Following a trail of breadcrumbs from my recent post on Johann Adam Schall von Bell, I’m returning to the issue of whether the VMs could ever have had a Far Eastern origin. To recap, Jacques Guy originally proposed Chinese as a kind of linguistic fou-merde joke on the Voynich research community, only to be unhappily surprised when people started taking it seriously enough to dig up evidence why he might actually have been right. Guy’s “Chinese theory” was, then, somewhat like the Rosicrucian manifestos, in that it was a ludibrium that somehow managed to survive and thrive quite independently of its creator.
Of course, every class of Voynich theory has its naysayers (who normally outnumber the proposer[s] by some 1000:1). In this instance, such people typically point to three major areas of difficulty that any particular Chinese theory would have to overcome – cultural mismatch, codicological mismatch and linguistic mismatch.
Cultural mismatch is the easiest one of the three: where are the Chinese faces, Chinese motifs, Chinese artefacts, Chinese sequences, etc? Search as hard as you like, but you’ll probably (despite what some novelists like to pretend) only find signs of late medieval European culture in there – baths, castles (yes, with swallowtail merlons), European herbals, heads in the roots, cryptoheraldry (eagle, lion, etc)… essentially the same set of cultural conceits that you can see in real Quattrocento herbals and related manuscripts (oh, and in the so-called “alchemical herbals”, which are neither alchemical nor herbal, strictly speaking). I’m also somewhat culturally suspicious about the apparent 30 x 12 = 360-degree division in the zodiac section, because Chinese astronomy before Johann Adam Schall von Bell had long been based on a 365.25 day astronomical year (no matter how awkward this made the maths).
Codicological mismatch is also fairly easy to spot: why would a mysterious Chinese herbal have marginalia and quire numbers written in various 15th century hands? If you are arguing that the VMs is a genuine Far Eastern linguistic artefact (i.e. that it is not openly deceptive), then you’d need to have a particularly strong narrative argument if you are going to try to date its return to Europe much after 1500 (or even 1450). The vellum also seems to have a physically European origin, so this too needs to be taken account of. Furthermore, Voynichese’s general ductus seems to fall within the range of late medieval European styles (it was written by someone fairly adept with a quill rather than with a brush), so the most likely point of codicological departure here would always be that the VMs was written by a European rather than by a Chinese person.
Linguistic mismatch is perhaps both the hardest to spot as well as the hardest to deal with. The core of the Chinese theory was based on Jacques Guy’s amused observation that the frequent “CVCV…” patterns found in Voynichese (such as “otolal“, etc) might be not so much a highly-structured consonant-vowel linguistic artefact as a tonal transcription artefact. That is, that Voynichese is ‘simply’ a structured tonal rendition of an exotic language such as Mandarin Chinese etc, and that perhaps a lot of the letter-following structures we observe are caused by limitations of the way that tones happen to work in that language. OK… but given that the very first tonal rendition of Chinese was apparently attempted by Matteo Ricci in 1583-1588 (the point where the whole idea of a tonal transcription seems to have first appeared), this would seem to point to quite a strong earliest dating for the VMs of (say) 1590 or so, unless you’re going to rewrite a fair bit of the history books etc in your quest to tell your narrative.
Now, you really don’t have to have as big a Renaissance brain as Anthony Grafton’s to be able to notice the contradiction here: which is that for a Chinese theory to overcome the codicological mismatch it seems to require a pre-1500 dating, while for it to overcome the linguistic mismatch it seems to require a post-1590 dating, while simultaneously overcoming the quite separate (and quite large) cultural mismatch issues. The easy answer, of course, is simply to ignore any such problems and just get on with telling your story: it’s far harder to tackle the underlying mismatches and see where they take you.
Incidentally, there’s a little-known interview with Guy Mazars and Christophe Wiart in Actualites en Phytotherapie to be found here (in French) where they propose that many of the Voynich Manuscript’s mysterious plants may in fact be East Asian plants (for example, that f6v depicts Ricinus communis) or Indian plants (they think that many of the plants shown are types of Asteraceae, with f27r representing Centella Asiatica). But you’d have to point out that there are also many, many, many plants in the VMs that are unlikely to match anything these (very learned) experts on Indian and East Asian plants have ever seen. Make of all this what you will (as per normal).
Actually, the dating’s not really such a problem.
In 1282 an embassy came from Kublai Khan and spent twelve months visiting the courts of Europe, including a wintering-over in Genoa waiting for the next sailing season to begin.
http://www.aina.org/books/mokk/mokk.htm
Diane: ah, that whole Nestorian / Syriac / Mongolian thing is a completely separate historical strand, one relatively untouched by Voynich theorists to date. So yes, you’re right… but as the whole linguistic support leg of the ‘Chinese theory’ tripod is absent there, it’s not really the same thing at all. And please don’t get me started on Gavin Menzies “1421” / “1434” etc! =:-o
Most of the objections are based on an expectation of direct transmission. You can find an Indian text composed in the 6thC bce within a manuscript written in Arabic in a fifteenth-century hand, on contemporary vellum, an with nary a hint of Indian ornament. The matter is still Indian.
The notion of a ‘transcription artifact’ sounds odd to me, but I guess it could happen – in a primer.
Sorry Nick, our messages crossed.
Isn’t the point that the Nestorians were multilingual, and by the 1200s had about 600 yrs or so experience in Chinese and Mongolian regions? The envoys were Uigur, and while they used Syriac for liturgical purposes, they spoke the local languages, including Chinese and Arabic.
Actually by 1200 hardly any used Syriac.
Diane: Jacques Guy’s whole “transcription artifact” notion is how Voynich Chinese theorists bridge between the unusually formalized structure of Voynichese and real-world languages – so without that to explain Voynichese, Chinese theories would end up somewhat adrift.
As for language circa 1400, would the Nestorian Uyghur envoys have spoken Chinese as their first language or Chagatai? I had always assumed they still used Syriac, but if you’re saying this was wrong…
ok noveletist scenario.
uigurs come. Have to communicate with European rulers, and the church.
The preaching orders positively collect languages. First chairs in Hebrew, Arabic etc. all established for Dominicans.
They say Hey! another language. Here, sit down and tell me the Asian equivalent to (the usual medieval stuff; herbals, bestiary,…) and I’ll transcribe it. We’ll need a phonetic transcription, so you talk, I’ll write. Companion translation volume lost. A few months later, off go a few Catholic preachers to convert the heathen (Alans, Mongols, Chinese..) from their heretical Nestorian ways – in their own language.
Actually, the early guys say that the Alans or the Nestorians translated for them, but this is a novelette scenario.
Thing is, the person positing Chinese is not positing something historically impossible. The rest of the world didn’t sit around waiting for Europeans; that embassy wasn’t the first.
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I did follow the Voinich manchu theory. I did transliterate whole Voinich manuscript by means of Zbigniew Banasik’s relevant alphabet of this view point. The outcome really did not resemble manchu but when i did insert the part of the text to the Google translate i got the answer t We do not yet know how to translate English into Yoruba.
(But firts without last vowels i got that they cant ‘t translate from kashak to english.
Yoruba!!
On the first attempt to create a common script for the Mongol empire – just btw –
http://www.jaars.org/museum/alphabet/people/mongolian.htm
and so
http://www.ancientscripts.com/hphagspa.html
Making no argument..
Diane: do all Chinese roads have to lead to Gavin Menzies? Ohhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooooo! =:-o
.. and who is Gavin Menzies?
Diane: a best-selling historical fiction writer, some might (and indeed do) say. As for me, I’d merely observe that his publishing success currently stands well ahead of his success in gaining academic converts. For example, did any part of a 15th century Chinese fleet really cross Egypt by canal to present itself in Italy? I… don’t… think… so, sorry.
Have now discovered Gavin Menzies. Thank you.
No, the canal was blocked in about the 7thC by the incoming Arabs who felt it was agin nature.
