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The Secrets of Codes: Understanding the World of Hidden Messages
Filled with lavish illustrations and hundreds of full-color photographs, this all-in-one family reference provides hours of fun and entertainment for any reader. Narrated in a unique, compelling way, The Secrets of Codes offers a comprehensive survey of international codes, explaining how the codes work, why they were invented, and how they have been cracked. The few competitive books available define codes all too narrowly. This exciting and eye-opening book looks at all the myriad codes that are hidden in plain view: alphabets, religious imagery, maps, diagrams, etiquette, gang signs, text messaging . . . even the iPod in your pocket and the carpet under your feet have codes to impart!
- GenresNonfictionReference
288 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2009
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February 6, 2024
Lavishly illustrated, encyclopedia breadth (but not depth), this book covers an enormous range of territory from discerning weather clues in the landscape to military code-breaking to modern business and DNA structures. Each page spread gives a taste of a different topic with sufficient information to be able to search further.
Reading the clouds: cirrus, cumulonimbus, scuds, cirrocumulus, cirrostratos (altostratus), cumulus, nimbus, stratus.
Australian Aboriginal x-ray paintings: anatomy plus soul.
Scribes were so highly prized in ancient Egypt, they were exempt from taxation. Writing systems fall into four categories: pictographic, hierogylphic, cuneiform, alphabetic. Old Persian writing system seems to have been instigated by Darius and used only for the inscriptions of the kings. Its decipherment unlocked Akkadian cuneiform. Abjads are alphabets consisting solely of consonants. Scripts that modify the shape of consonants to indicate the following vowel are called abugidas.
Only four Mayan books, written on birch bark, survive. Archbishop Diego de Landa destroyed all he could lay his hands on, while ironically providing the key to deciphering the system.
Shame poles were erected in Pacific Northwest indigenous communities as reminders of unpaid debts, quarrels and murders. Torii gates were set to divide the profane from the sacred. Walking towards the shrine in the middle of the path is to be avoided as that place is reserved for spirits.
The Sigil of Baphomet represents the pit where the fallen angels are imprisoned. The downward points are an inversion of the Trinity. It was designed by Eliphas Levi.
Divination takes one of four main forms: reading omens, sortilege (cleromancy), augury, spontaneous. The Hindu astrological cycle is very similar to the Western Babylonian tradition.
The Emerald Tablet (1614) contained the celebrated alchemical axiom: "That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below."
Friar Francesco Giorgio was a kabbalist whose theories of harmony, numerology and sacred geometry had a profound effect on the architecture of Freemasonry.
Necromancy rituals and ghost expulsion/exorcism texts were common in the ancient world. In Egypt in the second millennium BC, dead royalty were consulted by the state for public benefit. The necromancer's face or a figurine was rubbed with salve. In Turkey, pits dug into the ground served as portals for communication with infernal spirits.
Luther's coat of arms combined the rose and the cross. The rose was associated with Jesus' mother and with Mary Magdalene.
George Washington lays the cornerstone of the US Capitol while wearing Masonic attire on September 18 1793. The Mormons have many Masonic symbols in their scriptures; as do the Great Seal on the one dollar bill and the Statue of Liberty.
Alum in vinegar can leave a message on a hard-boiled egg, invisible on the shell but visible on the white inside.
Church bells were used as an alarm for over a millennium.
In the 19th century English alphabet, v preceded U.
URL - uniform resource locator.
Sparta developed the scytale rod for secret messages.
"Roger, over and out" makes no sense and is never used. "Roger" means information received, "over" means I've finished talking and am waiting for your reply, "out" means I've finished talking and no reply is needed.
To atone for an offence, a yakuza will remove a finger joint, formally presenting it to is oyabun ('father'). The samurai who had disobeyed or failed his lord atoned by seppuku, ritual suicide.
La Mano Nera (precursor of Cosa Nostra - "our thing", "the thing we have between us") would send threatening letters demanding money signed with an hand in black print. When fingerprinting developed, the handprint was replaced by a drawn hand in black ink. This is the origin of the term "blackmail".
Algorithm comes from the name of the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizm.
