Meet Julie Amour: Author of The Tamam Shud Cipher: Principles and Method
An Author Interview by Cassidy Paredes
In just 14 months, Julie Amour researched, studied, and solved the cipher for the 1948 Tamam Shud Case, also known as the Somerton Man Mystery or the Unknown Man. About 75 years ago, an unknown man was found dead on the beach in Adelaide, Australia. The only thing on him was a piece of paper with an encrypted message: "Tamam Shud." Based on 3 pieces of evidence presented in the case— the Rubaīyāt with 44 letters written on the back page, the torn strip of paper in his pocket, and the contents of his suitcase— Julie Amour was able to solve the cipher.
This July, she was able to publish her book about the principles and methodology behind solving and reading the Tamam Shud Cipher. Check out her new book, The Tamam Shud Cipher: Principles and Method, available on Amazon here.
This week, I sat down with author, singer-songwriter, graphic designer, and bookstore owner, Julie Amour to discuss her art, her business, and, of course, her new book.
Watch the full video interview here:
Julie Amour is a California native, chess and coffee enthusiast, avid reader and writer, and a dedicated mom of four, among other things. In our interview, Julie explained that she had the opportunity to homeschool her third child from kindergarten to 9th grade. Once her daughter was in high school, Julie was there as a guide while she was able to write her book.
While writing is one of Julie’s biggest passions, she also dabbles in several different art forms. After growing up in a very musical household in the eighties, Julie loves performing as a singer-songwriter. She was once even in the Blues Society.
Julie said, “My parents were hippies. They started out with acid rock, and our living room was just filled with hippies all the time and just people from all over the world; like we had a sitar player in there all day— you know, that kinda a thing. People were coming and going and sharing their music all the time. So, I started writing my own stuff.
“I just wanted to be a part of that,” she continued. “So, I was writing really early. I learned to play piano, and then later on I played guitar. My father builds guitars, so he builds all of my guitars for me, and my mom is still writing.”
When I asked her if she likes to listen to music while she writes, she said, “Well, when I have my writing projects going on, I usually listen to a lot of French music and a lot of instrumental, so I don't have words that get caught in my head.
“I'm always listening to music, just always, and it doesn't matter if it's classical or all the way to rap. I just can't help it. I love music.”
While Julie also likes to pursue graphic design, creating flyers and banners for her friends and local businesses, one of her proudest accomplishments is her bookstore Julie’s Bookshoppe.
When I told her that having a bookstore is every author’s dream, she agreed, saying, “Well, I just thought that I should stay in the theme of everything. ’What do you want to do?’ I want to sell books. Because it's in my garage, it took me a couple of years to clean the garage out, get everything prepared, and get the books in.
“Now, I have about 3,000 books, but only 1,000 are listed because I'm getting donations a lot. And then whenever I'm out and about and I see a bookstore, I have to go in there. I'll come out with bags of books.”
One of her current projects is Amour Library Series, where she takes public domain books and puts a reading guide with them. She said, “I take classic literature and make a reading guide with that so you can get the best and most out of your reading. I just started designing those, and it’s been so much fun. I’m never bored.
“{Creating is} really good for the soul. It really is. I’m addicted to expressing myself. I can’t help it. I can’t.”
Writing is her favorite way to do that, and while she loves reading and writing sci-fi and non-fiction, she never expected to accidentally stumble upon the Tamam Shud Case.
In our interview, Julie explained what inspired her to take a crack at the cipher that had been a mystery to cryptographers for decades. She said, “When my best friend was dying of cancer, I thought I would entertain her with stories. So, I'd make a title, and then I would do a synopsis, and she would laugh. She’d go, ‘Oh, I've heard that before’ or ‘Well, why would he do that?’ And so that kind of became the game in everything.
“But when she went to the hospital for the last time, I was like, okay, this is it. Let's do one for her that no one has done before. So, I said, ‘Google, gimme the top 10 murder mysteries with a code in it.’ I thought, ‘Well, we'll just have a simple book code in it. That's interesting.’ And boom, the Tamam Shud Case in Adelaide, Australia came up.”
Handwriting in the back of the Rubaīyāt
Julie said that once she saw the 44 letters on the back of the Rubaīyāt, she knew that she could solve the Tamam Shud Cipher linked to it, especially since she grew up with her mom reciting verses from the Rubaīyāt.
She remembered telling her friend about the project. Julie said, “This was an adventure that I knew she would go with me on. So, I just decided to pursue that, and I was just addicted. I grew up with the Rubaīyāt in my house, and my mom would recite the verses. I thought, ‘Well, this is easy. I think I can do this.’ It wasn't easy though. It really wasn't easy, but you know, it was in that poetry way, and it was just speaking to me”
Tools left in the Unknown Man’s suitcase
Julie explained that the main sources for her project were the resources of Dr. Abott of the University of Adelaide, who has been studying the Tamam Shud Case with his team at the University. For 14 months, she worked diligently, trying to not only solve the cipher but also remember how to solve it so she could help others learn how to.
The Unknown Man’s suitcase
She said, “I had to hold all the principles and all the rules at one time in order to finish it. I got caught in the snares, and it was a trap to confuse you and to keep you there. For three months I was caught in that, and I realized that if I try to use this to encipher and decipher— to send and receive a message— then I can't go in the way I came out or go out the way I came in: that was one of the methods or principles of that. You just go around in circles, but it's just so much fun.
“The cipher is so much fun. I just wish that everybody would get ahold of it because it is just so much fun to play with.”
Since the cipher is based on the 44 letters at the back of the Rubaīyāt, Julie knows that anyone who loves poetry would be interested in the cipher. She said, “The Rubaīyāt itself is --I don't know how to put it in a sentence-- but it's steganography. It's like the whole Rubaīyāt is a riddle. It holds the instructions for the cipher. It's carrying you through this adventure, and I wanted to take everybody on that adventure with me.”
While Julie has reached out to Dr. Abott, who still has teams trying to solve the cipher in Australia, twice, she has not heard back from him. She also received backlash from another cryptographer whom she tried reaching out to, maybe because she’s not a trained cryptographer. Despite these roadblocks, Julie is passionate about educating people about her amazing discovery regarding the Tamam Shud Case. She knows that her discovery, once recognized, will help others be able to solve the case of the Unknown Man.
In accompaniment to her book, she has a YouTube video to guide her readers through the principles and methodology behind reading The Tamam Shud Cipher. Check out her YouTube page, Tamam Shud Cipher.
Since her huge project of solving the Tamam Shud Cipher is finally over, Julie is back to working on her new sci-fi book, Siren’s Song. Follow Julie Amour on Facebook to get updates about her projects, and don’t forget to watch our full interview on YouTube.
Julie Amour's Author Bio:
Julie Amour is the author of The Tamam Shud Cipher: Principles & Method. She is an amateur writer of many genres which include poetry, sci-fi, and Non-fiction. Owning her own bookshop, she also dabbles in book design and graphic arts and was a performance artist/singer-songwriter. In her free time, she enjoys chess, large amounts of coffee, and reading everything she can set her eyes upon. Julie Amour resides in Northern California with her first love from childhood and her handsome Siamese cat.
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