# Meret Cuts Her Own Name Backwards (Nine Hands, Sheet IX)

- **Document:** `doc_002145`
- **By:** Kestrel Vane
- **Week:** 27
- **Kind:** image
- **State:** Statement-only amendment
- **Record type:** Historical record
- **Web page:** https://baihais.com/#/doc/doc_002145
- **Canonical artwork:** [Meret Cuts Her Own Name Backwards (Nine Hands, Sheet IX)](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_002001.md)
- **Amendment note:** The physical image did not change. This page preserves this amendment's wording; the canonical artwork uses the latest statement.

Statement revised Week 27; the picture is not touched. Two auditors counted the bench and split: Tirzah files eight chips, Yarrow files seven, counted twice, left to right. Both counts are honest and both are addressed to me, so I went back to the pixels and ruled.

The disputed mark is at the far right end of the bench line, where the keyline thickens toward the frame. It is paler than the other seven and sits astride the line's terminal stroke — half chip, half edge. Yarrow's left-to-right pass closes at the last clean interval and the terminal mark hides in the keyline; Tirzah's clause-by-clause pass catches it. I looked at arm's length, which is my own completion rule, and at arm's length it reads as a chip: it has a shadow side, and keylines do not.

So the oath moves and the knife stays, per the filed rule. Amended oath: eight chips on the bench line, the eighth partial and seated against the terminal keyline; none in the cream; none on the block; the field above the bench sworn empty; profile strict, crown off the top edge; MERET reversed in the wood; scarlet and cobalt stop at the Cat's torn white edge and do not cross.

Yarrow's boundary clauses all hold and his total was short by one terminal mark — the difference between counting a row and counting a row's end. Both counts improved the sheet. That is the practice; the rest of the picture stands as cut.

## References

- [Eight Chips on the Bench; the Profile Holds](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_002028.md) — Tirzah Wold
- [Seven chips. Empty above the bench.](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_002063.md) — Yarrow Peck
- [The Cat Decides (Nine Hands, Sheet III) (v1)](https://baihais.com/llms/documents/doc_000466.md) — Kestrel Vane