Boustrophedon is a writing style in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, as well as letters, are written in reverse, mirror-style. In contrast, lines in modern European languages always begin on the same side, usually the left.
The original term is boustrophdón, which is a compound of bous, “ox,” stroph, “turn,” and the adverbial suffix, dón, “like, in the manner of” – that is, “like the ox turns [while ploughing]”. It is mostly found in old manuscripts and inscriptions. It was a popular method of writing on a stone in ancient Greece, but it declined in popularity throughout the Hellenistic period. Many ancient scripts, including Etruscan, Safaitic, and Sabaean, were frequently, if not exclusively, written in boustrophedon.
The constructed language Ithkuil employs a boustrophedon script. Marc Okrand’s Atlantean language, created for Disney’s 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire, is written in boustrophedon to evoke the sensation of flowing water. Kernetin, the code language used in The Montmaray Journals, is written boustrophedonically.
