The Theban alphabet is a

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...

, in particular a

substitution cipher In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting in which units of plaintext are replaced with the ciphertext, in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, trip ...

of the Latin alphabet, used by early modern occultists and popular in the

Wicca Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was ...

movement.

Publication history

It was first published in Johannes Trithemius's ''Polygraphia'' (1518) in which it was attributed to

Honorius of Thebes Honorius may refer to: People * Honorius (emperor) (Flavius Honorius Augustus, 384–423), western Roman emperor 395–423 * Honorius of Canterbury (Saint Honorius, died 653), archbishop of Canterbury 627–653 * Honoratus of Amiens (Saint Honor ...

"as

Pietro d'Abano Pietro d'Abano, also known as Petrus de Apono, Petrus Aponensis or Peter of Abano (Premuda, Loris. "Abano, Pietro D'." in '' Dictionary of Scientific Biography.'' (1970). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Vol. 1: p.4-5.1316), was an Italian philo ...

testifies in his greater fourth book". However, it is not known to be extant in any of the known writings attributed to D'Abano (1250-1316). Trithemius' student

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (; ; 14 September 1486 – 18 February 1535) was a German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer. Agrippa's ''Three Books of Occult Philosophy'' published in 1533 drew ...

(1486–1535) included it in his '' De Occulta Philosophia'' (Book III, chap. 29, 1531). It is also not known to be found in any manuscripts of the writings of

(i.e. ''Liber Iuratus Honorii'' or ''

The Sworn Book of Honorius ''The Sworn Book of Honorius'' ( la, Liber juratus Honorii, also ''Liber sacer'', ''sacratus'' or ''consecratus'') is a medieval grimoire purportedly written by Honorius of Thebes. The Latin word "juratus", which is typically translated to "swor ...

'') with the exception of the composite manuscript found in London,

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Manuscript Sloane 3853, which however openly identifies Agrippa as its source.

Uses and correlations

Eglwys_Sant_Myllin_Llanfyllin_Powys_North_Wales_58

It is also known as the Honorian alphabet or the Runes of Honorius after the legendary

magus Magi (; singular magus ; from Latin '' magus'', cf. fa, مغ ) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius th ...

(Theban is not, however, a

runic alphabet Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...

) or the witches' alphabet due to its use in modern

and other forms of

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

as one of many

substitution ciphers In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting in which units of plaintext are replaced with the ciphertext, in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, tri ...

to hide magical writings such as the contents of a

Book of Shadows A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious text and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Since its conception in the 1970s, it has made its way into many pagan practices and paths. The most famous ...

from prying eyes. The Theban alphabet bears little resemblance to other

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

s and has not been found in any previous publications prior that of Trithemius. There is one-to-one correspondence between Theban and the letters in the old

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

. The modern characters J, U, and W are not represented (the W follows the Z in the photo top right) and in modern usage these are transliterated using the Theban characters for I, V, and VV. Theban letters only exist in a single case. This suggests an origin for Theban as a

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...

d on Latin, along with the various

alphabets An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

described by Trithemius and Agrippa, based on either

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the ...

, an American software developer and author, has created a draft proposal for adding the Theban alphabet to the

Universal Coded Character Set The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS, Unicode) is a standard set of character (computing), characters defined by the international standard International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC ...

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

Characters

Notes

External links

Theban alphabet at OmniglotTheban alphabet at Theban Today
{{DEFAULTSORT:Theban Alphabet Artificial scripts used in mysticism Ciphers Wicca Language and mysticism