BOOK OF CODES AND CIPHERS

7- Pigpen Cipher

The PIGPEN CIPHER (alternately referred to as the masonic cipher, Freemason's cipher, Napoleon cipher, and tic-tac-toe cipher) is a geometric simple substitution cipher, which exchanges letters for symbols which are fragments of a grid. The example key shows one way the letters can be assigned to the grid.

Using the pigpen cipher key above, the message "X MARKS THE SPOT" is rendered in ciphertext as:

The core elements of this system are the grid and dots. Some systems use the X's, but even these can be rearranged. One commonly used method orders the symbols as shown in the above image: grid, grid, X, X. Another commonly used system orders the symbols as grid, X, grid, X. Another is grid, grid, grid, with each cell having a letter of the alphabet, and the last one having an "&" character. Letters from the first grid have no dot, letters from the second each have one dot, and letters from the third each have two dots. Another variation of this last one is called the Newark Cipher, which instead of dots uses one to three short lines which may be projecting in any length or orientation. This gives the illusion of a larger number of different characters than actually exist.

Another system, used by the Rosicrucians, used a single grid of nine cells, and 1 to 3 dots in each cell or "pen". So ABC would be in the top left pen, followed by DEF and GHI on the first line, then groups of JKL MNO PQR on the second, and STU VWX YZ on the third. When enciphered, the location of the dot in each symbol (left, center, or right), would indicate which letter in that pen was represented. More difficult systems use a non-standard form of the alphabet, such as writing it backwards in the grid, up and down in the columns, or a completely randomized set of letters.

The TEMPLAR CIPHER is a method claimed to have been used by the Knights Templar. It uses a variant of a Maltese Cross.