8/16/25 Report - Hundreds of Years Old Finds Bearing Religious Inscriptions and Decoding The Inscriptions. Jesuit Woodcut. Erin.

 Written by the TreassureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Prayer of St. Zacharias Ring As Listed in an Older Sedwick Auction.

As you probably know, many religious items have been found on the Spanish shipwrecks.  As personal possessions these items of faith provided much comfort to those undertaking such dangerous ventures.  The Catholic faith played a large role in personal and public life and small devices like these were statements of faith and also provided a sense of protection.  They encoded much information that aided the memory and communication of prayers and faith in a very portable compact form.

I showed the above image of the ring bearing the intriguing inscription in a 2022 post, so I know the auction occurred prior to that time.  I was attempted to find an image of a similar prayer ring in an old  issue of the Florida Historical Quarterly, which I think was published in a 1977 issue, but I wasn't able to find it so now so I settled for the above image from an auction listing. I've posted pictures of Treasure Coast finds bearing a similar inscription, and the in posts 1715 Fleet Society also did an article on an inscribed prayer ring prayer ring like this.  A bracelet bearing the inscription was also found.  Right off, I don't how many have been found or if some of those might be the same ring, but this inscription has been identified to represent the St. Zacharias prayer, commonly used for deliverance from plague.   

The Zacharias prayer for deliverance has also been copied on crosses and various items that became popular in modern times and during the Covid epidemic.  Below are a couple examples that are advertised on the internet and can be purchased very inexpensively.

These crosses bearing the Zacharias prayer are available on 
Plague Cross – Catholic plague protection crosses for sale. Available now.

The inscription is not the full prayer. It is a kind of shorthand or mnemonic device something like an acronym or acrostic. 

Below I'm going to show how the inscription was formed.

First here is an 18th century Jesuit pocket devotional.

Jesuit pocket devotional containing prayers and woodcuts, some from the 

late 16th century, the whole assembled in the late 18th century.

If you look closely at the part of the devotional shown above, you will see a Jerusalem cross (top center panel) bearing similar figures (enlarged below).

One Panel From the Jesuit Devotional Shown Above. The letters on and around this cross are more numerous than what you will see on jewelry or even most crosses.  I haven't decoded the letters and figures in this image.  If you can figure it out, please let me know what it all means. Here is a simpler cross that shows just the St. Zacharias prayer mnemonic very much as it is shown on the 1715 Fleet ring. Cross Being Sold In Modern Times. The symbols are the same shown on the 1715 Fleet ring and bracelet finds.   Now I'll show how the letters on these items relate to the words of the prayer of Zacharias.  The Latin language and English translation of the prayer is in a little booklet that is provided with the purchase of one of the crosses from the following web site.  Plague Cross – Catholic plague protection crosses for sale. Available now. Below is the Latin along with the English translation of the prayer.  You can also see the items inscribed on the ring and shown on the crosses. The first symbol, the cross figure, indicates a line of the prayer starting with the Latin word Crux, translated to English as cross. The Z, the first Latin letter of the second line, is the first letter of the latin word Zelus, translated as zeal. The word order in Latin and English being slightly different. Then a second cross symbol indicates another line beginning with Crux.  That is followed by a D, for the word Deus, which begins the next line of the prayer, and is translated to English as God. I think you can see from that how the letters and symbols inscribed on the ring and crosses indicate the lines of the prayer.   You can find the remaining lines of the prayer in both English and Latin in the pamphlet by using this link.  Plague Cross – Catholic plague protection crosses for sale. Available now.  There are a couple more pages to it. The rings and other items inscribed with the Zacharias prayer are amazing finds.  The Jesuit woodcut is a similarly interesting object that provides much insight into life and culture of Spanish colonial times in the New World. --- I first mentioned items inscribed with the mnemonic for the Zacharias prayer in a blog post fifteen years ago ( 8/1/10).  In that old post, I referred to a couple of links, one by to an article by an archaeologist discussing the inscriptions.  I talked about two items salvaged from a wreck and a bracelet bearing the inscription that was a beach find.  Unfortunately one link in that post no longer works, and I can't even find the other, but I did give the inscriptions as follows: 1989 gold ring: Z+DIA+BIZ+S+ZB+Z+HGA+BFS++ 1996 gold ring: Z+DIA+BIZ+SAB+Z+HG+F+BF Bracelet - beach find: Z DIA BIZ SAB ZHG BFRS The year dates above are the dates those rings were found.   At the time of that old post, I didn't know what the inscriptions referred to.  In fact, I probably thought they were from Spanish rather than Latin.  In more recent years other similarly inscribed artifacts have been found. I've been doing this blog long enough that I can see how my knowledge has slowly but steadily increased.  It is also apparent how much information has been accumulated by the archaeological and treasure hunting communities over the past decade and a half, thanks to a large extent to sharing on the internet.  It has also been interesting to see the adoption used hundreds of years ago becoming popular again during a modern epidemic.   I've learned quite a bit over the past decade and a half, but it has been a very slow process. Some of you have contributed and been along for the entire ride.    Thanks. ------ Source: nhc.noaa.gov. Erin has strengthened but has stayed on the same projected track.  Looks like it will stay out to see, but will send us some waves. Source: SurfGuru.com. The Surfguru forecast shows an increasing surf around Monday and Tuesday, possibly reaching a peak Wednesday or Thursday. --- I don't know how many of you noticed this, but I changed my Happy Hunting at the end of my posts to Good Hunting shortly after Russia invaded the Ukraine.  If the war ends, which I'm not very optimistic about at this time, ( and if it does end, I don't think it will be quick, but if it does end, I might change back to Happy hunting or some other signoff. For now, Good hunting, Treasureguide@comcast.net