Spooky mysteries
Aug. 15th, 2011 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanessaramaI know some of you love strange mysteries as much as I do, especially of the mysterious unidentified person kind. For those who love such things and have a bit of time to kill, I point you to this excellent article from Smithsonian Magazine on a great unsolved Australian mystery: The Body on Somerton Beach. (Please note: link has a photograph of a dead person, although he is dressed, not visibly injured and could just be asleep if you didn't know.)
This story contains not just an unknown man but a seemingly uncrackable code, an unknown cause of death, a mysteriously appearing book of poetry and other possibly connected deaths.
And if you really like, you can join the sleuthers looking for the identical copy of the Rubaiyat. Nobody has ever discovered an exactly identical copy to the one the dead man had.
This story contains not just an unknown man but a seemingly uncrackable code, an unknown cause of death, a mysteriously appearing book of poetry and other possibly connected deaths.
And if you really like, you can join the sleuthers looking for the identical copy of the Rubaiyat. Nobody has ever discovered an exactly identical copy to the one the dead man had.
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Date: 2011-08-15 05:53 am (UTC)I just read The Colorado Kid by Stephen King (about another mysterious body on a beach) - I wonder if he was inspired by this story?
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Date: 2011-08-17 11:40 pm (UTC)How can you tell if you have the right copy?
1) The front cover matches the group's photo (above).
2) It should be a 1st edition.
3) It should be a FitzGerald translation.
4) It should be published by Whitcombe and Tombs.
5) If the poem on the last page has the word "silver" or "saki" in it then you have the wrong copy.
6) The last page should bear the phrase "Tamám Shud".
7) If you hold the phrase "Tamám Shud" up to the light and if you see print on the reverse side then you have the wrong copy.
8) If the phrase "Tamám Shud" is on coloured paper you have the wrong copy. The correct copy should have a white background.
9) The phrase "Tamám Shud" should be in the font shown in photo section (click on "View Photos").
10) The width of the book divided by its height = 0.58. (But this could be a red herring as it assumes the newspaper photo of the front cover was cropped correctly).
11) We are also looking for any Methuen 7th edition of the book. This is because this book was found next to another dead body in 1945.
They are also looking for 1940s back copies of a Sydney nursing magazine called "Vindicta" if you ever get any turn up...
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Date: 2011-08-18 04:38 am (UTC)