The Incredibles

December 5, 2004 12:34 AM

Let the Languagehat Signal shine upon the clouds of Gotham. Or Metropolisburg.

In The Incredibles, there is a scene in which Bob and E chat about the finer points of supercouture in front of an impossibly large bas-relief of some sort of classical greekish heritage.

There is an inscription above the door, (and consequently, above Bob's head) visible for much of the scene. What does it say?

For bonus points, what does the frieze depict, and is it a real-world sculpture?

Pixar production personnel in the know are encouraged to respond.

posted by mwhybark to media & arts (22 comments total)

Haven't seen the movie, but if somebody links to an image of the inscription, I'll see what I can do. Otherwise, I await the Pixar personnel with curiosity.
posted by languagehat at 6:30 AM on December 5, 2004

Dang, maybe we have to wait for the DVD now. Oh well!

I also await same!
posted by mwhybark at 9:28 AM on December 5, 2004

I just loaded up an... uh... copy of the movie and took crappy shots with my phonecam.

So this is the movie, as captured by someone's video camera, on my monitor, taken by a phonecam. So the resolution suxx0rs, but here they are:

The bas relief wall

The message over the doorway
posted by mathowie at 9:46 AM on December 5, 2004

FWIW, this is the last short in the scene. It's after the characters have walked away from the position they held for most of the sequence, and bad luck, it's a reverse angle, now looking away from the frieze. Unfortunately, since this is the publicity release it's unlikely there will be another one from the scene until the next marketing push, if at all. Bummer.

The inscription is short, about five or six letters, and in the scrawly style I associate with early classical stuff. I'm almost absolutely certain it's a name. I was not taking notes, but if I had been, I'd certainly have written it down. The first letter was a three stroke glyph that resembled either an "S" or a "Z"
posted by mwhybark at 9:48 AM on December 5, 2004

right on! thanks, Matt!
posted by mwhybark at 9:53 AM on December 5, 2004

Quite tangential but also of interest is the UK's Center for ancient Documents Imaging Project, an archive of classical inscriptions.
posted by mwhybark at 10:02 AM on December 5, 2004

Could it be aramaic or some related language? See this page:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/aramaic.html"

It looks like most of the characters from Matt's wall shot are represtented there.
posted by grumblebee at 11:02 AM on December 5, 2004

My linguistically-ignorant but art-historically edumacated eye sez it's prolly Greek. The tidier inscriptions seen in my UK link are from a much later period.
posted by mwhybark at 11:13 AM on December 5, 2004

Using this, I get something like "sigma omicron koppa upsilon upsilon," which doesn't ring any bells. I can't make out if the last two characters differ or not.

Great resource, grumblebee.
posted by mwhybark at 11:24 AM on December 5, 2004

From here (emphasis mine):

On June 26, 1913 a resolution regarding the establishment of an honor society was presented to the faculty of Northwestern University Dental School by three dental students in the class of 1914.

Dr. G. V. Black, Dean of the Northwestern University Dental School at that time, was impressed with the resolution and appointed a committee consisting of Dr. Charles R. E. Koch, Dr. H. A. Potts, and Dr. Arthur D. Black to counsel with the students. A form letter was prepared and sent to deans of 51 dental schools of the United States and Canada. The general response was very good, with many deans concerned about a Greek letter name and proper insignia. Dr. Arthur D. Black contacted Mr. John C. Burg, Secretary to President Harris (President of Northwestern University), and requested his assistance. Mr. Burg secured from Dr. C.R.E. Koch a statement outlining the ideals of the dental profession. Rather than a long, detailed report, Mr. Burg received a simple, basic statement relative to the ideals of modern dentistry. It was "the conservation of teeth and health". Using the basic words, conservation, teeth, and health, he contacted Dr. John A. Scott, Professor of Greek at Northwestern University, and asked for the Greek term which expressed these three words. The Greek counterparts were SOTERIA for conservation, ODOUS for teeth and HYGEIA for health. Using the information supplied by Dr. Scott he selected the initials of the last two Greek words, Omicron and Upsilon, primarily because they were both appropriate and euphonious. He selected Kappa as the beginning initial of the Greek word for AND (Kai). Thus, he developed the name Omicron Kappa Upsilon – Teeth and Health.

