News arrives from the New Journal Magazine at Yale (via Jeff Haley on the Voynich Mailing List and Elmar Vogt’s Voynich blog, thanks to you both!) that “two outside specialists” at the Sterling Memorial Library have been “analyzing the pigments in [the Voynich Manuscript’s] ink and carbon dating a tiny sample of its vellum“. Hooray!
Though Yale was perhaps spurred on to do this by the documentary that is currently being made, it is not clear whether the lack of results or details published as yet is because of some arrangement-to-withhold with the film-makers, or perhaps because the results are so astonishing that it’s taking ages to write them up. 🙂 Hopefully we’ll find out soon…
The 2009 Kalamazoo medieval congress continues apace (until tomorrow) – did anyone see Angela Catalina Ghionea’s Voynich plant presentation? I should perhaps comment here that her ongoing dissertation topic “The Occult Origins of European Science” seems hugely ironic to me, given that I view a lot of Renaissance & modern occult practices as being built on top of misunderstood proto-science – so if I was writing a dissertation, it would be on the “The Scientific Origins of European Occultism“. But which of us, then, is the contrarian? 😮
Finally… after a period of domain transition, my compellingpress.com site is now back online: there’s still a small boxful of copies of “The Curse of the Voynich” sitting in the corner, all awaiting owners. 😉
Documentary? How cool is that!
Nick: Do you think, or do you know, if this testing is related to the documentary you discussed:
http://ciphermysteries.com/2008/07/21/voynich-documentary-for-2010
Thanks, Rich.
So perhaps now that someone has succeeded in decoding the writing, and convinced Yale of that, there is a meaningful and valuable text to establish the authenticity of, rather than a probable “hoax” to confirm the lack of value of.
Time to grind our teeth?
My girlfriend will be pleased….she must have said a hundred times “why hasn’t anyone dated the paper? [her words] it could all be a hoax!”
Hi Rich,
Yes, it’s the same documentary I mentioned back then – but as to what tests were performed (and with what kind of research hypotheses in mind), I have absolutely no idea. Having said that, it’s a pretty safe bet that they were aware of the kind of specific tests and pages we’ve all been talking about for a while, so we might get lucky, you never know! 😉
Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….
Hopefully “very” – but the path from research to screen is beset with peril… fingers crossed it all goes well for them!
Errrm… regardless of what Angela Catalina Ghionea’s presentation does or doesn’t claim, I somehow doubt that the Beinecke’s curators would do any codicology / conservation as a direct result of its appearing at Kalamazoo. 99% certain it’s the fast-looming documentary that inspired them. 🙂
And tell your girlfriend it’s vellum, not paper! 🙂
It would be fascinating to have some date analysis for parts of the Voynich manuscript, but I imagine that won’t entirely settle the question of when it was made– since it appears that some of the paints were added by a later owner, and isn’t some of the vellum patched up in places? (Much like how part of the Turin Shroud was dated and implied a medieval hoax, but some claim this was a patch added later.)
Emily —
Well, the Carbon dating and similar tests might help in as far as they could corroborate that the paint was added after the text was written, or such.
But, with the way things go with the VM, I’m afraid we’ll get something like “the paint was added before the sheep was killed for the vellum…” %-o
Testing the “paper” (;-)) may actually be quite limited in its power to restrict the possibilities, especially if they only test a tiny sample from one place. Also given the suggestion that WMV was keen to source blank vellum and study the composition of inks.
But if they are able to date the ink accurately and reliably that is another matter. Now THAT could sort the sheep out from the artichokes!
Marke
Marke: any ink dates would be art history dates, along the lines of “the paint in page x was prepared from ingredient y, which was only introduced into Europe in 1556” etc. Still plenty of room for sheep-vs-artichokes debates, I’m afraid. 🙂
Elmar: more like “the medusa blood in the paint was added before the unicorn was killed for the vellum”. 🙂
Emily: apart from the (probably twentieth century) end stubs added to the centre of a few quires, all the vellum seems to be from the same general date, so we’re probably safe in that respect. I say “probably”… 😮
Thanks, Nick. I was wondering if the manuscript might have been patched up because it’s apparently fallen apart and been repaired/reshuffled a couple times.
the medusa blood in the paint was added before the unicorn was killed for the vellum…
But was that before or after the Jesuits got ahold of space alien technology reverse-engineered by Leonardo da Vinci? Inquiring minds want to know!
For the most part, the wear seems largely confined to the manuscript’s spine: its most worn place is the lower-right-hand fold on the nine-rosette page, which Glen Claston (very plausibly) suggests was originally where it was bound – and the damage would have happened when it was rebound along the lower-left-hand fold (or perhaps it was rebound as a result of the damage having already happened).
As far as the Jesuits, space alien technology, and Leonardo da Vinci all go… I have a vague suspicion you’re being silly here. 🙂
I’m sill waiting for the details on alien-technology making DNA with sound…
Dude you ate my hamster. Then skinned it and made a book out of it. When do I get compensation?
Still mixed up in this dead end job Nick? Tut Tut
Jeff Haley