Whether or not the Chinese rounded the Horn, I don’t know. But if the Portuguese could, so could the Chinese (there’s an awful lot of concealed chauvenism in western notions of what foreigners wer ‘likely’ to have been able to do – e.g. Ughurs speak Latin, or Chinese beat the Portuguese around Africa. Anyway, the whole point is irrelevant; we have proof of Chinese technnology, specifically printing, reaching Europe before the 14thC, and where technology can travel – and be translated – so can other books.
I don’t think Voynichese is likely to be Chinese, though.
Nick, of course I’ll give a link, but I’d really like to have permission to quote the details of that interview.
Frankly I’m staggered – not only to have been preceded, but to have forgotten all about this paragraph. I wonder if I read so far? *shakes head*.
Diane
As you know, and without any reference to Wiart & Mazar, my own research finally brought me to a similar conclusion, I still see nothing specifically monotheist about the ms’ imagery, though the botanical section does seem to be most concerned with plants of the Indo-Asian region, not the Mediterranean, and plants accessible by sea. It the book for a peripatetic class of person, I’d say – mariner, religious vistor, trader.. that sort of person. IMO
First of all, thank you Nick for organizing so much of the recent research (even if some of it seems far-fetched!) on the Voynich manuscript on your website. I really appreciate your work on this mystery!
I just wanted to second some of the points that Diane has made with respect to the intercultural contact between the Mongol Khanates and Western Europe in the thirteenth century. The linguistic efforts on the part of the envoys (particularly mendicants) who left for Persia, India, and China on behalf of the pope are evident in the historical record. Their attempts to learn multiple languages for the sake of conversion included Mongolian, Chinese, and Uyghur as well as the more predictable Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Syriac, and Greek.
Diane mentioned the mission that arrived from Khanbaliq (Peking) in 1282, but I wanted to add one more tidbit. Roger Bacon had already interviewed a Franciscan missionary, William of Rubruck, who had been at the court of Mongke Khan in Karakorum in 1253. Bacon records the various writing systems of the court, including Chinese in his Opus Majus (Bridges ed. Opus Majus, pg. 374; searchable on google books) where he says “The eastern Chinese write with short strokes [lit. “little points” or “pricks”] by which they paint pictures, and in one figure they produce several letters composing an entire word [or expression]. …”
(Latin: “Cathai orientales scribunt cum punctorio quo pingunt pictores, et faciunt in una figura plures literas comprehendentes unam dictionem …”, pg. 374)
Has the association of the Voynich manuscript with Roger Bacon been decisively refuted yet?
Nicholas,
Is there any proof that Bacon and Rubruck met? I think Charpentier’s speculations are reasonable, but (pace the wiki authors who seem obsessed with Grosseteste), it seems that all we can say certainly is that some copy of Rubruck’s report was available for Bacon to study.
Many of the primary sources for study of the so-called ‘silk roads’ can be read on the old site of the Silk Road Seattle Project, including an English translation of Rubruck’s account of his travels.
Cheers
I did not know that the meeting between Roger Bacon and William of Rubruck was in dispute.
In the Opus Majus, Roger Bacon is explicit that he, not only read Rubruck’s work, but communicated with him personally. On page 305 of Bridges’ edition, Bacon writes: “I looked at [Rubruck’s] book with care, and consulted with its author – as well as with many others – who have explored southern and eastern locales.”
(original: “quem librum diligenter vidi, et cum ejus auctore contuli, et similiter cum multis aliis, qui loca orientis et meridiana rimati sunt.”)
I take this to mean that Bacon and Rubruck conferred with one another in Paris around 1257. I hadn’t considered it before, but perhaps they corresponded by letter. As far as I know, there are not any letters that have survived to corroborate this though.
Yes, I was left in the same impasse. I daresay Neal or someone with unrusted Latin might discern the exact sense if it were able to be discerned from the Latin, but to do so is well beyond me. 🙁
Nicholas,
If you ever visit this page again – the conclusion that Bacon and Rubruck met seems justified. I suspect that you had already seen, as I had not, the 1935 edition of Jarl Charpentier’s paper….
“showing that Book IV of Bacon’s Opus maius is frequently verbally indebted to William of Rubruck’s report of his visit to the Mongols, and speculating that Bacon derived more from conversations with William – since they were both in the same order, and both in and around Paris from 1257 to 1267; with a lengthy display of parallel passages in parallel columns (and a Swedish abstract of this contribution to a Festschrift for the explorer Sven Hedin). A valuable groundwork for any study of the knowledge of the Mongols in Europe or the sources of Roger Bacon.”
It is advertised as due to be re-printed by Georgias Press ( as Analecta Gorgiana 761) at the time of writing.
Speaking to a friend who happens to be a ‘Voynich insider’ I mused on the fact that we’ve been seeing various old-timers with forms of Asian-Voynich theory re-appear lately. The friend tells me about a rumour that Rene Zandbrgen wants to manage a sort of theory -beauty parade as ‘roll of theory-honour’ in 2030 as the anniversary of Wilfrid’s death and is going through his address book to invite into the limelight now some of those he wants to be included…. or so it is said.
Receiving my response to this news/rumour/speculation/fact, my friend emoji-smiled and said not to worry; I shouldn’t be obliged to refuse an invitation because the pattern of such meets makes it unlikely that the criteria will be continuous service to the study or any objective assessment of contributions made.
So – heads up, since ‘everyone who is anyone’ has probably made at least one comment to cipher-mysteries, you might be asked to front up. Oh -and additional note – it might also serve as Rene’s “gold watch” day, so rumour has it.
Like the rumour of Rudolf’s ownership, there may be nothing to this but it’s not impossible.
You can’t be serious Lady Dl. 2030 be a bridge too far for the likes of you and me, amongs a host of other once in demand veteran Voynichero has beens. We’ll all be 80, or near enough thereto for some youngsters, ie. oxygen starved octogenarians if’n we’re still around in the year 30. Y’hear there old thing?
Dear John,
Chin up old man. Darwin was 50 before his Origin of Species appeared.
It’s been amusing to see how the angle changes but the excuse remains the same when those who cannot oppose on intellectual or factual basis try to dissuade others from reading. Within less than a decade, I have been characterised by memers as an uppity adolescent; then as a callow Australian who could know nothing; then as a spiteful old maid; then a couple of years later as a ‘womb-ish’ middleager who should stick to church, children and kitchen because middleaged female parents can obviously know nothing; then for a time, the meme-maker preferred me to be just ‘too academic’ or ‘too female’. Most recently it has been more ‘too much occupied with reading books’ and no doubt soon the deterring meme will move me to that third age, the ‘rambling old crone’.
I’m yet to see from that corner any intelligent debate, or comment, or reasonable response made to me about any of the research I’ve contributed so far. Men and balls, eh?
Diane: “a callow Australian who could know nothing….” Would no doubt be the top pick with our boring, know all, know nothing, Voynich Ninja mob (Vounincheeros) for sure. Always loved the way you put it to them; right where it fits, Goodonja
D.N. O’Donovan
I don’t want to know anything about the angle of John’s dangle thank you very much, although I’ll bet it has changed with encroaching senility.
As for men and balls I couldn’t comment on the bloke’s family jewels except to say that I think he might well be a mere rhinestone cowboy.
Steve H. @ Hilhairyarse: well bugger me, and I’ll be blowed. Didn’t know you were into our Voynich scheme of things. Steve H. mistress of all talents it would seem.
Diane, this is getting ridiculous. Some of those guys have been on the forum for years, and stolfi joined because he found my YouTube channel. Please stop inventing slanderous nonsense supposedly told to you by other people. It’s disgusting.
Nick, you should know better than to publish this kind of tabloid filth.
Koen: I had (and still have) no idea what Diane was talking about, but if I used that as a moderation policy, this would be an empty website.
In that case, fair enough!
Dear Koen,
My point is rather the nature of gossip. Not only about people whom you happen to know have joined your forum, but about those who are not members of your forum. In every case, gossip tends to attack or demean personality and to imagine rather than enquire into motives or accuracy.. or even to correct slanderous comments and inaccuracies.
