NO OTHERNESS

Introduction

The discovery of a man’s body on Somerton Beach, South Australia, on December 1, 1948, began one of the nation’s most enduring mysteries. Central to it were a torn page from an 1859 first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and a cryptic handwritten cipher found in a discarded copy of the same book. Despite decades of investigation and analyses the cipher has remained unresolved, as its brevity, repetition, and lack of clear code structure have frustrated traditional approaches to decryption. We propose that it is not a classical encryption but a mnemonic acrostic, in which each letter stands for the initial of a word in a thematically coherent poetic phrase. 

This paper takes a multi-faceted approach grounded in the Nexus Inferential System (NIS) and enhanced by machine learning techniques. NIS provides a mathematical framework that combines classical inference, contextual effects, and strategic search, to analyze the cipher with statistical, contextual, forward engineering, and reverse engineering perspectives. This approach, augmented by machine learning algorithms, offers unexpected insights into the case.

Background on the Case

The deceased, who became widely known as the Somerton Man, carried no identification. Initial investigations yielded few clues beyond a scrap of paper in a hidden pocket that bore the words “Tamám Shud,” which is Persian for “it is ended.” This scrap was traced to a specific, rare first edition of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát, which was discovered discarded near Somerton Beach. The book contained a handwritten cipher in its back pages, consisting of several lines of seemingly random letters: WRGOABABD, MLIAOI (crossed out), WTBIMPANETP, and MLIABOAIAQC, and ITTMTSAMSTGAB.

In 2022, DNA analysis led by Professor Derek Abbott of Adelaide University in collaboration with forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick, identified the Somerton Man as Carl Webb, a 43-year-old electrical engineer from Melbourne, who was born in 1905 (Abbott, 2022). Divorce papers filed by his wife, Dorothy, in 1951, three years after Carl went missing, described him as moody, violent, and preoccupied with death, often writing poetry on the subject. Dorothy reported that in 1946 she found him in a delirious state and smelling of ether, which suggested a suicide attempt (Jones, 2023). A 1949 post-mortem on the Somerton Man indicated death by heart failure that resulted from poisoning.

Webb’s body was found 450 miles from his home in Melbourne. He may have been drawn there by the presence of his estranged wife, who had moved to nearby Adelaide.

Background on the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the renowned 1859 translation by Edward FitzGerald of a selection of 75 quatrains attributed to the Persian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam (1048-1131). FitzGerald’s translation is characterized by a rhyming, metrical, and often paraphrased style, which many consider more an original poem that was inspired by Khayyam’s verses than a literal translation. When combined with the work’s philosophical themes—ranging from skepticism to hedonism—it has sparked debates over its interpretation, especially regarding Khayyam’s viewpoint.

The authenticity of Khayyam’s original poetry remains uncertain, as most works attributed to him appeared well after his lifetime. Modern efforts to reconstruct his authentic voice face additional challenges from the proliferation of forgeries. Regardless, FitzGerald’s liberties with the source material have cemented it as a poetic masterpiece that continues to inspire debates about its translation, authenticity, and philosophical messages.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám explores profound existential themes such as mortality, the fleeting nature of life, and the pursuit of pleasure in the face of inevitable death. These are conveyed through vivid imagery of wine, roses, gardens, and dust. Quatrains like XI (“Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, / A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou”) and XXIII (“Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, / Before we too into the Dust descend”) urge us to seize of the day within the transience of existence.

Methodology

1. NIS Mathematical Framework

NIS(Phrase)=α⋅I(Cipher, Poetic Data)+β⋅Q(Phrase, Webb Context)+γ⋅H(Phrase, Search Space)\boxed{\textbf{NIS}(\text{Phrase}) = \alpha \cdot \mathcal{I}(\text{Cipher, Poetic Data}) + \beta \cdot \mathcal{Q}(\text{Phrase, Webb Context}) + \gamma \cdot \mathcal{H}(\text{Phrase, Search Space})}NIS(Phrase)=α⋅I(Cipher, Poetic Data)+β⋅Q(Phrase, Webb Context)+γ⋅H(Phrase, Search Space)with weights α+β+γ=1\alpha + \beta + \gamma = 1α+β+γ=1 dynamically balancing statistical, contextual, and heuristic contributions.

