Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin explained

Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν), meaning "Wash the sins, not only the face",^[1] or "Wash my transgressions, not only my face", is a Greek palindrome^[2] that is said to be first inscribed upon a holy water font outside the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople:^[3]

Origin

The phrase is attributed to the fourth-century Saint Gregory of Nazianzus.^[4]

When the sentence is rendered in capital letters, as would be usual for an inscription (ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ), all the letters are vertically symmetrical except for the Ν. As a result, if the N is stylized Ͷ in the right half (ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟͶΑͶΟΨΙͶ), the sentence is not only a palindrome but also a mirror ambigram.

Examples

The inscription can also be found in the following places:

• above the Hagiasma ("Holy Spring") of the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae in Istanbul;
• around the baptismal font at St. Michael's Cathedral in Barbados;
• at the, Thessaloniki, Greece.^[5]
• at a fountain inside the church Panagia Ekatontapiliani in Parikia on the island Paros, Greece
• the font of several churches in Paris, including: St. Stephen d’Egres, Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Paris,,, and Basilica of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris;
• in several churches in Britain, including: St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, Tewkesbury Abbey (Gloucestershire), Worlingworth (Suffolk), Harlow (Essex), Knapton (Norfolk), St Martin, Ludgate (London), St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate (London), and Hadleigh (Suffolk);

See also

• List of Greek phrases
• Sator square

References

Citations

Notes and References

1. Book: Blake, Barry J. . Secret Language: Codes, Tricks, Spies, Thieves, and Symbols. Oxford . University Press. 2010. 978-0-19-957928-0. 15.
2. The romanization is not a palindrome because the Greek letter ψ (psi) is transcribed by the digraph ps. The modern diacritics, which are not symmetrical, are usually omitted from inscriptions of the sentence.
3. Book: Langford-James, R. . A Dictionary of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ayer. 0-8337-5047-X. 61.
4. Book: Alex . Preminger. Terry V.F.. Brogan. Frank J.. Warnke. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 3rd . Princeton University Press. 1993. 0-691-02123-6. 874.
5. Web site: Wash the sins, not only the face . Flickr . 2012-07-20 . 2013-10-01.