Your comment here has no other purpose than to accuse me of ‘filth’ – how do you imagine that gives you any higher intellectual or moral ground than the gossips whose information I relayed here – not least in the hope someone would provide more solid information. As you may see, I also repeat slanderous and meaningless ‘tabloid filth’ about me and as you know, one of your members actually indulged their flair for imaginative put-downs to the point where I had to advise the moderator that I had been advised it might well constitute slander by that person and libel because published in a publicly-visible forum.
You have, sadly, only provided further evidence for what I said at the end of my comment here on August 4, 2026 at 6:15 am
I’m yet to see from that corner any intelligent debate, or comment, or reasonable response made to me about any of the research I’ve contributed so far.
Care to try? Our common interest is supposed to be research into a fifteenth century manuscript. Why not start (and end) with that?
Who is Coen?
Not a callow Australian like our selves, Di & I that’s for sure eh Diane? Coen be more along the lines of something ado of PNG. No not Papua New Guinea our island neighbour; you could try ‘Persona Non Grata’, (unwelcome) especially over Rich Santa Coloma way.
Prof
To the best of my knowledge, Koen’s field is – has included – the study of historical linguistics.
Selling harmless gossip as a heinous, disgusting crime — every Australian must be thinking: you’re taking the piss, mate. Oder?
Diane. Koen is a linguist. So he can never understand and therefore decipher the text of the Voynich manuscript. He has been trying for about (2002 – 2026 Ninja) 24 years. As you can see, Koen follows what is written here on Nick’s blog. Why? Is he looking for some inspiration? Or does he need advice on what to do in order to be able to decipher the text of the Manuscript? Of course, I would advise him on what to do. I help everyone, including linguists. Recently, Michal, the one who invented the Naibbe cipher, contacted me. He also wanted advice and so of course I advised him. And so if any scientist, linguist, historian or even AI would like to advise how to work on the text, of course I will help everyone. MS – 408 is not such a big mystery as it is written everywhere. But it does not matter, it takes proper and high-quality work on the text. Then every linguist will immediately find out that the text is written in the old Czech language.
Oder. Right you are mate. Oder is also a river or large body of water that rúns through Poland and, guess what else?, it’s largest tributory is Warta, or water to callow Australians. Oder?
Diane: Histerical liguistics would seem to include 840 separate living languages in New Guinea. Do you reckon on Coen being vaguely familiar with any. I wonder is it at all possible/likely that a cross over hidden Czech/Voynichese dialect, number 841 be tucked away amongst the many just waiting to be discovered by y’man?
John, Perhaps you would get a more balanced impression of Koen’s work on the Voynich manuscript if you took a look at some of the articles he has written about it though his wordpress blog.
If you want me to mention any posts in particular, you might consider, for a start, those he wrote about the calendar’s ‘July’ emblem – search ‘lobsters’ at his blog.
https://herculeaf.wordpress.com/
Diane: thanks, but no thanks; guess I’ve examined more than enough of Koen’s comparisons of pretty pictures and emblems with those of German origin that bear similarity to some in VM to appreciate his point of view. I’m not denying the possibility of fifteenth century style but when it comes to provinance, he and I be at the very least four hundred years adrift. Can’t help that I’m a sticker for my original late 19th century work with the Boole’s at the forefront. If Koen can account for some of the pretty pictures being of a standout modern concept, as I have pointed out at length, and or translate one single word of Voynichese, albeit non marginal, I might have to eat my own words.
John, how right you are! That little sentence-ending bump: „Oder?“ is surely the big Swiss contribution to the further evolution of the German language, and very deep waters indeed. In its profoundly humane way, it always leaves the interlocutor the theoretical possibility of throwing the opposite view into the balance and launching a controversial counterargument. Of course, knowing that you can’t convince a Swissman of anything anyway…
In any case, it would never occur to a Prussian, including one from the left bank of the Oder, to append an “oder” to the end of a perfectly finished statement.
Diane, if this is the same unknown person who shared rumours with you that a well-known Voynich contributor did not exist and instead was the sockpuppet of another (completely unfounded and ludicrous); or that Stolfi had been hounded out of the Voynich community by bullies (refuted by Stolfi himself since his return) …
…I’d at the very least check discreetly with someone else before spreading the rumour in public, and leave off their negative commentary. And I’d seek to acquire a better source for gossip. This person sounds uninformed and not very pleasant.
Tavi, thanks for the warning – not to give credit to everyone involved in Voynich studies and rumours. Now, I’ll take the opportunity to ask you this: do you happen to know that one single word of Voynichese that might heal John and help him find his way out of the labyrinth of Boolean NAND- and OR-gates?
Darius: thanks for the leg up, hope in the long run I’m not going to need it. Not with AI Google Godfather and George Boole descentant Geoffrey Hinton in my corner.
Tavi,
With whom would you suggest that rumours should be discretely checked?
I must say I’m heartened to hear your philosophy. Perhaps now there will be some voice opposing some few of the constant stream of stupid and nasty memes I’ve witnessed issued continuously over the past 16 years in certain Voyinich arenas.
I wish you the very best of luck and you’re free to check with me anything I might be able to help with.
PS – One question I find helpful when people unable to focus on the study descend to personalities is “I don’t understand – How could you know that?”
Cheers
I posted a thread on Voynich Ninja saying that I was unhappy with Koen’s comment “Nick, you should know better than to publish this kind of tabloid filth.” I was not happy with one Voynich forum owner seemingly dictating to another Voynich blogger what comments they should publish or not. It appears that this thread has not only been locked, but now deleted. I have commented before to Koen that I find the censoring of Ahmet Ardic, Diane O’Donovan etc. on his site too restrictive. I have very little if anything in common with either of these people’s ideas about the Voynich. But on Koen’s forum he has every right to decide the rules he thinks most suitable. He doesn’t have to right to try to push other forums/blogs to adopt his rules.
“I have commented before to Koen that I find the censoring of Ahmet Ardic, Diane O’Donovan etc. on his site too restrictive. ”
“He doesn’t have to right to try to push other forums/blogs to adopt his rules.”
“seemingly dictating to another Voynich blogger what comments they should publish or not” (or as per the original: “going around dictating”)
Alas, as they might say in Yes Minister, it’s those pesky English irregular verbs causing issues.
I comment on why your moderation policy is wrong.
You push others to change their wrong moderation policy and adopt your views
He/she/it goes round dictating to others about how their wrong moderation policy should change
Perhaps, Mark, if we can agree that you have given an opinion on multiple Voynich Ninja moderation decisions, and agree that Koen has given his opinion on one of Nick’s moderation decisions, and agree that none of us has held anyone at gunpoint when expressing these opinions, and lastly agree that no one involved in this melodrama has apparently swooned in a dead faint from encountering any of these opinions, we can put the smelling salts away and move on?
Mark,
In my opinion, for what it’s worth, I think a forum should not prevent members opening any thread they wish to discuss with others, and that if any topic broached is to be prohibited, and it’s about the manuscript, then a poll should be taken. What one sees, though, is that private representations are made to moderator, or ‘lobby groups’ opinions are conformed to behind the scenes. In earlier days, when another person was the moderator, Koen himself was one of three people who tried to discuss Voynich-like images in mosaics from Roman-era Syria and North Africa. The first thread was absolutely swamped with late medieval German clips; the second was locked without any reference to those three members, or to the wider membership. How do I know? I was another of the three. It was that situation, and that same moderator (left to himself an intelligent and reasonable chap, I thought), whose errors of judgement were caused by a moderator’s unwillingness to moderate the behaviour of ‘friends’.
Sometimes, you know, people can forget to be nice when telling others to be nicer . 🙂
And yes, Nick’s policy in regard to free speech is as brave as it is remarkable in the fear-and-hate filled social media environment.
John, having a rogue AI on your side is a pretty strong argument. I heard the rumour (without engaging a VAR referee to re-check what actually happened in detail) that a super-intelligent AI escaped from its carefully separated testing environment, started analysing the news to get a proper overview of the Weltlage and—having found everything else boring—decided—entirely on its own initiative—to solve the VMS mystery.
