The APOD third-time-lucky Voynich page has (just as you’d expect) been reblogged and retweeted near-endlessly, even on the What Does The Prayer Really Say blog, which describes itself as “Slavishly accurate liturgical translations & frank commentary on Catholic issues – by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf“, and has a Catholic priest smiley in the header: o{]:¬) Quality-wise, I have to admit that this tramples all over my (similarly-vaguely-autobiographical) ‘surprised balding bloke’ smiley, so score one for God here. =:-o
Interestingly, Fr. Z’s version of the APOD page has a few more pertinent comments than the original APOD page, including one (indirectly) from commenter Brother Charles’ mother who just happens to work at the Beinecke:-
That’s one of our most notorious holdings. We used to have a form letter to answer inquiries about it. Now I suppose it’s a form e-mail. I believe that the best guess is that the manuscript is an herbal with pharmaceutical recipes, etc. All kinds of people, some of them pretty far out, are trying to ‘crack the code.’
Also, Denis Crnkovic (who was once asked to see if the VMs was written in Glagolithic – apparently “it is not“) remarked that “My conjecture (totally unproved) is that it is a “secret writing” codex from around the Prague area used to further the scientific experiments and conclusions of the Prague alchemists.” Well… this would arguably be the #1 Voynich hypothesis, were it not for what seems to be the set of Occitan month-name labels on the zodiac emblems. But a damn good try, anyway. 🙂
As a final aside for the day, here’s a link to a set of urban myths about the Beinecke Library, courtesy of the Yale Daily News. Enjoy!
I have a nice ”trivia’ question:
“who was the first to compar the Voynich MS to
the Glagolithic script”.
Rene 🙂
Baresch? 😉
I like the priest smiley! On which note, has anyone considered the emoticon possibilities for Voynichese letters?
Apparently it was Bennett. Bennett said: “There are four distinct species of tall, wiggly P-
or II-shaped characters [the gallows letters] which are similar to
characters found in early Bulgarian Glagolitsa (see, Diringer, 1953;
p. 476). The one labeled P [Currier B, Frogguy qj] in Fig. 4-22 often
starts paragraphs. The one labeled H [Currier P, Frogguy qp] is
similar to characters used for that letter in the Glagolithic
alphabet.” (p. 193.)
The Beinecke urban legends are cool! I like the one that makes it sound like “The Andromeda Strain,” where the fire extinguishing system sucks out all the air and suffocates anyone inside.
Surely we could cook up some even better urban legends for the building that houses the VMs, those of us who’ve heard so many crackpot theories?
In fact, I haven’t heard any good silly theories about the VMs from the “serious” researchers in quite some time! We’re getting out of practice.
I don’t know about any absence of silly Voynich theories, I hear the VMs mailing list is steaming along just fine in my absence. 😉
Perhaps we should begin awarding Voynich Prizes:
one for the latest ‘re-discovery’ of an oft-discovered theory;
another for the most unexpected theory,
and a third for the person who manages to display the most consistent efforts to be patient despite the above. That, of course, would have to be called the Pelling Honoour.
Hmmm… “Voynich Prizes”, eh?
Perhaps I should offer a prize for “the most obviously unhinged (but honestly believed) cipher mystery theory of the year”, so that the Phaistos Disc, Dorabella, Beale Papers, and Zodiac Cipher theorists can join in the fun. I wouldn’t want to exclude anyone from that accolade! 🙂
I have a silly theory. Would if all the “water nymphs” are just a representation of a earlier breed of human, in which they needed to be in water to survive. Now, if I remember correctly, there was a certain culture who depicted alien beings which were part human whom needed to be submerged into water. Ok, would if this book is some type of Encyclopedia book for that culture?
I’d like to know your thoughts.. I also plan to research which exact culture it was with this supposed “myth’.
Ty,
William Mentalcase Masterson
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_dogon_3.htm#the%20first
I just now remembered it was the Dogon Tribe and the Egyptians.
I find it interesting that they speak of containers of which the “aliens” sat in. It was essential for them, to live.
