WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE CODE PAGE? PART 1.

PART 1. THE CODE PAGE AND
THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

We can't really talk about the code page without first learning as much as we can about the copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam that was found and associated with the Somerton Man. This association was made by virtue of the small slip of paper, the 'torn piece' found rolled up tightly and pushed down into a hard to find fob pocket of the Somerton Man's trousers. It was on a page of this book that was found a written, supposed, code and some telephone numbers.

First, The Rubaiyat:

This is a copy of a similar book, it was published by New Zealand Company, Whitcombe and Tombs around 1941. The Rubaiyat was translated by Edward Fitzgerald.

Below is an image of the outer dust cover for the book, you can see that it belonged to the Courage and Friendship series.

Some more facts:

The first known adverts for this book appeared in a Sydney Newspaper in 1942.

The series was published in a range of pale colours featuring two colours in a copy.

The edges of the book cover were 'YAPPED', that is they were slightly bent over and inwards to protect the edges of the pages. You should be able to see the outline of the Yapp around the edges of the cover in the image above. The pages themselves were not 'yapped'

The dimensions of the book inside the dustcover were 22.5 cms wide across the opened pages, a single page, therefore, measured 11.25 cms 9.0 cms.

The dimensions of the image file of the code page as supplied initially by the Adelaide Advertiser, are 11.44 cms X 9.14 cms. This image file is available for download from this blog or from the Adelaide University Wiki site.

The book was originally found on the back seat of a car parked in Jetty Road Glenelg. The book was most recently said to have been found by a local Chemist named Freeman, another version says it was found by his brother in law who placed it in the glovebox.

The date it was found towards the end of November 1948, around the time of the local, Parafield Air Show.

Following an appeal, the book was eventually handed in to the SA Police on 22nd July 1949, after the Somerton Man's first inquest hearing.

Police documents from the time make no mention of there being a dustcover found with the book.

The Somerton Man book was said to have been white in colour, no other white coloured edition of the Courage and Friendship series have been found.

Newspaper article:                                                                                              Torn Slip

Police image of the book

The image to the right shows a page from a Courage and Friendship series Rubaiyat with an image of the torn slip overlaid. Both book and slip are to scale.

The shape of the torn piece does not match the shape of the torn out area.

A scientist stated at the time that the type of paper in the slip was 'similar' to the type of paper used in the book.

A Police report from 1949 says of the book that the 'back leaf was missing'. In bookbinding terms, a 'leaf' is comprised of two pages. Books are bound in sets of two pages.

The assumption is made that the Detective Sergeant who wrote the report was referring to the last, back, page of the book.

Bear in mind that if the back page was missing then the other half of that page would have been the front page of the book

In a discussion with Gerry Feltus, he made it clear to me that there were 'pencil markings' on the code page and that these 'markings' were indentations left by someone writing in pencil on yet another page and by pressing the pencil down in order to write, left indentations on the page beneath.

This being so, then the back leaf would more than likely be the page on which the code was originally written and the next page in the book would have had the indentations which, using specialised techniques, the Police recovered.

Code Page Orientation Relative To The Book.

Note the partial view of the code page. It shows that the orientation of the book when the code was written would have been portrait and not landscape as per this image.

The orientation shown on the left has the top of the code page is close to the centre joining point with the book.

Another option is that the top of the code page was on the outer edge of the book and the difference in shading that you see at the top is from the YAPPED edge.

The book pages were not yapped, the cover was thus the orientation shown on the left is more likely to be correct.

Here's a download link to the full PDF copy of the Whitcombe and Tombs, Courage & Friendship Rubaiyat

GO TO PART 2 OF THIS POST