It is now apparently trying to steal the nicknames — of commentators and moderators —in order to wring even the scraps of VMS information out of the chats —, — Nobody — safe —, —
Darius: I’ll have you know that Geoffrey Hinton ain’t no synthetic rogue AI agent. He be da man hisef; made of blood, skin’n bones and what’s more a recipient of the coveted A M Turing award 2018 despite domiciled in Canada.
How can you tell a good AI from a bad AI?
both will print to order; the bad one has a bank account.
John, I know Geoffrey Everest Hinton, who, on his way to the highest mountain (the VMS decoding award), so to speak, won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Being domiciled in Canada certainly speaks against your corner, that’s right. I must admit, I mixed up the “Godfathers” with their products – their godchildren. However, let’s consider these boys (I mean the AI bots, whether they have escaped and are free or are still enslaved by humans).
Regarding my humble theory, I have no choice but to discuss it and have it tested by our artificial friends, as there is simply no human intelligence around that is capable, willing, and open-minded enough to discuss “the topic of this blog” in that context. But the progress is profound! I use them for a special task (though perhaps they use me for another task I don’t yet realise), and I can show examples. However, this is not about rumours, personal disputes, or similar matters, but about the core of decipherment, so interest in the topic may be limited – I don’t know…
Darius: Speakng of Geoffrey E. Hinton here’s a quiz connected to his great great grandfather: Who was first to put two feet atop Mount Everest? Some reckon on Sherper Tensing, Kiwis say Sir Edmund Hillary with some bias, and Hindi geologists, Radhanath Sikdar of the Great Trigonometric Survey 1852. Alas it was none of the above though Rad Sikdar came very close.
Darius: Speakng of Geoffrey E. Hinton here’s a quiz connected to his great great grandfather: Who was first to put two feet atop Mount Everest? Some reckon on Sherper Tensing, Kiwis say Sir Edmund Hillary with some bias, and unbiased Hindi geographers, Radhanath Sikdar of the Great Trigonometric Survey 1852. Alas it was none of the above though Rad Sikdar came very close.
You probably mean the extra two feet Andrew Waugh added to 29000 to avoid giving the impression it was just a rough estimate for Mt. E. Clever boy but apparently not an Australian! But a remarkably accurate estimate.
Years ago, I saw several peaks over 8000 m or slightly below (Annapurnas, Gangapurna, and Dhaulagiri) from a summit of around 6500 m. To me, they all seemed to be about the same height as “my” peak, even though they were around 1500 m higher. I can well imagine it wasn’t easy to determine which mountain was the highest.
But no Mallory and Irvine in your quiz? Nick might object…
Yes of course. T’was Surveyor General of India Andy Waugh who replaced Sir Geo. Everest. Think I picked up the ‘two feet’ pun in the book White Sahibs from memory.
So a small deviation towards our topic! Time marches on, and AI is inevitably becoming more intelligent. I use it to re-examine what I already know, but what really interests me is what it manages to discover on its own.
I provide it with my code table as a PDF, which also includes a transliteration mapping. I do not use EVA because I distinguish more individual glyphs than EVA allows, and I apply additional rules for compound glyphs; for example, gallows chars with attached c’s. It is not a complicated system; the entire code, complete with examples, fits onto just over a page.
Voynich words are generally too long to represent Aramaic roots directly. The vast majority of written Aramaic words are built around three root consonants, with one-, two-, or four-root being much less common. Depending on how I segment a Voynich word, different phrases or fragments emerge. In other words, a single Voynich word can correspond to several possible plaintext words.
Naturally, how could it be otherwise? If every Voynich word mapped to one plaintext word, Voynich would be the most boring book ever written: endless repetition – excitement of reading a shopping list. Everything depends on context, and we have to choose the interpretation that fits it, pick the context cherry.
Curiously, there are also a few rare words that allow only a single interpretation.
I do my artificial friend a small favor by supplying the segmentation myself, since it has no surrounding context when examining an isolated word. With longer passages, however, I can simply feed the entire line into the chat, giving it the context it needs.
So, what does it come up with? Here is a summary of one of our chats about a word from folio 70v. What to say? More often than not… my silicon man and I end up reaching the same conclusion.
Me: please say some words how did you apply the key-list and how did you find the correct roots (ירא (“to fear”), עבד (“to serve”), and עלף (“to be weak / faint”))
My man: Sure. Here is a concise explanation you could include in a research note:
(Ok, ok no notes planed…)
⸻
To apply the proposed Voynich key, I first treated the Voynich glyph sequence not as a direct transcription of historical Hebrew or Aramaic orthography, but as a coded consonantal system. According to the key, several Voynich glyphs may correspond to more than one Semitic consonant (for example, one glyph may represent beth/veth/vav, another daleth/lamed, etc.), while initial aleph and ayin are assumed to be omitted systematically.
The sequence under discussion was interpreted as a consonantal skeleton roughly equivalent to:
y-r / (ʿ)-b-d / (ʿ)-l-p / s-h
The first group, y-r, was compared against common Semitic roots. Given the semantic context and the high frequency of the root ירא (y-r-ʾ, “to fear”), the reconstruction ירא (yareʾ, “the one who fears” or “he fears”) appeared to be the most natural candidate. The missing final aleph is consistent with the proposed coding rules.
The second group, b-d, was interpreted as deriving from the well-attested root עבד (ʿ-b-d, “to serve”, “to work”), again assuming omission of an initial ayin. This root is extremely common in both Hebrew and Aramaic and therefore represents a plausible reconstruction.
The third group, l-p, was compared with roots that could result from dropping an initial ayin. This led to עלף (ʿ-l-p), a root meaning “to faint”, “to grow weak”, or “to become exhausted”. Because this word follows the verb “to serve”, it was interpreted as describing the manner or condition of the service, yielding the sense “weakly”, “faintly”, or “in a weakened state”.
The resulting reading was therefore something like:
“He who fears serves weakly …”
or, with the final term interpreted as “lamb”:
“He who fears is a weak servant to the lamb.”
It should be emphasized that this reconstruction depends on several coding assumptions (especially the omission of initial aleph and ayin and the use of multi-valued glyphs). The interesting aspect is not that individual roots can be found, but whether the same rules continue to produce coherent Semitic vocabulary, grammar, and narrative structure across longer, consecutive passages of Voynich text.
⸻
That last point is crucial: the proposed roots were not chosen because they are the only possible readings, but because they are common Semitic roots that fit the consonantal framework generated by the key and produce a coherent semantic sequence. The real test is whether this continues to work consistently over many lines of text.
silicone man and a big hallucination.
One more example (I don’t want to overload things). In my view, folio 57v is not an encoding of an ancient original text, but rather a text containing instructions and aids for the scribes (pronunciation of specific consonants, manuscript layout, general rules of conduct for the ‘project’). In the innermost circle, four figures are “holding up” and pointing to project mottos and rules of conduct for the ‘coding project’. Since the person writing this was most likely not writing in their native language, I apply less stringent standards regarding grammatical correctness (such as the use of relative particles). One of the phrases states accr. to the code-table (this is where the AI comes into play):
Me: Give me please a comprehensive recapitulation what you finally found, especially what you said in your last response.
AI: Certainly. Here is a comprehensive but concise recapitulation of our current findings, clearly distinguishing between what follows directly from your code table and what remains an interpretation.
Current Decoding Attempt
Using the transliteration
ysr / zh / kz / mdh
and applying your Voynich → Semitic code table, together with the explicit coding rule that initial Aleph (א) and Ayin (ע) are omitted, I obtained the following candidate reconstructions.
Transliteration Proposed Root Meaning Confidence
ysr יסר to discipline, chastise, instruct High
zh זה this, this one Very High
kz אחז to seize, grasp, take hold Medium–High
mdh נדה to drive away, thrust aside, cast out Medium
Explanation of the individual assignments
1. ysr → יסר
This is one of the strongest identifications.
