Tamam Shud

Sometimes things just beg for a quick comparison – in this case, an Aussie mystery almost eighty years old now but apparently solved, and an Aussie surf band turned psychedelic and prog rock band. And some words from Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a Persian poet whose 800 years old works (at the time) FitzGerald published in 1859.

The Somerton Man was a mystery for decades, found dead on Somerton Park beach in December 1948 and who had no identification on him, but found among his few possessions was a piece of paper cut from a book (as it turned out) bearing the words “Tamam Shud” which is Persian for “It is done” or “It is over.”

Somewhere in the time following, a man showed police a copy of the Rubaiyat with the same last page, with that scrap with those words cut out, and some strange cypher written inside. It hasn’t to the best of my knowledge been decoded. Somerton man, however, has still to be decoded. He’s been “positively” identified as four different men from various evidence such as DNA, British ID pass photographs, and so forth. None are actually positive.

Tamam Shud the band was – until I looked all this up – unknown to me, but were formed in 1964 as The Four Strangers (!!!) then The Strangers then The Sunsets and finally Tamam Shud. That’s also four aliases… Cue Twilight Zone theme do-de-do-de….

I’m now having to look for some of their music I can buy or download if it’s out of copyright to get an idea of them.

Links here if you want to drop down a rabbit hole:
Somerton Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_Man
Tamam Shud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamam_Shud

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