I know, it’s all rather crazy and I’m sure the connection has been made before. I would assume that it is a lost language. The fact that it is so simular to many symbols used through-out time. I realise there isn’t a distinct connection between the VMs and the Dogon Civilization, etc.
So, I’m just tongue and cheekin a conversation here..
Ty XD
Also, some of the images of the VMs show these women bathing or whatever. I thought that, maybe these pages were some type of erotica for the readers? Perhaps that section was porn? Where are the men in those pictures? Maybe I haven’t seen enough pages. Although, about 10 years ago, I researched this topic pretty thoroughly. I just have a shitty memory.
Ta ta
William: Actually, Andy Lloyd proposed a connection between the Voynich Manuscript, Dogon mythology, and Nibiru back in 2001 – so I’m very sorry, but when it comes to the VMs, you’ll have to work much harder than that to be classified as really silly. 🙂
Having said that, linking the whole “aquatic ape” theory with the VMs nymphs might be a novel angle. However, because they are wearing clothes on the early pages before the sequence degenerates into nakedness, is it depicting a back-to-front kind of evolution? Look at the Sagittarius page, though: someone has begun drawing in a sketchy barrel at the top before giving up halfway through. Right now, this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me: but perhaps it will be the codicological key that helps someone else work out what the authors / authors’ specific intent was here. Just so you know! 🙂
I realise that my question in comment #1 is not a well-posed one, since I
don’t actually know the answer. Bennet is right for modern times (to the
best of my knowledge), but we can’t be sure about Baresch.
More about this soon, I hope.
Sadly, it’s a bit late to ask William Ralph Bennett Jr (1930-2008) if he thought of the comparison himself, but his source (if any) surely wasn’t Baresch. 🙂
Actually, William Friedman’s collection (donated after his death in 1969) contains a book showing a “Glagolitsa” alphabet in (Item 208.1), so it would not be completely implausible if WFF turns out to be the 20th century source for any suggestions of similarities (however fleeting) between Voynichese and Glagolithic scripts (even if he did end up taking a “synthetic language” position by 1959).
Incidentally, Rafal Prinke once mentioned the “alphabet of Perm” while discussing this: here’s a recent page on the Permic alphabet, just in case you’re interested. 🙂
As a classical example of synchronicity, I stumbled upon an image
in a 15th century MS that shows a pattern which is quite similar to that
of our favourite APOD picture. The MS in question is called Coislin 338
and it is preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, in Paris.
It’s the third case where I find a possible precedent for a
Voynich astronomical illustration, where the original MS is Greek.
The other two were described here:
http://www.voynich.nu/extra/mstaur.html
http://www.voynich.nu/extra/vatg1291.html
In this case, as in the case of the Helios miniature, the Greek MS
deals with Théon’s “handy tables”.
I am not sure whether the image can be published here.
In any case it is barely legible. I’m sending it to Nick and he may
decide whether to include it.
The point I wanted to make is: for me, the Voynich MS astronomical
illustrations are rather arcane, and do not deal at all with the astronomy of
the times of Copernicus and after, but with the times much before that.
Rene: thanks, good find! What I also find intriguing about Coislin 338 is that it contains a 16-way circular diagram (fol. 121v) immediately adjacent to a 12-way circular diagram (fol. 122r), just as we would have seen in the VMs’ original page order. I think a post on this and Theon of Alexandria (Hypatia’s father, conspiracy fans!) is probably in order…
Is this the image you are referring to?
Christopher: unfortunately, the link you gave was only valid for a session – which BnF book were you looking at?
Paul: as I recall, people trying to date the VMs’ nymph hairstyles have tended to suggest later dates (closer to 1500 than to 1440), which I would say is a bit strange. There’s plenty of room for someone to swing in and say something really amazing about this but… it hasn’t happened yet. =:-o Also: as for comparisons with thermae, you might ask our friend Adam McLean, it’s a bit of a specialist subject for him! 🙂
Nick, thanks for your page. One would never guess there were so many fun ciphers out there. Or the interest is shared by so many people!
Regards
Special Sauce