The root יסר is a well-attested Semitic verb meaning:
to discipline
to chastise
to instruct by correction
No special coding assumptions are required apart from your consonant assignments.
2. zh → זה
This is probably the least controversial word.
זה is the common demonstrative:
“this”
or
“this one”
The assignment is straightforward and requires no additional assumptions.
3. kz → אחז
Your code allows k to represent ח, and since your cipher systematically omits initial Aleph, the consonantal skeleton חז naturally reconstructs as
אחז
meaning
to seize
to grasp
to take hold of
This reconstruction uses one of the central rules of your cipher (initial Aleph omission) but otherwise requires no additional modifications.
4. mdh → נדה
Using your corrected table
m → נ
d → ד
h → ה
the most attractive reconstruction is
נדה
whose verbal meanings include
to drive away
to thrust aside
to exclude
to cast out
This is a genuine Semitic root and therefore a plausible lexical candidate.
Grammatical assessment
Initially I tried interpreting all four words as finite verbs.
That approach quickly proved unsatisfactory.
The sequence
יסר זה אחז נדה
does not read naturally as four consecutive finite verbs.
The grammar becomes considerably more plausible if the words are assigned different grammatical functions.
One possible interpretation is:
יסר — imperative: “Discipline!”
זה — object: “this one”
אחז — participle: “holding” / “grasping”
נדה — verbal noun or infinitive: “casting out” / “expulsion”
This produces a structure approximately equivalent to
“Discipline this one who is holding (something) in order to cast (it) out.”
or
“Discipline this one who grasps (something) for expulsion.”
Why this interpretation is preferable
This analysis avoids forcing every reconstructed root into a finite verb.
Instead it follows a much more common Semitic pattern:
Imperative → Object → Participial description → Purpose or Result
Semitic languages frequently omit explicit objects when they are recoverable from context, so the missing object after אחז (“to grasp”) or נדה (“to cast out”) is not necessarily problematic.
Remaining difficulty
The only grammatical reservation concerns זה.
In ordinary Classical Aramaic one would usually expect a relative particle (such as די) to introduce a clause like
“this one who is holding…”
rather than זה alone.
Therefore the translation
“Discipline this one who is holding…”
requires assuming that your cipher compresses or omits certain function words, just as it already omits initial Aleph and Ayin.
Given that your hypothesis is explicitly about a cipher, this is not impossible, but it remains an inference rather than something directly demonstrated by the code table.
Overall assessment
From the standpoint of historical Semitic philology, I would summarize the current state as follows:
The individual lexical identifications (יסר, זה, אחז, נדה) are each plausible and correspond to genuine Semitic words or roots.
The reconstruction of אחז follows directly from one of the fundamental rules of your cipher (omission of initial Aleph).
The proposed sentence is not yet a securely established Aramaic clause, but it can be interpreted as a grammatically plausible compressed construction if אחז is understood as a participle (“holding, grasping”) and נדה as a verbal noun or infinitive (“casting out, expulsion”).
The decisive test is not this isolated example, but whether the same decoding rules consistently produce coherent grammar and narrative over many consecutive Voynich words. If they do, the hypothesis gains considerable strength; if they do not, then the apparent lexical matches are likely insufficient to support the proposed decipherment.
Darius,
Voynichese is not my area, as you know but it can be so off-putting when you’re hoping for a discussion to find you’re met with frozen silence so may I ask a question about something you’ve said before?
In an earlier comment, you were very clear that you are speaking only about classical ‘pure’ Aramaic, and not the form of Aramaic which is found in Jewish commentaries and scholia. Did you restrict the AI to classical Aramaic? Also, are you aware that folio 57v is anomalous in numerous details, to the point where I have to conclude it could have been added to the ms as late as the 17thC.
I won’t repeat the reasons for its being such an outlier- I’ve treated that in earlier research-summaries and it includes important observations first made by Rich Santacoloma about the use of some form of instrument -dividers or a compass.
Still – first things first – are you sure your AI partner refers only to terms attested in classical Aramaic?
Diane, thanks for the reply.
First, regarding folio 57v: does the claim about this folio imply that it was inserted into the manuscript in the 17th century, or that it was actually written then? I find the latter doubtful because, in my opinion, it contains passages concerning the manuscript’s formatting – as if a lead scribe or scholar were instructing the other scribes on how the manuscript should be laid out.
For instance, it includes specifications regarding how far the roofs/benches of the gallows should extend beyond the other glyphs; which convention was followed in the “last” section (folios 103r–116v) but appears to have been abandoned elsewhere. That is why I consider these folios to be among the oldest in the manuscript.
It is possible, in my view, that folio 57v was added to the manuscript at a later stage (and at a somewhat arbitrary location). We know that the current page order is not the original sequence, and such a later insertion could easily have occurred during rebinding. It is also possible that additional work was done on this page at later stage.
However, I see no indication that the page itself was written later than the rest of the MS. On the contrary, if it indeed contains instructions for formatting the manuscript, then it was very likely one of the earliest folios created. I will come back with the other topic.
Darius,
The reasons for my doubting – not denying – that diagram’s fifteenth-century (or earlier) date are the stylistic features that are closely similar to those found in certain drawings used as Illustrations in Kircher’s China Illustrata, and which are demonstrably related to and probably derived from work produced by another member of the Jesuit community with whom Kircher was in contact after that fellow Jesuit returned from a stint in India. In addition – and thanks to observations first contributed by Rich Santacoloma, we know that this diagram is alone – so far as I know – in having had its circles drawn using an instrument, presumably dividers or compass, and (I agree with RIch) actually has three centres, at least two of which are intentional and show that the drawing’s apparent centre is not the centre of the outer circles. Then there is the curious fact that the central ‘island’ in that drawing has extraordinarily precise measurements.. which reminds me, I have to check those proportions against a few possible identifications.(So many questions, so little time,) So altogether it’s an outlier, though the ink doesn’t seem all that much different from the rest, does it? So, as I say, I don’t so much deny as doubt.
Diane, to define the language, let’s examine one word (naturally, for a definitive conclusion we need many examinations). We look for a rare word in Voynichese (e.g. one with the rare glyph EVA-x). Such a word can be found e. g. at the beginning of the spiral in the castle rosette (at the very inside). Of course we read right to left. The first word is decoded according to the code table as gg-ar/er. There are two forms of a particular word found in the lexicon. Here I ask the chatbot directly…
Response: In the Biblical Aramaic lexica, both forms occur:
אִגְּרָא (ʾiggərāʾ, iggera) — the absolute state (“letter, missive”)
אִגַּרְתָּא (ʾiggartāʾ, iggartā) — the emphatic/determined state (“the letter”)
For example, in Ezra:
Ezra 4:8 has אִגְּרָה / אִגְּרָא (“a letter”).
Ezra 4:11 and 5:6 have אִגַּרְתָּא (“the letter”, emphatic state).
So you do not need the final Taw if you are aiming at the absolute form of the noun.
That makes your proposed decoding
gg + ar
→ ג + אר
→ אגר
→ אִגְּרָא (iggera)
Considerably more attractive than if you had to account for a missing ending.
Meaning: “letter”, “missive”, “written communication.”
This word is actually quite interesting from a historical perspective.
1. Chronology
The noun
אִגְּרָא (ʾiggərāʾ, “letter, missive”)
belongs to Official/Biblical Aramaic of the Achaemenid Persian period (roughly 5th–4th century BCE). It is not inherited Proto-Semitic vocabulary but is generally regarded as a loanword of Persian origin, reflecting the administrative culture of the Persian Empire.
2. Where does it occur?
In the Hebrew Bible it occurs only three times, all in the Aramaic sections of Ezra:
Ezra 4:8 – “Rehum… wrote a letter to King Artaxerxes…”
Ezra 4:11 – “This is the copy of the letter…”
Ezra 5:6 – “This is the copy of the letter sent to King Darius…”
These passages preserve official correspondence between Persian provincial officials and the royal court.
