Pigpen vs Templar — two "symbol" ciphers compared
| Pigpen cipher (Freemason) | Templar cipher | |
|---|---|---|
| Family | Symbols | Symbols |
| Difficulty | Beginner | Beginner |
| Era | Middle Ages, popularized by Freemasons (18th century) | 12th-14th centuries, Knights Templar |
| Inventor | — | Order of the Temple (anonymous) |
Pigpen and Templar belong to the same family of symbol ciphers: you substitute each letter of the alphabet with a unique geometric glyph. The cryptanalysis is rigorously identical to any monoalphabetic substitution — it’s just a costume on top of Caesar or Atbash. But the costume changes everything for the visual experience.
Origins: freemasons vs Templars
Pigpen (“pig pen”) is documented among American freemasons in the 18th century, though its traces may go back to the first European masonic orders. It served to identify brothers in correspondence and tombstone inscriptions. Construction: you draw two 3×3 grids and two Saint Andrew’s crosses, place the 26 letters into the cells, and the glyph of a letter is the silhouette of its cell (with or without a dot).
Templar is attributed to the Order of the Temple (12th–14th centuries), though the historical record remains indirect (the order was dissolved violently in 1307 and many archives lost). Construction: a rosette evoking the Templar cross (two concentric circles cut into eight sectors) serves as the matrix. Each letter occupies a sector, its glyph is a portion of that rosette.
Geometry changes the reading
Pigpen produces angular glyphs: brackets, crosses, square fragments. Once the grid is memorised, you read a message linearly, almost as text — the eye identifies the silhouette in a fraction of a second.
Templar produces curved glyphs: arc portions, petals, latticework. Reading is slower, the eye must identify the rotation angle and the sector. But visually the result immediately evokes a ritual, a stele, a secret order.
When to use which
- Escape room “puzzles in a crypt”, “masonic brotherhood” → Pigpen. Historical coherence, fast reading so the player doesn’t get stuck for too long.
- Medieval set, Templar-themed treasure hunt, narrative game where the code itself is part of the mood → Templar. The rosette is a graphic work in its own right.
- Pedagogical workshop on symbol ciphers → present both side by side. The visual contrast illustrates that the code is not the alphabet — what matters is the mapping, not the shape of the symbols.