The Sator Square is an early Roman creation written in Latin.
The earliest Sator square to date is the pre-AD 62 square,
found on a column at the Palestra Grande, near the
Amphitheatre of Pompeii.
The 5x5 word square can be read top to bottom,
bottom to top, left to right and right to left.
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS
To build a square with these characteristics, you need 2
semordnilaps and a palindrome. The term 'Semordnilap' was
coined in 1961 by Martin Gardner and is 'palindromes'
spelled backwards.
Anadrome is another word to describe a word that can be one
word when read left to right, and a different word when read
right to left. palindrome describes a word that is the same
backwards as well as forwards.
The meanings of the words are as follows:
SATOR means 'to sow'
AREPO was possibly invented to complete the square
TENET means 'to hold'
OPERA means 'service', 'labor', 'care', 'effort', 'attention'
ROTAS refers to wheels, revolutions, or turning motions.
Lets write down the first two words of the square,
SATOR/AREPO
SA[TORARE]PO
T in latin represents Titus and
ORARE is a Latin verb meaning 'to pray'.
The remaining letters are SAPO which is Latin for soap.
Letters used in the SATOR square are SATOREPN
In alphabetical order this reads AENOPRST
Numbering the sequence we have a key, so lets use the key to number the words.
12345678
AENOPRST
SATOR = 71846
AREPO = 45261
TENET = 82328
OPERA = 16254
ROTAS = 64817
Now lets add the numbers together
71846 + 45261 + 82328 + 16254 + 64817
The numbers look pretty random, so the chances of it
spelling a word, let alone a Latin word is
'slim' to 'not a chance'.
The numbers add up to 280506.
Our key does not have a zero, so lets add
one to each digit.
ROTAS (turning motion).
A Julius Caesar cipher using numbers.
280506 no 0
391617 no 9
402728 no 0
513839 no 9
624940 no 0
735051 no 0
846162
The first result that gives a translatable number is 846162
which translates to
Wait for it . . .
Sator 1 has the original Sator Square with just the one puzzle.
It is in Latin.
The Latin wordlist used has 12,516 words.
I wondered if it was possible to construct a Sator Square in English, so I compiled a list of 5 letter palindromes and 5 letter semordnilaps. Armed with a list of 443 words I was able to construct 62 squares. Some of the squares repeat some of the words, but I was able to find 7 squares from the 62 that did not repeat any words. I have built the 7 English Sator Squares into a small program so you can have a go at solving them. It is called Sator 7.
Bare in mind, these puzzles can be read left to right, right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top.It was only fair to compile a Latin version and see how many quares
could be formed using a Latin wordlist. I found 29. See Sator 29.
The program Sator 730 has 730 puzzles. These puzzles can be
read across and down and are a little easier than Sator 7.