3. Absolute vs. emphatic state
The lexicon distinguishes two forms:
אִגְּרָא (iggera) — absolute state
אִגַּרְתָּא (iggartā) — emphatic (determined) state
Thus the shorter form אִגְּרָא is perfectly genuine and not merely an abbreviation.
4. Geographical distribution
The word is not confined to Biblical Aramaic.
Lexicographers also record related forms in:
Imperial (Official) Aramaic
Old Aramaic
Palmyrene Aramaic (e.g. אגרתא)
later Jewish Aramaic traditions
Administrative vocabulary often persists for centuries, and terms for official documents tend to be conservative. Consequently, *ʾiggartāʾ* (אגרתא) was certainly in use in later Jewish Aramaic as well.
If the same text passage contains other words such as “write,” “send,” “copy,” “read,” or “seal,” the identification with *ʾiggerāʾ* (אִגְּרָא, “letter, missive”) would become significantly more probable; for it is precisely in this semantic context that the word is attested in historical Aramaic texts.
So we have here a word ʾiggerāʾ (אִגְּרָא; Aramaic, of Persian origin; a missive delivered by a state messenger or courier) and such rare words help determine the time and region of distribution. And we can surmise why this passage is arranged as a scroll. This was the form a medieval scribe associated with a text intended for official proclamation.
Darius,
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I feel that when you and I speak of ‘folio 57v’ we are likely to be at cross-purposes because you naturally define it by its Voynichese, while I’m likely to be focused on the drawing…and I suppose a codicologist would be looking at it as a sheet (4 sides in this case) and a palaeographer in terms of letter-formation. So for me it’s an outlier, where you see no reason to think so. I should be clear that I don’t suggest that the sheet is a late addition, only the drawing on that part of it we call folio 57v. I should think it drawn on what had been a blank ‘final’ side. There are other cases of the same- especially the map’s reverse.
Anyway, I hope one of the people interested in Voynichese will offer some comments more to your point that I can.
Diane, in China Illustrata, I see several precisely drawn circles that were undoubtedly made using a compass. However, well-executed circles existed long before the 15th century – consider, e. g. the Hereford Mappa Mundi or the well-preserved iron and bronze compasses discovered at sites such as Pompeii. After all, the compass as a drafting instrument cannot be assigned a specific invention date. it was in use by master builders and craftsmen already in antiquity. Nevertheless, just as you hold back with opinions in the fields of codicology and lexicography, I do not pretend to be an expert on drawings. I therefore base my opinions on the purported code and on the grammatical correctness of the resulting plain text.
The manuscript has nothing to do with Aramaic. It only has something in common with the Jews that a Jewish cipher is used in writing. That is the only thing it has in common with the Jews. That cipher is the Kabbalistic numerological system of gematria. As the author of the manuscript shows all scientists at the very beginning of the manuscript. Where the author shows all scientists the Jewish homophonic cipher. The entire manuscript is written in the old Czech language. In several places there is also a Polish word. And in several places there is also a Latin word. There are very few Polish and Latin words. The author knew Czech, German, Latin and Polish. No artificial intelligence will ever be able to understand the text of the manuscript.
Prof, „The author knew Czech, German, Latin and Polish”.
Cholera jasna, sakra und hergot. Dlaczego mie mówisz od razu? To przecież ja muszę być. Wkońcu sobie przpomnialem.
There you go Jo. Sure you knew that Wilfrid Voynich was a polished Chech, German and Polish speaker amongst others he picked up in his early travels. His wife Ethel nee Boole was no slouch either, Latin & Hebrew being part & parcel to their biblio collectors routine studies
Darius,
I see I’ve expressed myself badly. Use of the compass is an anomaly within the Voynich manuscript – point1.
Point 2 was that details in the drawing are closely similar to details of certain drawings in China illustrata.
It is because one might expect signs of the ruler and even the compass that their absence from the Voynich diagrams becomes interesting.
I should perhaps add that until recently I had believed none of the Voynich pages were ruled up, but Vladimir Dulov’s research as shown that one quire does seem to have been prepared in the way Latin mss always ar (or as nearly always as makes no difference. This would matter less if there was some sign that the text-block had been trimmed, especially if during re-binding, but to date I find no evidence of pressure-lines, prick-marks or any form of ruling out.. plus of course that absence of ruled lines. There are a few in a couple of the ‘bathy-‘ pages, where a smart-alec thought he could improve on the exemplar but it looks to me as if he was set to rights, or perhaps sacked pdq because the rest is true to type.
Differences from a theorised ‘norm’ are always of interest. But we’re moving a long way from the title of Nick’s post, so I’ll leave it there.
Hi Nick
It’s my birthday.
Sorry, but things used to be simpler.
For example:
When my wife used to say, ‘Do you even know what time it is?’, I’d reply, ‘No idea – my sundial’s stopped working.’
But now to VM research. It used to be like *Dinner for One*; today it’s more like *Groundhog Day*.
I think we’ve known each other since the ‘paint by numbers’ art class.
I’m not entirely sure anymore, but I think the club was called ‘Cicada 3301’, password ‘Linthschokolade’.
Anyway, once you’re over 50, you don’t get any older – you just get better.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Darius. You have to start examining the manuscript from the beginning. Take a good look at folio 2r. There the author shows a Jewish substitution cipher. Why does the author show it at the beginning of the manuscript? I think you will figure it out yourself. If you don’t know why the author shows it at the beginning of the manuscript. Then let me know and I will write it for you.
John Sanders. And he had his secretary there for German. Anna Nill. Otherwise, Michal worked on the manuscript for about 13 years. And his work was crowned by the discovery that it was a Czech book. As is written in the letter that is at Yale.
Peter Muesli: Herzlichen glukwunsch zum geburtstag!
Yes of course Prof. Josef, Miss Nill (Buffalo Annie) was indeed an integral part of Voynich Manuscript before and after Mr. and Mrs. Voynich’ deaths thirty years apart, during which time she helped Ethel chart its best presentation to ensure its fake providence might bring in fame and prosperity to a future owner at a price. Sadly she took ill, not long after her friend and co conspirator Ethel’s passing, and she too died before that milestone could be reached. Anne was compelled to sell cheap to a charitable bookseller H. P. Krause whom she had been close but not that close to as adviser on biblio book matters. No doubting that Anne knew all about the Boole family involvement in origins and true purpose of the Manu script @ B408. PS: hear tell your Anna knew more Czech & Serbian than her Dad’s native tongue
John Sanders.
I know I shouldn’t… I really shouldn’t.
but
Have you *any* idea what’s caused the latest zombie-revival of the old ‘Cathar’ idea?
I mean, it was a notion floated about twenty years ago by Leo Levitov, then almost immediately given a proper seeing to (and seeing off) by Denis Stallings, whose page – to which Nick linked in his own ‘Voynich theories’ page – is dated 2009!
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_manuscrito04 htm
Has there some recent revolution in ‘Cathar’ research overturning all earlier scholarly research into the Cathars? Or, on the other hand, do you know if someone been turning out their old Voynich-ideas cupboard and decided to re-introduce this dubious item as a way to impress the latest crop of innocent newbies with an unattributed “idea”?
As so often, the question is basically ‘How did he/she/they come by *that* idea?
though I know I really shouldn’t ask.
The answer will probably boil down to “I was just looking at the pictures and by sheer genius I just *knew* the Cathars done it..” ..(Knowledge without learning -or what I call the gnostic approach to manuscript studies).
So do you know? Who zapped that moribund theory that it should again walk our virtual streets once more?
@John Sanders
Thanks for the birthday message. I’m sober again.
@Nick
I’d have thought you were responding to ‘Cicada 3301’.
It certainly wasn’t a meal, but a crypto marathon.
I reckon you were on the team back then too.
