Greek crossword graffiti found on the wall of Smyrna’s ancient basilica

A graffiti with a crossword of Greek words running top-to-bottom and left-to-right was found on one of the walls of the basilica at the agora of ancient city of Smyrna, İzmir, West Turkey. It is dated to be roughly 2000 years old.

Greek graffiti from Smyrna (by Anadolu Ajansi)
Greek graffiti from Smyrna (by Anadolu Ajansi)

The crossword is said to look like an acrosstic – a word combination where the first letter of each line spells out a word. The words in this case are oriented top-to-bottom and left to right in five columns. In the centre the word “logos” is visible. It is said to have been used by a Christian group to communicate with each other during times of oppression. The experts working at the site state that it is difficult to draw any meaning from the puzzle as it contains also meaningless names.

Greek graffiti from Smyrna (by Hurriyet Daily News)
Greek graffiti from Smyrna (by Hurriyet Daily News)

(after Anadolu Ajansi & Hurriyet Daily News)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.