of magical alphabets in my old university library (unfortunately in a different city, and I can't remember what the book was called). Can anyone help? Fuzzypeg 09:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Searching through Otago University's catalogue, I think I've found the title of the "rather large book of magical alphabets": Gettings, Fred (1981), Dictionary of occult, hermetic, and alchemical sigils, London; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, ISBN 0710000952.
The Pennick book, which I think is the most likely possibility, is: Pennick, Nigel (1992), Magical Alphabets, Weiser Books, ISBN 0877287473. Possibly even on page 177: An amazon.com "search inside" search revealed Fig. 48 as a likelihood, but it won't show me the page for some reason.
A third possibility I can think of (though unlikely) is Drucker, Johanna (1995), Alphabetic labyrinth : the letters in history and imagination, New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0500016089.
Thanks, Fuzzypeg 10:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Have you found back which book it was? Nyctophilia 09:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Finally tracked it down, at least another couple of steps: The Lure and Romance of Alchemy by C.J.S. Thompson. Page 130: "Secret alphabets and ciphers were employed for recording processes which were regarded as of special importance. Three of these alphabets, taken from manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, are here reproduced.". The following page has three alphabets, one being the one shown above. I might try to upload a better image. Of course the (inexact) dating of it would tend to suggest it is a derivative of Trithemius' script or another earlier script, not a precursor. Fuzzypeg☻ 05:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Theban isn't the only alaphabet we use

I edited the portion about Theban being *the* Witches' Alphabet, as we use several. Some use Malachim as well. Some create their own. Blessings, Morgana

Hi. I've changed the edit you just made: the Theban Alphabet is called "The Witches' Alphabet" as a proper name, and this shouldn't be taken as meaning that it's the only alphabet used by witches, or even that all witches use it. It's just a name. BB, Fuzzypeg☻ 06:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Hiya Morgana,
Whilst Theban is not the only Witches' alphabet, it is known as The Witches' Alphabet, as Fuzzypeg above has noted. --Veratien 13:28, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] First printing of theban alphabet

Heya. In fact, the first known (to my knowledge) document describing Theban alphabet wasn't in Agrippa's book (1531) but in Johannes Trithemius' book V of his Polygraphia (1518). He also credits it being from Honorius of Thebes (possibly legendary). You can found easily on Google PDFs and scans of the Polygraphia, both in latin (1518) and the french translation from 1651. 157.99.64.13 16:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)Ben

I've so far only managed to find scans of Polygraphia book VI. I've also found a webpage saying that Theban was attributed to Trithemius (and possibly to Peter de Abano), but this attribution has not yet found any supporting evidence. Can you point me to some scans? Thanks, Fuzzypeg☻ 04:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

There, I uploaded scans of Agrippa's Of Occult Philosophia (1538) and Trithemius' Polygraphia (1518). Agrippa cites Peter Apponus (Petrus d'Abano, etc) as his source for theban, while Trithemius cites just Honorius of Thebes.

Here are Agrippa scans, from the english translation (Ff3, pages 437-438, Book III) http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/7190/agrippa1yx6.jpg http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/7328/agrippa2jg4.jpg

Here is Trithemius scan, from the french translation of 1561 (page 184, Book V) http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1444/cesr48950404ym2.jpg (rough translation : "Another alphabet, by which Honorius, alias Thebanus, describes "occultly" his rules and ordonnances of magic")

I couldn't find the link today to the pdf, but I can send you via email. I have seen a scan from the latin edition of Polygraphia, in which the name of Petrus d'Abano is also cited while it has been removed in the french translation. So far from what I've found, all points to that guy, but I was yet unable to find pdf or books of his works.

Another thing to look into would be Steganographia by Trithemius (1499), which apparently contain ciphers and alphabets, it may have Theban.

(I have not edited the wikipedia article yet, I think it would be good to get as much information as available) 157.99.64.13 14:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)Ben (edit : registered at wiki Nyctophilia 16:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC))

Brilliant. I've changed the article to reflect this. I don't suppose you have any higher resolution scans? I'd be interested in making a Theban font based on Trithemius' letter-forms. I made several of the freeware magical cypher fonts that are floating around the internet — it's a bit of a hobby of mine... Fuzzypeg☻ 23:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to take a larger scan of that page (can't on this comp, it's on my laptop) and post it, but it probably won't be much better. It'll be there by tomorrow.

Also, here's from Trithemius' latin version of Polygraphia : http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9366/poly579cp6.jpg Which, as you see, contains explicit reference to Petrus d'Abano as well. "... dixit what Petrus de Apono testifies in his major book IV" I don't know to what book it refers, but it would be very interesting to check. As well as the Steganographia. I've had a chance to check Petrus d'Abano's Heptameron, but it contains no reference to Theban. I added some minor stuff to the page like links to Trithemius and Abano, plus dates of birth and death. Nyctophilia 08:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is a larger version of Theban from Polygraphia. http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/3364/polygraphbigthebannw2.jpg I also edited a bit the text, since in old latin, letters j, v, w simply didn't exist, hence the profusion of alchemical alphabets calqued from latin who appears to have no character for those letters and the same as i and u are used instead. Also, "W" as a letter was invented quite recently, old english texts always use 'vv' instead. Nyctophilia 09:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation

I removed this line from the page:

The Theban character set also contains an 'end of phrase' character, or full stop, with no other punctuation being specified either in Agrippa's original publication, nor any publications drawing on subsequent documents.

So how come this image (from the 1651 French version) lists an equivalent of the ampersand, and not the full stop character? --Ptcamn 00:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The (much later) equivalent alphabet is found in Francis Barrett's The Magus; you can view it here. This is where I believe most people have encountered the alphabet, or else in derivative works. This includes one non-alphabet character, different to the ampersand given by Trithemius; Barrett doesn't explain what it's for. Barrett's alphabets are copied from Agrippa of course. I don't have Agrippa in front of me, but I believe from memory that Agrippa labels this character with the Greek omega ( Ω ), presumably indicating end of sentence, or 'over-and-out'. It looks like the ampersand is an extra character that not many people are aware of. Fuzzypeg☻ 05:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)