Tamam Shud case

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The Somerton Man
Police photo of the corpse, 1948
Bornc. 1905
Died(1948-12-01)1 December 1948
Resting placeWest Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide, South Australia
Gravesite: P3, 12, 106
Other namesUnknown Man (police terminology), Somerton Man
Known forMysterious death


It is named after the Persian phrase tamám shud, meaning "ended" or "finished", printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers.


Notes[change | change source]

  1. While the words that end The Rubaiyat are "Tamám Shud" (تمام شد), it has often been referred to as "Taman Shud" in the media, because of a spelling error in early newspaper coverage or police reports which has persisted.[source?] In Persian, تمام tamám is a noun that means "the end" and شد shud is an auxiliary verb indicating past tense, so tamam shud means "ended" or "finished".[source?]

References[change | change source]

  1. The Advertiser, "Tamam Shud", 10 June 1949, p. 2