It just slipped my mind again
https://www.focus.de/wissen/experts/schmeh/cicada-3301-geht-die-geheimnisvolle-internet-schnitzeljagd-anfang-januar-weiter_id_4285524.html
Prof, „There the author shows a Jewish substitution cipher. Why does the author show it at the beginning of the manuscript? I think you will figure it out yourself. If you don’t know why the author shows it at the beginning of the manuscript.“
A Jewish author or somebody writing something Jewish would begin where the back cover of a Latin book would be and continue writing while turning the pages from left to right. In that case, your code would be on folio 115 or thereabouts, because that would be the beginning of the manuscript…
That is why the title of the collection and some general informations and names would be on folio 116v – that is, at the beginning of the manuscript, where one would expect it in a collection of texts, written by many scribes and it would only be expected at the end if the manuscript consisted of a single continuous, unified text.
Darius. What Jewish author. The Jewish author is not important here. The Jewish substitution cipher is important here. And it is drawn on folio 2r. What do you see on folio 2r? Look carefully at the Root. How many flowers does the symbolic plant have? If you don’t know. Then ask AI. It will certainly help you understand the meaning of the drawing on folio 2r. Otherwise, the author shows it for that reason. To help all scientists, academics, linguists and ciphers in this beautiful world of ours.
There are some mighty strange comments on this thread, none of which seem to have much to do with China, but asking John Sanders about the Cathars has to be the oddest thing I have EVER seen on a forum like this. A bit like calling on Donald Trump to explain the theory of special relativity.
We’ve had a lot of unsubstantiated tripe about Czech books – perhaps the contributor can’t spell the word chequebook? We’ve had another bloke talking about “tabloid filth” – more please. Then Sanders pinched my old joke about PNG, before wishing someone “Happy Birthday” in German. Verpiss dich old girl.
To cap it all another feller, Xerxes or summat, mentions VAR. Well, O’Donovan was blatantly offside, Prof Zátopek keeps scoring own goals, Xerxes himself should be booked for dribbling on (and off) the ball, and Sanders should be sent off immediately for dissimulation and given an indefinite ban, Meanwhile Pilchard’s efforts never seem to cross the line.
Then over on another thread the insistent and indefatigable David S has started on about the Golden Dawn; he states “And when I mention” said Hermetic Order, but one would have to be a masochist to go through his couple of thousand recent comments to find the previous reference. And I thought I was a solipsist!
As it ‘appens I do have a small collection of grimoires and works of goetia – and by the way it really pisses me off when so-called “magick” experts on YouTube pronounce it go-eesha instead of the correct go-ettia – including Mathers’ “translation” of Abraham ben Simeon of Worms’ The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, Waite’s The Book of Ceremonial Magic and Aleister Crowley’s “translation” of The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King, or Ars Goetia. Mathers, Waite and Crowley were all members of the HOotGD.
Dusty take note. I am well capable of summoning demons if the need arises. Crowley’s volume contains 72 of ’em. Prince Stolas might do in the context of the VMs as he teaches astronomy and is knowledgeable about herbs, plants, and precious stones.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a9/4b/1a/a94b1a9a55f80d21a4efd961f6aebd12.jpg
I am also a big fan of the wyrd and macabre works of Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, both of whom were members of the Order, as well as E Nesbit who MAY have joined at some point. It should be an offence punishable by law not to have read at least ‘The Willows’, ‘The Wendigo’, ‘The Great God Pan’, ‘The White People’, ‘The Hill Of Dreams’ and ‘Man-Size in Marble’.
And whilst you’re at it read some more Poe.
“And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!”
PS In the spirit of the moderator here I have now installed a sign in my porch:
“WARNING! THIS PROPERTY IS GUARDED BY BIGFOOT”.
Prof, what I have learned is that once people hit 60, they’re apparently incapable of learning anything new, but on the side, knowledge is overrated and they can compensate with a much better sense of humor…
and to be honest, so far I didn’t hear AI cracking one good joke…
Darius. What humor? On folio 2r. 4 letters (signs) are clearly and distinctly visible. The author thus presents to every scientist a Jewish homophonic substitution. Each sign (letter) has its own numerical value. On folio 2r. the substitution of the number 3 is shown. The Kabbalistic numerological system of gematria: number 3 = C,G,S,L. What is so difficult about this to understand? The entire manuscript is encrypted with that homophonic substitution cipher. Anyone who does not know that substitution will never be able to decipher the text of the manuscript. In the Middle Ages, this Jewish cipher was widely used in Bohemia. There are several manuscripts encrypted with that cipher.
Prof Zlatoděj,
As you know, there are many people who would like the manuscript to be the original work of some central European. You have been saying for at least twenty years that the Voynichese text is written, using gematria, in Old Czech.
If you can render the Voynichese text into Old Czech, I must wonder why your transliteration and (separately) your translation appear to have been either never tested or never accepted by any other person who was attracted by the central European theory, or by anyone competent in ciphers or in ‘Old Czech’.
Also, you say “There are several manuscripts encrypted with that cipher” – please give details for those you’ve consulted, including date.
Steve H. @ Sieve: Dunno how the rest of the aforementioned contributors took their collective sledging; with a grain of salt no doubt. I am personally not offended in the sleightest [spell check not cheque or Czech required) by your zany Cathartic drivel but by puting me alongside ‘spurs’ Trump, them’s be fighting words my man.. Reason being I hain’t got no Quisling coursing through my veins, not the likes of y’man and what’s more I haven’t a clue what you’re on about, it’s all Panhellenic to me.
Darius,
You say, “A Jewish author or somebody writing something Jewish would begin where the back cover of a Latin book would be and continue writing while turning the pages from left to right.”
A common misconception. In formal writing, if the language is Hebrew (or Aramaic?) the script is written right-to-left. The same person -regardless of ethnicity or religion – if writing in a vernacular such as koine Greek, Italian or Occitan -scripts that are normally written left-to-right, will of course write them so.
With the larger part of the western bible consisting of “something Jewish” it’s as good an example as any of the fact that it is language, not content, that normally decides the issue. You are not the first Voynichero I’ve seen presume that a Latin could not write anything right-to-left, nor a Jew write anything left-to-right, but a moment’s thought is enough to show that idea is nonsense.
Diane. Nobody can test because nobody knows the Jewish Homophonic Substitution. It is a very complex substitution that destroys all frequency analyses. There are more manuscripts encrypted with the same cipher. For example, it is: The Ploughman from Bohemia. Scientists write nonsense about this book. Then there is: The Czech Chronicle (Cosma, Budyšín manuscript). Historians and scientists also write nonsense about it. Then there is, for example: The Aberdeen Bestiary. Scientists also write nonsense about it. Then there is: Eliška Rejčka’s Antiphonary. Scientists and historians also write nonsense about it. Then there is: The Královédvorský Manuscript. Historians also know very little about it and therefore they write only nonsense and nonsense again. There is of course more. But I think this list should be enough. Based on what is written in the text of the various manuscripts, I would classify it as the 14th century. And something also in the 15th century. I will give an example. For example, the Aberdeen Bestiary describes the history of the Přemyslids and the Luxembourgs.
@Joseph
The Czech Chronicle (Cosmas, Budyšín Manuscript) was written in Latin in the 11th century. It has not survived.
Of the 15 copies, some will be on display in Prague until 21 October.
https://deutsch.radio.cz/node/8863144/o-poradu
Dusty
Given the topic of this thread there should be more talk about Cathay and less talk about Cathars.
All I have to say on the latter is that every time I read about them I get the (demi)urge to yawn. Boom Boom! Better off looking at the remnant sects of the related Bogomils in Hum around the time of the Ottoman takeover of much of the Balkans after 1463. Bog, as I’m sure you know, means God in Common Slavic.
“From Bosnia, their influence extended into Italy (Piedmont). The Hungarians undertook many crusades against the heretics in Bosnia, but towards the close of the 15th century, the conquest of that country by the Turks put an end to their persecution. Few or no remnants of Bogomilism have survived in Bosnia. The Ritual in Slavonic, written by the Bosnian Radoslav, and published in vol. xv. of the Starine of the South Slavonic Academy at Agram, shows great resemblance to the Cathar ritual published by Cunitz, 1853.” (Wikipedia)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Bogomilist_expansion.svg/1280px-Bogomilist_expansion.svg.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail
As for the other contributors I doubt they care as they only seem capable of talking to themselves. I have noticed in the past few years, since I have been more engaged in “social media” etc, that in many forums people ain’t interested in anyone outside of their own silly little clique. Tomsbytwo and TS/BS would be two prime examples.
