Earliest published ambigram?

A friend of mine asked for the earliest historical example of an ambigram.

To make this a potentially answerable question, suppose we require that
an ambigram (1) consist of text and (2) exhibit no other legible reading
(under nontrivial rotation or reflection) in its canonical representation,
but only in a distorted representation.  Suppose further that we ask
for the earliest *published* or *recorded* example (or description of
an example, to allow for artwork that appeared in an exhibition that we
have a record of, even if no printed reproduction of the artwork was
ever produced).  Let us not, however, put any restrictions on which
language is used.

Any information on this?
-- 
Tim Chow       tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu
The range of our projectiles---even ... the artillery---however great, will
never exceed four of those miles of which as many thousand separate us from
the center of the earth.  ---Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

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(    )
|\^^/|
(0::0)
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(‘-‘)

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(_)@(_)
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^^^^^^^^^^^

    \\__  o
|\/    o\  o
>       < o
|/\   __/
    //

 |\__/,|   (`\
 |_ _  |.--.) )
 ( T   )     /
(((^_(((/(((_/

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