Tool to decrypt/encrypt using masonic cipher. Pigpen cipher (also called masonic cipher or Freemason's cipher) uses a substitution alphabet made of grid parts and dots.
Pigpen Cipher - dCode
Tag(s) : Symbol Substitution
dCode is free and its tools are a valuable help in games, maths, geocaching, puzzles and problems to solve every day!
A suggestion ? a feedback ? a bug ? an idea ? Write to dCode!
Pig-Pen Encryption uses 26 symbols to represent each letter of the alphabet by mono-alphabetical substitution.
Symbols are created using a 3x3 grid, crosses and dots. Digits do not have symbols.
The ciphered message is made from symbols with right angles which sometime has a dot (1 symbol out of 2 has a dot).
The message has a maximum of 26 distinct characters.
The presence of pigs, pens, gate or farm are clues.
The reference to Charles M. Schulz's comic book Peanuts reminds us that one of his characters is called Pigpen.
It exists multiple variants for associating symbols and letters.
The original version combines the letters in this order:
However, variations exist, here are those identified by dCode:
#0 | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (Original version, filling grids ⌗,⌗• then crosses ✕,✕•) |
#1 | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTVUWXZY (Variant modifying cross filling by rotation ⟲) |
#2 | ABCDEFGHINOPQRSTUVJKLMWXYZ (⌗ then ✕ then ⌗• then ✕•) |
#3 | NOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLM (⌗•, ✕• ⌗, ✕) |
#4 | IJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGH (✕, ✕•, ⌗, ⌗•) |
#5 | ACEGIKMOQBDFHJLNPRSUWYTVXZ (Variant alternating ⌗ and ⌗• then ✕ and ✕•) |
#6 | ACEGIKMOQBDFHJLNPRSUYWTVZX (Variant of variant #5, filling crosses by rotation ✕⟲) |
#7 | ABCDEFGHILMNOPRSTV-------- (Version Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettelsheim) |
#8 | BDFHJLNPRACEGIKMOQT-V-S-U- (Version La Buse) |
The Knight Templars cipher or the rosicrucian cipher are very similar and have very close symbols.
Used by the Freemasons, this encryption allowed a written correspondence relatively difficult to decipher.
Symbols can be assimilated to pens and dots could be interpreted as small pigs.
PigPen appeared in the 18th century
dCode retains ownership of the "Pigpen Cipher" source code. Except explicit open source licence (indicated Creative Commons / free), the "Pigpen Cipher" algorithm, the applet or snippet (converter, solver, encryption / decryption, encoding / decoding, ciphering / deciphering, translator), or the "Pigpen Cipher" functions (calculate, convert, solve, decrypt / encrypt, decipher / cipher, decode / encode, translate) written in any informatic language (Python, Java, PHP, C#, Javascript, Matlab, etc.) and all data download, script, or API access for "Pigpen Cipher" are not public, same for offline use on PC, mobile, tablet, iPhone or Android app!
Reminder : dCode is free to use.
The copy-paste of the page "Pigpen Cipher" or any of its results, is allowed as long as you cite dCode!
Cite as source (bibliography):
Pigpen Cipher on dCode.fr [online website], retrieved on 2023-02-08,