Quick question for the Historians in the Room

[Mulceber]

I have a friend who's on a trip in Spain and she said she saw the following symbol on some Roman Ruins:



Does anyone have any idea what this symbol stands for or means? She asked me about it and I didn't know so I thought I'd ask you guys. -M

[Tabuu]

Now that is an interesting photo. Where did this picture come from, like what exact part of Spain? Barcelona? Madrid? Somewhere remote?

[Raumung]

It looks to me a little bit like a chalice...and considering the medieval fascination of the spanish with the Holy Grail,...well here's a pic .That inscriptions looks interesting, do you happen to have a better picture of it?

[Apázlinemjó]

The inscription under the symbol is "MMSLYGLE" or "AIMSLYGLE".

And it looks like a queen from chess, rofl.

[HFox]

I read the lettering differently (probably wrongly :) )

It looks like there could be a letter before the first A.....but the emphesis is on could.....and the second definate character, the I?, has a top almost ~ in shape to it......i read the characters as

(L)AINASLYGLE(A)
or
(L)ATNASLYGLE(A)

and at the end after the 'E'....is that an 'A' I see or an 'N' or part of some other signoff :)

[Mulceber]

@ Tabuu - I think it's in Cordoba, but I could be wrong - I'll ask.

@ Raumung - yeah, that was my first thought as well. Perhaps it's not actually Roman, but is some sort of grafitti or something that the medieval spaniards carved into some Roman ruins?

@HFox - I think your second transcription is probably the right one - that's what I get when I look at it...the question is, does it mean anything?

[Raumung]

Mulceber, can you ask your friend to tell you where exactly did he took the picture...town, village, county?It could be medieval latin, some sort of advertising for a church, they did that quite often, and those mangled letters may contain the word IGLES...which can be a mention to a church.Mind you...i almost did pass my medieval latin course, and epigraphy isn't quite my strong point.i'll keep at it, but i can't make any promises :).

[Apázlinemjó]

I read the lettering differently (probably wrongly :) )

It looks like there could be a letter before the first A.....but the emphesis is on could.....and the second definate character, the I?, has a top almost ~ in shape to it......i read the characters as

(L)AINASLYGLE(A)
or
(L)ATNASLYGLE(A)

and at the end after the 'E'....is that an 'A' I see or an 'N' or part of some other signoff :)

You're right, I was rushy. About the last letter I'm not sure of if it could be an N, since if we check the other N in the middle, they don't look similar. So it might be an A as you said, or an "error" on the wall.
The first letter might be an L, as it looks similar to the other L's in the inscription, or it can be an N too, like at the NA part. I'm unsure about that.
About the I-T problem, I don't know, might be both, as you already wrote down.
At the middle of the symbol there are more letters on both sides, at least they look letters for me. On the right, there might be an A or an N, while on the left an S and M, or an M only (there might be more too, but my eyes aren't that good), or they aren't letters, just "errors".
Anyway, it seems that this inscription is only a little remainder of the whole, which makes difficult to find out what the symbol is from it.

[Tabuu]

You know, that could be right. The church was a big influence back then. It could very well be an advertisment to get more christian followers. If I were to guess on that message, however, I think it would go, "Join the church and you will be givin everything your heart desires." But that's just me.

[Mulceber]

Hi guys, I just checked, and it was taken in Cordoba, Spain. Yeah, I'm inclined to think that the image was probably carved in later as a sign of devotion - perhaps even to purify the "evil" pagan shrine. Although that could be my imagination running away with me. -M

[Ludens]

If you wish, I could move it to the Monastery to see what other .Org patrons think.

[Mulceber]

That'd be great, thanks Ludens. -M

[Ludens]

Moved and bumped.

[Fragony]

Don't know the symbol but it looks like normal grafity. In excavations in Pompei they found loads of it, often hilarious 'he/she sucks for this and that'. Probably indeed the chalice, symbol looks to be more recent then the text below it. Looks like something else was there, look closely behind symbole something used to be written there, looks like a religious paintjob to me

[CountArach]

It's possible (though not likely) that the writing and the carving were done at seperate times. Look at the relative depths of each of them - the carving is much deeper than the writing. As for what the text says, if it is latin, there's nothing in there that I can identify, and given how few people would have been fluent enough in latin to read this sort of stuff, it doesn't seem likely in my eyes. Further, if I am not mistaken Medieval Latin often had spaces between words unlike the Ancient version.

[Tsar Alexsandr]

Wow, interesting. Best of luck on finding what it is/means. :D

Not exactly my area of expertise.

[Riedquat]

Not a clue of what it means but there isn't more letters than the clearly seen, the rest of what could be interpreted as letters are eroded marks in the stone; ATNAS|LY|GLE and I separated it because I have doubts there are an L and Y there...