Editing Sator Square (section)

==Description and naming==
[[File:Enigmatic inscription of St Peter ad Oratorium 400.jpg|thumb|right|Sator square (in ROTAS-form) on the eighth-century facade of [[San Pietro ad Oratorium Abbey|Abbey of St. Peter ad Oratorium]] in Italy]]
The Sator square is arranged as a 5&nbsp;×&nbsp;5 grid consisting of five 5-letter words, thus totaling 25 characters. It uses 8 different Latin letters: 5 consonants (S, T, R, P, N) and 3 vowels (A, E, O).  In some versions, the vertical and horizontal lines of the grid are also drawn, but in many cases, there are no such lines.  The square is described as a two-dimensional [[palindrome]], or [[word square]], which is a particular class of a [[acrostic|double acrostic]].<ref name=EB>{{cite web | url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/SATOR-square | title=Sator square | website=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] | access-date=17 September 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title='Arepo' in the Magic 'Sator' Square|author=Griffiths, J. Gwyn|journal=[[The Classical Review]] |series=New Series |volume=21|issue=1|date=March 1971|pages=6–8 |doi=10.1017/S0009840X00262999|s2cid=161291159 }}</ref>

The square comes in two forms: ROTAS (left, below), and SATOR (right, below):<ref name=Fishwick/><ref name=Baines/>

{| style="font-family: monospace; margin: 0 0 0 0; line-height:90%"
|style="padding-left: 2em; line-height: 1.2em;"|
R O T A S <br />
O P E R A <br />
T E N E T <br />
A R E P O <br />
S A T O R
| style="padding-left: 4em; line-height: 1.2em;" |
S A T O R <br />
A R E P O <br />
T E N E T <br />
O P E R A <br />
R O T A S
|}

The earliest Roman-era versions of the square have the word ROTAS as the top line (called a ROTAS-form square, left above), but the inverted version with SATOR in the top line became more dominant from early medieval times (called a SATOR-form square, right above).<ref name=MRS/> Some academics call it a Rotas-Sator Square,<ref name=Fishwick>{{cite journal | journal=[[Harvard Theological Review]] | first=Duncan | last=Fishwick | volume=57 | issue=1 | date=1954 | title=On the Origin of the Rotas-Sator Square | pages=39–53 | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1508695 | access-date=10 September 2022 | doi=10.1017/S0017816000024858| jstor=1508695 | s2cid=162908002 | url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=Baines>{{cite journal | title=The Rotas-Sator Square: a New Investigation | first=William | last=Baines | url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/abs/rotassator-square-a-new-investigation/DCCDDD63AB4ECB9E8B028D3282F5B8FE | access-date=10 September 2022 | doi=10.1017/S0028688500014405 | date=July 1987 | volume=33 | issue=3 | pages=469–476 | journal=[[New Testament Studies]] | publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]| s2cid=170226416 | url-access=subscription }}</ref> and some of them refer to the object as a [[rebus]],<ref name=MRS/><ref name=":0"/> or a [[magic square]].<ref name=Fishwick/> Since medieval times, it has also been known as a Templar Magic Square.<ref name=MRS/><ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-mu8O8RMG6QC&dq=%22Templar+magic+square%22&pg=PA23 | pages=23–25 | chapter=A Brief History of Magic Squares: Templar Magic Square | author-link=Clifford A. Pickover | first=Clifford A. |last=Pickover | title=The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles, and Stars: An Exhibition of Surprising Structures across Dimensions | date=June 2002 | access-date=20 September 2022 | publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] | isbn= 978-0691115979}}</ref>