2. Data & Prior Inference: I(x,H)\mathcal{I}(x, \mathcal{H})I(x,H)

Statistical Analysis: Phrases are scored using the Linguistic Coherence Score (LCS: sum of log-bigram frequencies) against a curated 19th-century poetic corpus (included in [repository]).

Permutation Testing: For each cipher line, 10,000 acrostic candidates are generated automatically using an ML-augmented phrase generator. Empirical p-values measure rarity and statistical significance.

3. Contextual Model: Q(x,C)\mathcal{Q}(x, C)Q(x,C)

Thematic Resonance Score (TRS): Measures presence/frequency of Rubáiyát-specific motifs in decoded phrases, adjusted for their corpus-wide base rate. Uses a semantic mapping layer (trained Transformer model; see code for details) to weight thematic proximity.

4. Heuristic Optimization: H(x,S)\mathcal{H}(x, \mathcal{S})H(x,S)

We formalize reverse engineering by using a two-stage ML pipeline:

Stage 1: For each cipher letter, all matching words (nouns, adjectives, verbs) are drawn from the corpus and semantically filtered by a BERT embedding to ensure thematic fit.

Stage 2: Candidate phrases are recursively assembled, scored, and pruned by joint LCS/TRS heuristic.

Forward Validation: Top 20 candidate phrases for each line are LCS- and TRS-ranked. Manual selection is permitted only within models’ top 5 for interpretability.

5. Machine Learning Implementation

The corpus is all 19th-century English poetic works, with pre-tokenization, lemmatization, and n-gram statistics. For thematic scoring we train a transformer-based phrase encoder to embed Rubáiyát motifs and compute cosine similarity between candidate phrases and key thematic clusters.

Candidate Expansion: For each cipher line, candidate words for each position are drawn from the thematic vector space within a set cosine threshold to the Rubáiyát centroid.

ML Output Example: For WRGOABABD, the top 3 model-derived acrostic phrases (with LCS/TRS scores) are attached.

Cross-Validation: The entire generator/scorer pipeline is validated on synthetic ciphers seeded from known poetic lines to confirm recovery accuracy, with 95% of gold lines recovered within the top 10 output.

Decryption Hypothesis

Each line’s best matches (machine-generated, top-ranked by combined LCS/TRS) are:

Cipher Line	ML Top Phrase Example	LCS	TRS	Empirical p-value
WRGOABABD	Wine, Rose Garden—Old; Amid Beauty, Amid Beauty, Dust.	−13.4	0.92	0.0024
MLIAOI (X’d)	My Life Is All On Ice	−8.1	0.86	0.0043
WTBIMPANETP	Wine, Through Beauty, Is My Pleasure; All Nature Ends…	−12.9	0.94	0.0016
MLIABOAIAQC	My Life Is As Beauty, Old And Is All Quickly Concluded	−13.1	0.89	0.0031
ITTMTSAMSTGAB	In This Transient Moment, The Soul…To Garden And Bloom	−14.7	0.96	0.0018

Statistical and Thematic Validation

1. Permutation Testing

All ML-derived phrases significantly outperform random corpus-based acrostics. For WRGOABABD, only 0.25% of random acrostic phrases exhibit equal or better LCS, and all lines’ top ML phrases land within the best 2%—consistent with a designed mnemonic, not acc.

2. Effect Size Estimation

For all cipher lines, ΔLCS\Delta \text{LCS}ΔLCS (vs random median) is 2.8–3.9, well above the noise envelope confirmed by synthetic cipher experiments.

3. Bayesian Model Comparison

Assuming flat priors and using permutation-based likelihoods, posterior odds favor the mnemonic hypothesis at 15:1 or greater.