Humans and chimpanzees share 98.5% of the same DNA. Humans and bananas also share high level of genetic similarity.
The birthplace or "hearth" of Buddhism is in the foothills of the Himalayas. The word swastika comes from Sanskrit for "all is well".
After four generations Victoria's descendants did not carry the hemophiliac gene any further. Today's royal families do not carry the gene.
Jade was believed to have derived from dragons. In Taoism, dragons were intermediaries between heaven and earth. Cranes were messengers of the gods. The I Ching was used for prophecy, divination and ordering the natural sciences.
Finely decorated Qurans have 'unwans or portals. Khamsa (or hamsa) means "the five".
Tacitus described Germanic people using pieces of wood with symbols on them, a bit like the omikuji (fortune-telling sticks) used in Japanese temples today.
Evangelist symbols: Matthew, angel, incarnation, Reuben; Mark, lion, resurrection, Judah; Luke, ox, sacrifice, Ephraim; John, eagle, ascension, Dan.
Holbein's 1533 painting, The Ambassadors is of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, Biship Elect of Lavaur is rich in symbolism - concealed crucifix, celestial globe set to the latitude of Rome, not London, sundial set to 11 April 1533 when England broke with Rome, book under de Selve's elbow is inscribed with his age, lute (symbol of harmony) with broken string, hymnbook open to a page used in both Catholic and Protestant churches, set square on a German treatise of mathematics on the page about division, Cosmati mosaic as in Westminster Abbey, dagger inscribed with Dinteville's date of birth, and skull (part of Dinteville's personal insignia) as memento mori in anamorphic perspective.
In Victorian tombstone art, a hand pointing down could be a Freemason.
Carat can describe the mass of gems or pearls or the purity of gold.
Wearing shoes in mosques and temples is considered deeply offensive.
All ranks below duke are referred to as "lord" in conversation.
The asclepieia were places of healing where people slept overnight to then tell the priest their dream in the morning. The dream would be interpreted and the cure prescribed.
Spiritualism began with the Fox sisters in 1848. They claimed to commune with the spirits of the dead. Dennis Wheatley was an associate, then adversary, of Aleister Crowley. In later books, Wheatley portrayed Hitler as a satanist. Ian Fleming, during his time in Naval Intelligence, proposed Crowley feed falsified horoscopes to Rudolf Hess via the Enochian alphabet.
In the year Y2K, the worst did happen in Australia. Bus ticket validation machines in two states stopped working. Fortunately, nobody died.
Reading the clouds: cirrus, cumulonimbus, scuds, cirrocumulus, cirrostratos (altostratus), cumulus, nimbus, stratus.
Australian Aboriginal x-ray paintings: anatomy plus soul.
Scribes were so highly prized in ancient Egypt, they were exempt from taxation. Writing systems fall into four categories: pictographic, hierogylphic, cuneiform, alphabetic. Old Persian writing system seems to have been instigated by Darius and used only for the inscriptions of the kings. Its decipherment unlocked Akkadian cuneiform. Abjads are alphabets consisting solely of consonants. Scripts that modify the shape of consonants to indicate the following vowel are called abugidas.
Only four Mayan books, written on birch bark, survive. Archbishop Diego de Landa destroyed all he could lay his hands on, while ironically providing the key to deciphering the system.
Shame poles were erected in Pacific Northwest indigenous communities as reminders of unpaid debts, quarrels and murders. Torii gates were set to divide the profane from the sacred. Walking towards the shrine in the middle of the path is to be avoided as that place is reserved for spirits.
The Sigil of Baphomet represents the pit where the fallen angels are imprisoned. The downward points are an inversion of the Trinity. It was designed by Eliphas Levi.
Divination takes one of four main forms: reading omens, sortilege (cleromancy), augury, spontaneous. The Hindu astrological cycle is very similar to the Western Babylonian tradition.
The Emerald Tablet (1614) contained the celebrated alchemical axiom: "That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below."
Friar Francesco Giorgio was a kabbalist whose theories of harmony, numerology and sacred geometry had a profound effect on the architecture of Freemasonry.
