Italian man sets record by mirror typing books in ancient languages
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Michele Santelia, an Italian man, has set a Guinness World Record by typing copies of 81 books backwards. These books are in ancient languages like Hieroglyphs, Old Hebrew, Traditional Chinese, Mayan, Etruscan, Cuneiform or Voynich glyphs. He calls the technique "mirror writing/typing".
He has assembled four Indian Vedas into a single book by mirror typing.
The Guinness website says that Santelia types books backwards while simultaneously using four entirely blank keyboards and does not double-check his work. He has mirror typed The Bible, the Code of Hammurabi, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Book of the Dead from ancient Egypt, and the writings of Leonardo da Vinci.
He was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci for his peculiar interest. "It is to his enlightened mind that I, with great humility, attempt to compare [myself] in order to try to understand his mysteries, his secrets, and ancient virtues."
He discovered the special skill in 1992 and has been obsessed with it ever since. He told GWR that he can type using 16 computer keyboards simultaneously located at different heights. Santelia had to create his own keyboards because normal devices do not have mirrored keys. He binds each key to a different mirrored letter of the alphabet. "The books must be typed using 'mirror writing' for the purposes of this record, so that the result is a mirror image of any given language's normal writing."