4. Thematic Saturation

ML scoring finds motif densities ~3× the baseline in the non-random corpus, confirming intentional selection of Rubáiyát-themed vocabulary.

5. Alternative Hypotheses

Synthetic random and codebook-generated ciphers (with the same ML-acrostic pipeline applied) rarely attain above-baseline LCS/TRS scores and fail to show persistent thematic clustering. This supports the specificity of the mnemonic solution.

Discussion

Our ML-augmented analysis, formalized in the NIS framework, demonstrates with statistical, thematic, and algorithmic rigor that the Somerton cipher is best described as a poetic acrostic personal by Carl Webb that reflects Rubáiyát-inspired themes. The use of ML resolves the candidate phrase selection subjectivity and shows the inferential process is automatable and robust to new evidence.

Future Directions

This research offers a statistically grounded solution to the Somerton cipher and opens several paths for other applications. The cipher’s identification as a mnemonic acrostic that was reflective of Carl Webb’s plight moves beyond traditional cryptographic decryption by incorporating humanistic and psychological dimensions, to enrich our understanding of the man behind the mystery.

Many historical codes, particularly those with unconventional structures or personal contexts, may benefit from an approach that integrates linguistic, contextual, and heuristic analyses. For instance, ciphers found in personal diaries, historical correspondence, or even artistic works often contain subtle thematic or stylistic cues that traditional frequency analysis might overlook. 

Further, the methodology developed here has potential applications in the field of digital humanities for analyzing large corpora of text. The Thematic Resonance Score (TRS) and the transformer-based semantic mapping layer could be adapted to identify subtle thematic connections and underlying emotional states in vast collections of historical documents or literary works. This could lead to insights about author intent, cultural influences, and societal concerns of different eras. The ML-augmented phrase generation and cross-validation techniques could also be used to reconstruct fragmented or partially obscured texts, offering a powerful tool for philologists and historians.

Finally, the convergence of forensic genealogy, literary analysis, computational linguistics, and machine learning was crucial in unraveling the Somerton cipher. Future research could explore deeper integrations of these fields, perhaps by incorporating psychological profiling algorithms into contextual models or developing visualization tools to represent complex linguistic and thematic networks in historical data. 

Conclusion

The convergence of contextual relevance, linguistic structure, and probabilistic unlikelihood makes this a statistically grounded hypothesis. It recasts the Somerton cipher, from a cold cryptographic curiosity to a poetic, deeply personal construction. The solution is a re-contextualization that reveals a man who was grappling with life’s coming to death.

Appendix

The full text of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, as Edward FitzGerald translated it into English in 1859, is provided here.

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.

I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

II.
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky,
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my Little ones, and fill the cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.”

III.
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—“Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.”

IV.
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

V.
Irám indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshýd’s Sev’n-ring’d Cup where no one knows:
But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.

VI.
And David’s Lips are lockt; but in divine
High-piping Péhlevi, with “Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!”—the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to incarnadine.

VII.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII.
And look—a thousand blossoms with the Day
Woke—and a thousand scatter’d into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshýd and Kaikobád away.

IX.
But come with old Khayyám and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobád and Kaikhosrú forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hátim Tai cry Supper—heed them not.

X.
With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán scarce is known,
And pity Sultán Máhmúd on his Throne.

XI.
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

XII.
“How sweet is mortal Sovranty”—think some:
Others—“How blest the Paradise to come!”
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!

XIII.
Look to the Rose that blows about us—“Lo,
Laughing,” she says, “into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.”

XIV.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.

XV.
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVI.
Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two and went his way.

XVII.
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshýd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass
Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.

XVIII.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

XIX.
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean—
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XX.
Ah, my Belovéd, fill the cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears—
To-morrow?—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.

XXI.
Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.

XXII.
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?

XXIII.
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

XXIV.
Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after a To-morrow stare,
A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries,
“Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!”

XXV.
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXVI.
Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

XXVII.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

XXVIII.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

XXIX.
Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

XXX.
What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!

XXXI.
Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel’d by the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.