Necromancy rituals and ghost expulsion/exorcism texts were common in the ancient world. In Egypt in the second millennium BC, dead royalty were consulted by the state for public benefit. The necromancer's face or a figurine was rubbed with salve. In Turkey, pits dug into the ground served as portals for communication with infernal spirits.
Luther's coat of arms combined the rose and the cross. The rose was associated with Jesus' mother and with Mary Magdalene.
George Washington lays the cornerstone of the US Capitol while wearing Masonic attire on September 18 1793. The Mormons have many Masonic symbols in their scriptures; as do the Great Seal on the one dollar bill and the Statue of Liberty.
Alum in vinegar can leave a message on a hard-boiled egg, invisible on the shell but visible on the white inside.
Church bells were used as an alarm for over a millennium.
In the 19th century English alphabet, v preceded U.
URL - uniform resource locator.
Sparta developed the scytale rod for secret messages.
"Roger, over and out" makes no sense and is never used. "Roger" means information received, "over" means I've finished talking and am waiting for your reply, "out" means I've finished talking and no reply is needed.
To atone for an offence, a yakuza will remove a finger joint, formally presenting it to is oyabun ('father'). The samurai who had disobeyed or failed his lord atoned by seppuku, ritual suicide.
La Mano Nera (precursor of Cosa Nostra - "our thing", "the thing we have between us") would send threatening letters demanding money signed with an hand in black print. When fingerprinting developed, the handprint was replaced by a drawn hand in black ink. This is the origin of the term "blackmail".
Algorithm comes from the name of the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizm.
Humans and chimpanzees share 98.5% of the same DNA. Humans and bananas also share high level of genetic similarity.
The birthplace or "hearth" of Buddhism is in the foothills of the Himalayas. The word swastika comes from Sanskrit for "all is well".
After four generations Victoria's descendants did not carry the hemophiliac gene any further. Today's royal families do not carry the gene.
Jade was believed to have derived from dragons. In Taoism, dragons were intermediaries between heaven and earth. Cranes were messengers of the gods. The I Ching was used for prophecy, divination and ordering the natural sciences.
Finely decorated Qurans have 'unwans or portals. Khamsa (or hamsa) means "the five".
Tacitus described Germanic people using pieces of wood with symbols on them, a bit like the omikuji (fortune-telling sticks) used in Japanese temples today.
Evangelist symbols: Matthew, angel, incarnation, Reuben; Mark, lion, resurrection, Judah; Luke, ox, sacrifice, Ephraim; John, eagle, ascension, Dan.
Holbein's 1533 painting, The Ambassadors is of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, Biship Elect of Lavaur is rich in symbolism - concealed crucifix, celestial globe set to the latitude of Rome, not London, sundial set to 11 April 1533 when England broke with Rome, book under de Selve's elbow is inscribed with his age, lute (symbol of harmony) with broken string, hymnbook open to a page used in both Catholic and Protestant churches, set square on a German treatise of mathematics on the page about division, Cosmati mosaic as in Westminster Abbey, dagger inscribed with Dinteville's date of birth, and skull (part of Dinteville's personal insignia) as memento mori in anamorphic perspective.
In Victorian tombstone art, a hand pointing down could be a Freemason.
Carat can describe the mass of gems or pearls or the purity of gold.
Wearing shoes in mosques and temples is considered deeply offensive.
All ranks below duke are referred to as "lord" in conversation.
The asclepieia were places of healing where people slept overnight to then tell the priest their dream in the morning. The dream would be interpreted and the cure prescribed.
Spiritualism began with the Fox sisters in 1848. They claimed to commune with the spirits of the dead. Dennis Wheatley was an associate, then adversary, of Aleister Crowley. In later books, Wheatley portrayed Hitler as a satanist. Ian Fleming, during his time in Naval Intelligence, proposed Crowley feed falsified horoscopes to Rudolf Hess via the Enochian alphabet.
In the year Y2K, the worst did happen in Australia. Bus ticket validation machines in two states stopped working. Fortunately, nobody died.
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July 29, 2012almostly it has a huge research area and it makes us more equipped :)
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