Written in Stone, the Secret of Coumesourde

By Corjan de Raaf and Jean-Pierre d’Aniort

The Dalle de Coumesourde, or simply Coumesourde stone, is a strange beast. It is a stone with an inscription that a certain Ernest Cros found in 1928 near the hill that gave the stone its name. Mr Cros, besides being an enthusiastic amateur-archaeologist, is said to have been good friends with Bérenger Saunière. He had long been interested in the Aude’s history and settled in the Rennes-le-Château area in 1924 in the village of Ginoles. Being a bit of a stickler for detail he meticulously recorded much of his research and findings in a document with the poetical name: ‘Researches of M. chief engineer Ernest Cros, undertaken in de high valley of the Aude, particularly during the years 1920-43’. With a title like that you can imagine what a joy-to-read the fruits of his labour must have been. In good Rennes-le-Château fashion, all of Cros’ records and documents were lost in a burglary in 1960 and now only a typewritten copy of the report is said to have survived.

Le Dalle de Coumesourde as drawn by Ernest Cros picture created from an original, courtesy of the Société Perillos.	Le Dalle de Coumesourde as drawn in the version published by Gérard de Sède in 1967.

As with so many things in the Saunière puzzle book, we know of the stone from Gérard de Sède who published about it in 1967 in his book ‘Le Trésor Maudit de Rennes-le-Château’. In his book however, the drawing of the stone was stylized and the letters S and AE were more clearly combined to make one the word ‘SAE’. In the eyes of many a researcher the Coumesourde stone is a tad less suspicious than most of the other puzzles in the Rennes-le-Château enigma since at least it wasn’t in ‘Les Dossiers Secrets’. However, its discovery and reliability aren’t exactly undisputed. There is for example the fact that some of its text is identical to the inscription on the horizontal Tombstone of Marie de Negri d’Ables. That stone WAS in the dossiers (engraved stones of the Languedoc by Eugène Stublein, registered in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in June 1966).

The Dalle de Coumesourde is believed to be an important clue in the enigma. It features in many of the standard works on Rennes-le-Château. A plausible and conclusive explanation of its true relevance has never been given. Countless men and women spent countless hours counting the letters, measuring the angles and mapping its triangle on countless maps, parchments and paintings.

The Translation

The text of the stone has been somewhat neglected in our opinion, other than in relation to the geometry. That is odd, since the words seem a pretty good place to start looking for a message.

To be able to make the translation and interpretation it is important to know that Romans used to abbreviate words in their inscriptions. ‘CAE’ f.e. was short for Caesar. You can understand why they did this if you’ve ever handled a hammer and chisel yourself to write a message in your granite kitchen workspace.

Following this common method of abbreviation we developed two possible translations for the stone’s text that are very much alike:

Translation 1:

SAE SIS PS PRAECUM

For SAE and SIS there aren’t many options. Being an ex-altar boy I remember the ‘In Saecula Saeculorum Amen’ or ‘Is Now, And Ever Shall Be (World Without End) Amen’. SAECULUM means as FOREVER. SIS in that sense would stand for SISTERE, which means as much as TO LAST or ENDURE. (a.o, the word persistent was derived from it). SAECULUM SISTERE: something that survived and will survive the ages.

P.S. can mean anything and lots of speculation has been done about its meaning and significance. In terms of abbreviation however, P.S. is a much used shortening for PIIS: The Holy One.

PRAECUM or in the three-letter logic: PRAE and CUM. An option here is PRAETOR CUMPRIMIS or PRAETOR CUMULATUS: FIRST OF THE LEADERS or CROWNED LEADER.

Conclusions of Translation 1: the Dalle de Coumesourde has something to say about or can lead us to a place where there is something that survived the ages and has to do with the first, most important or crowned leader; perhaps even a Holy one.

Translation 2 is based on the idea that there are words outside the triangle as well as inside the triangle. Also we considered the space between S and AE and concluded they were separated with a reason.

Outside the triangle we have S, PS AND PRAECUM, outside there is
AE IN MEDIO SIS LINEA M UBI SECAT LINEA PARVA. Following the same logic of abbreviations that we did before we deducted the following sentences:

SEPULCHRUM PATRI SUO PRAEDIS CUM literally meaning
In the tomb with the riches of the forefather where the treasure lies
AGNUM ELATUS IN MEDIO SIS LINEA M UBI SECAT LINEA PARVA literally meaning
The Lamb, brought in the middle for burial where the M-line cuts the short line in half

Conclusion translation 2: the Dalle de Coumesourde is telling us that someone or something, identified as ‘the Lamb’ was buried somewhere with a material of immaterial treasure. The point ‘M’ plays a central role as to where that is.

Simple Geometry

I was always amazed by the Rennes-le-Château-custom of ruining a perfectly good map by drawing shapes on it, many of us didn’t even know existed. If indeed geometry in the landscape has anything to do with the enigma, we think it would probably have to be identifiable for initiates without needing a degree in Quantum Mathematics. Since there are all sorts of practical and technical issues with defining and tracing back geometry in a landscape, it makes sense to look for a simple shape with simple logic and clear lines of sight. From one point you would need to be able to see the next point within a reasonable distance. With that in mind let’s have a look at the simple geometric message of the stone:

"IN MEDIO UBI M SECAT LINEA PARVA" is the sentence that appears to define what you need to do with the shapes and lines. It is actually quite literally explaining you what to do within. It literally says: In the middle of the line M cuts the short line. The shortest line is the basis of the triangle. You can create an ‘M’ by turning the stone upside down and using the clue in the sentence, drawing a line from the top of the triangle to the middle of the basis:

At the same time this simple M (/|\). By drawing the vertical line the two crosses are cut, which could be an indication we’re on the right track. By drawing the line, a new crossing is created, namely where the vertical line cuts the bended line. You could even conclude that is the point where two M’s cross (the blue one and the red).

X Marks the spot.

Conclusion: Somewhere there’s an area that was arranged to this geometry or which already had some of its points naturally. The area can’t be huge because if it’s really an ancient secret we are talking about, the shape of area should have been recognizable without the technology we have had for the last couple of hundred years. It must be or have been an area with clear lines of sight. In this area, on the crossing of the two M’s lies a secret or something that is key to determining where the secret is. If you consider that something is said about a location, M could mean 1.000 yards or meters, probably a unit of measurement used at the time the stone was inscribed.

Overall Conclusion:

In the two translations, although they have a slightly different basis, the words they have in common carry the message in unison. The Dalle de Coumesourde appears to tell us of the burial of the Crowned/Holy/First of the Leaders, the Lamb. Only one person really qualifies for that description: Jesus Christ. He was buried in a location possibly indicated by this same stone with a treasure of material or immaterial value. Of course the clues to the location only become relevant if you know where to look. The Dalle de Coumesourde thus appears to be the second bit of evidence, besides the Saunière model discovered by André Douzet, to indicate that the Enigma of Rennes-le-Château is related to the Tomb of Christ. In that light, is it strange to think that ‘PS’ was meant to be an abbreviation with a double meaning? Post Scriptum it needs to be noticed that based on the same logic of Latin abbreviation, P.S. could very well stand for: PerilloS.

Corjan de Raafis is the creator of www.rlcresearch.com and admin of www.terugnaardebron.com, the leading Dutch mystery forum.

Jean-Pierre d’Aniort is a Latinist and an independent researcher

Sources:

Abbreviations in Latin inscriptions between 1888 and 1993 by Tom Elliot

Latin Dictionary, Lewis & Short, Oxford 1879

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