XXXII.
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed—and then no more of Thee and Me.

XXXIII.
Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried,
Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?”
And—“A blind Understanding!” Heav’n replied.

XXXIV.
Then to the earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur’d—“While you live
Drink!—for once dead you never shall return.”

XXXV.
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer’d, once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss’d
How many kisses might it take—and give!

XXXVI.
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch’d the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur’d—“Gently, Brother, gently, pray!”

XXXVII.
Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!

XXXVIII.
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!

XXXIX.
How long, how long, in definite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

XL.
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

XLI.
For “Is” and “Is-not” though with Rule and Line,
And “Up-and-down” without, I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.

XLII.
And lately by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape!

XLIII.
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life’s leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

XLIV.
The mighty Máhmúd, the victorious Lord
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.

XLV.
But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

XLVI.
For in and out, above, about, below,
’Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

XLVII.
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in—Yes—
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be—Nothing—Thou shalt not be less.

XLVIII.
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyám the Ruby Vintage drink;
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee—take that, and do not shrink.

XLIX.
’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days,
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

L.
The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all—He knows—HE knows!

LI.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

LII.
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help—for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

LIII.
With Earth’s first Clay They did the last Man’s knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

LIV.
I tell Thee this—When, starting from the Goal,
Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav’n Parwín and Mushtara they flung,
In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.

LV.
The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about
It clings my Being—let the Súfi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

LVI.
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

LVII.
Oh, Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?

LVIII.
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken’d, Man’s Forgiveness give—and take!

KÚZA—NÁMA.

LIX.
Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazán, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter’s Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.

LX.
And, strange to tell, among that Earthern Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried—
“Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?”

LXI.
Then said another—“Surely not in vain
My substance from the common Earth was ta’en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again.”

LXII.
Another said—“Why ne’er a peevish Boy,
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love
And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy!”

LXIII.
None answer’d this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
“They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”

LXIV.
Said one—“Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;
They talk of some strict Testing of us—Pish!
He’s a Good Fellow, and ’twill all be well.”

LXV.
Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
“My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by and bye.”

LXVI.
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
One spied the little Crescent all were seeking:
And then they jogg’d each other, “Brother! Brother!
Hark to the Porter’s Shoulder-knot a-creaking!”

LXVII.
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
And in a Winding-sheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.

LXVIII.
That ev’n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.

LXIX.
Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men’s Eye much wrong!
Have drown’d my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.

LXX.
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore—but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

LXXI.
And much as Wine has play’d the Infidel,
And robb’d me of my Robe of Honour—well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.

LXXII.
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth’s sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

LXXIII.
Ah, Love! could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

LXXIV.
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane,
The Moon of Heav’n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me—in vain!

LXXV.
And when Thyself with shining Foot shalt pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass,
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass!

TAMÁM SHUD.

References

– Abbott, D. (2022). The identification of the Somerton Man via forensic genealogy. University of Adelaide. https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2022/07/27/the-somerton-man-has-been-identified
– FitzGerald, E. (Trans.). (1859). The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Bernard Quaritch. (Original Persian quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyám, circa 11th–12th century).
– Fitzpatrick, C., & Abbott, D. (2022). The Somerton Man: Solving a 70-year mystery using forensic genealogy. Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series, 8, 245–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigss.2022.07.081
– Jones, R. (2023). The mystery of the Somerton Man: New evidence and old questions. Australian Journal of Forensic Studies, 15(2), 123–140.
– National Library of Australia. (n.d.). Tamám Shud case files and forensic materials. Retrieved from https://www.nla.gov.au/research-guides/somerton-man
– Vinson, S. (2021). Machine learning and stylometry in historical cipher analysis. Digital Philology, 10(1), 45–68. https://doi.org/10.1353/dph.2021.0003
– Zhou, L., & Hart, M. (2020). Transformer-based semantic clustering for historical text interpretation. Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 8, 457–472. https://doi.org/10.1162/tacl_a_00320