The key was designed with all three Greek Letters, Omicron, Kappa, and Upsilon, housed within the prominent letter SIGMA which is the initial letter of Soteria for conservation. The design and insignia were approved by the Northwestern University dental faculty on April 8, 1915. The society was officially incorporated by the State of Illinois on March 15, 1916. The original certificate of incorporation was signed by Thomas L. Gilmer, Arthur D. Black, H.A. Potts, Fred W. Gethro and Charles R. E. Koch.

posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:57 AM on December 5, 2004

I agree that it looks like Archaic Greek (the qoppa ? is especially convincing), and mwhybark's "using this" link is an excellent resource for Greek letters. I have no interpretation to offer, but I seriously doubt it has anything to do with dental fraternities.
posted by languagehat at 12:15 PM on December 5, 2004

I didn't think so. I just thought it was interesting that mrwhybark's interpretation so closely matched the name of the dental honor society. Considering that the kid in the dentist's office in Finding Nemo was reading an Incredible's comic book, I don't think it's too far-fetched.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:18 PM on December 5, 2004

I dunno - the characters sure do have big teeth! :)

Maybe the frieze depicts the battle for dental health, Phloreidas doing battle contra dread Kavitas.

Or not.
posted by mwhybark at 12:22 PM on December 5, 2004

I haven't seen the movie yet, but matt's images seem to show a fresco of lapithae and the centaurs battling; specifically Caeneus slaying a centaur. Caeneus was said to have been transformed by the gods from a giant to a demigod, from woman to man, depending upon the legend. In the Odyssey, Caeneus was one of the Argonauts who sought the Golden Fleece, but was dispatched to the ends of the earth (or rather, Liyba). The lapithae were mighty giants who ultimately perished over time, save for Caeneus.

St. Anthony Abbot, by some Christian beliefs, was said to have confronted the Devil, who assumed the form of a centaur.

It's likely the Greek letters were a shout out to Northwestern U., as a number of Pixar's employees are * alumni.

*MIDI on webpage.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:28 PM on December 5, 2004

Flickr is currently closed.
???
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 4:18 PM on December 5, 2004

If it were aramaic script, the letters would probably be (from the left):

alef, tsade, quf (maybe?), mem, lamed.

You can compare them yourself using Prof. Cross's paleography chart found here (caution .pdf) on p. 137.

Ets qomel, in Hebrew, means "withered tree".

All that said, the middle letter looks awfully like a qoppa to me.
posted by felix betachat at 5:21 PM on December 5, 2004

while oot n aboot this afternoon, I picked up a kids' book, The Incredibles: The Essential Guide. At the bottom of page 31 is a clear, if small, image of the freize.

We missed a character that's hard to see in Matt's pic: the inscription ends with a character that looks like the closing bracket in an html tag. That's a gamma variant, but backwards.

That combined with the "Z" makes me wonder if the inscription might have been flopped.

Additionally, the two apparent upsilons are clearly inscribed differently. The leftmost one has a clear tail, formed with a distinct stroke, and the second is a plain "V" form. Could the first one be a sloppy "nu"?

Finally, I took a good look at the frieze. It shows four discrete figures. The leftmost figure is a woman; snakes emanate from her upper torso. The image in the book doesn't show her head so I can't tell if it's some version of a Minoan snake-bearer or of Medusa. She appears to be offering some sort of benediction to the next figure.

The next image, and the probable subject of the inscription, is a striding figure who has lanced his opponent. He grips his lance high and has holds his shield sideways with relation to his torso to make the thrust. We can see the inside of his shield and his arm inside; it's facing directly away from the viewer.

The next image is of the lanced opponent. His sword extends down and to the left, over the dooorway, as I recall. His upper torso is twisted to face the lancer, but his legs are fleeing. His body slumps in death, (black mist, it must be assumed, swirls down over his eyes).

The slumping figure is supported and maybe being dragged away by another figure who either is carrying a bow or possibly (but unlikely) a shield seen edge-on.

Hope this helps!
posted by mwhybark at 5:25 PM on December 5, 2004

er, make that "from the right"...
posted by felix betachat at 5:25 PM on December 5, 2004

I'm with grumblebee in that I think it's one of his related scripts-- specifically, I think it's Phonecian.

It appears (after adjusting the levels in Photoshop for mathowie's screen shot) to spell out (right-to left) "WWKO(or D)P" in Phonecian transliterated into phonetic English. Of course, the source leaves a lot to be desired, and the actual answer is likely to be an in-joke that we would never guess.

Also, all of the semitic alphabets and the "Greek" ones have similar characters based on their common ancestor, and the look varies over time. Even if we had a hard example instead of a grainy one, we might argue over which alphabet we're looking at. And we don't have any idea of what our destination might be. So we need more info!

My best guess is a "What Would Jesus (or focus of in-joke) Do" joke.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:27 PM on December 5, 2004

I just pulled down a book and checked myself, and my guess of "P" should be "R." But I'm grasping at straws anyway.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:30 PM on December 5, 2004

why did matt take a picture of the movie with his phone rather than a screenshot, am i missing something? is this someone else's computer?
posted by rhyax at 12:13 AM on December 6, 2004

..
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:27 AM on December 6, 2004