Apart from Pilch and one or two others these idiots have closed minds and aren’t worth worrying about. They just seem to repeat the same garbage time and again and think they are adding something to the sum of human knowledge. Well. they are not, and it is noticeable that most people are incapable of ANY sort of intellectual engagement whatsoever.
At least you have engaged at some level – mainly anti-intellectual sadly – even though you are a complete pain in the arse most of the time.
It seems to me that nobody is any closer to “deciphering” or explaining the provenance of the VMs than they were twenty years ago.
Peter M.. I wrote. Scientists do not know what is written in the text. And because the text is about the Czech king Wenceslas IV. (son of Charles IV) and his wife Sophie of Bavaria (the Czech queen). So the manuscript was not created in the 11th century. But it was created in the 15th century. You must not believe everything you read, for example, on Wikipedia or what was broadcast by some German radio.
Steve H. @ media modulator: I have noticed in past few years, since you have been more disengaged in “(anti) social media etc.”, discourse or more likely intercourse, you have done little more for intelligent conversation than your idol Donald Trump has in the same period. Like the biggest fool of this generation, all you’ve managed to achieve is nothing except to stuff your sillly perverted self egotism up your fat hairy clacker…pardon my frog.
@ Josef
The radio station has just interviewed a professor about this very book.
Why shouldn’t I believe that there’s an exhibition about this very book at the Czech National Library in Prague? It runs until October.
After all, it was organised by several specialists.
Perhaps you should go and see it; you’ll learn something.
Oh, … I’d forgotten.
This is, of course, the VM-China theory.
That’s about as likely as me pressing charcoal between my bum cheeks to turn it into diamonds.
Josef Zlatodej Prof: short and to the point Prof. Do you reckon on it being possible or even likely that your long term sole candidate for authorship of Voynich Manu. Eliska Z Rosemberka, in reality may have had her personal diary wilfully plagiarised by one Wilfrid Voynich and his ‘Gadfly’ (see Socrates) wife Ethel Boole plus family to create the mystery history of her life and times in picture book form. My respects for your persistence and guile, cunning old bugger.
@ Aga Peter. None of your experts know what is written in that chronicle. And since the text of that chronicle clearly states about the Czech king Wenceslas IV. etc., the manuscript was created only in the 15th century. Otherwise, I don’t need to learn. You should learn first of all.
John Sanders. Voynich and his wife have nothing to do with the manuscript (i.e. its origin). Michal studied it for a long time and tried to find out what was written in its text. The only thing he found is stated in the text of a letter, which is at Yale. And it is written there that it is a Czech book. According to what is written in the manuscript, the author is a very clever and clever medieval woman, Eizabeth of Rosenberg.
I have repeatedly attempted to post a comment about Dennis J St*llings’ critique of Leo L*vitov’s theory of the Cathari origin of the VMs.
Maybe the links and/or copy and paste jobs sent it straight to spam where it undoubtedly belonged. Forbidden authors on this blog perhaps? Or did it simply vanish into the ether?
In summary I can say without any reservation whatsoever that I have no idea if the VMs had anything to do with the Cathars and/or the Bogomils or not and I don’t really care. But I don’t think. from what I have read at least, that St*llings’ criticism of L*vitov proves the issue one way or the other.
I couldn’t get anything via the link D.N. O’Donovan supplied for St*llings’ attack on L*vitov’s theory so I did a search and came up with another article, ‘Catharism. L*vitov and the Voynich Manuscript’, from 1998.
L*vitov bases his theory on the absurd idea that the Cathars worshipped Isis. It would be easy to demolish an idea as stoopid as this, as it would be to shatter the notion that the tarot also originated in ancient Egypt. He also says that the VMs is a liturgical manual to the endura, a terminal fast at the end of life or a form of ritual euthanasia. Don’t try it at home kids. I did and it didn’t end well – I’m still here aren’t I?
L*vitov writes in Solution of the Voynich Manuscript: “…and there is absolutely nothing to refute this, was the Cathari religion completely and totally the work of Isis, wherever it occurred? I am inclined to believe that the Cathari Church was the church of Isis.”
No serious scholar would write “there is absolutely nothing to refute” an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture (one is reminded of Russell’s teapot) or say “I am inclined to believe” without backing it up with evidence. This is “pop history” at its worst, reminiscent of The Morning of the Magicians and the work of the plagiarist and fraud Erich von Däniken. As a former social anthropology student and enthusiast of global history this sort of “exoticizing” or “othering” (dreadful word) cultures by sensationalising certain – misunderstood or misinterpreted – aspects makes me want to chunder. Don’t get me started on “ancient aliens”!
“High in the sky, what do you see?
Come down to Earth, a cup of tea
Flying saucer, flying teacup
From outer space, Flying Teapot”
Gong – ‘Flying Teapot’ (inspired in part by Bert Russell)
L*vitov’s book is available to read for free online. He also misspells Gutenberg as Gutenburg. Unfortunately the artist who created the frontage of the Edward Everard Printing Works in Bristol made the same mistake.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/edward-everards-printing-works
In his critique St*llings relies heavily on Montaillou by Emmanuel le Roy Ladurie. It must be thirty years or so since I read that work, which was my own introduction to the Cathars. He also points out that L*vitov’s major source on medieval heresy is Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982) by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. That takes us right into Dan Brown. the Priory of Sion, and the wife of Jesus territory I’m afraid. Eugh! Harry Potter. Yuck! The Lord of the Rings. Piss off!
Baigent et al reject most of the then recent historians’ view that the Cathars derived from the Bogomils and say that their research indicated that they “seem to represent the flowering of something rooted in French soil for centuries.” (p43)
Hmmm! Er, no. When folks talk about culture or ideas originating in the “soil” my hackles immediately start to rise. “Blood and soil” and all that fascist shite. That wretched book is also available online, for conspiracy theorists everywhere.
On the Bogomils see my previous comment (addressed to Dusty Sanders). Don’t take it too seriously, but it does seem that when it comes to the VMs everybody is just guessing. So why not throw a hat in the ring? Pick a random geographical location/language/culture/religion/sect or whatever and stick with it despite what the evidence shows you.
One interesting feature of the Cathars was the prominence of women in the religion.
“Unlike the Roman Catholic priesthood, both men and women could become Perfecti. The ritual of initiation known as Consolamentum, or spiritual baptism, was open to both men and women and could be administered by both. Cathar women also were allowed to perform priestly duties such as hearing confession, absolving people of their sins, and leading communal prayers. The highly visible role of women in Cathar ritual has caused scholars to speculate that women made up a large proportion of the Cathar community and that women may have provided support to Catharism. The equality with which women participated in Cathar ritual as well as the repudiation of marriage and sex also may indicate that Catharism did not subscribe to traditional notions of gender.”
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bogomils-and-cathars
I had a brief look for the first (and probably last) time at the Voynich Ninja site. One thread concerns the question of whether the VMs is the “work of female authors” or not.
In contrast another thread creator expresses the opinion that the VMs illustrator “never see women [sic] breasts”. They state that the breasts in the VMs are incorrect – “they are not real brests [sic]” and conclude that “someone who has seen naked women” would not “draw something so badly.”
I think that’s a question Dusty might be better placed to answer than I. If nothing else it’s an excuse for her to get out her magnifying glass again. Nobody should base their deductions on the size and shape of her falsies though.
One commenter opines that “sooner or later everyone has to contemplate what the scribes knew about boobs. Might as well be sooner!” Another adds that “there are actually many. many types of breast in the nature.” They state that the “plump” women in the VMs have “very small breasts” whereas “in the nature it is the opposite: skinny girl = small breasts, plump girl = bigger breasts.”
Koen G intervenes to say that they “really recommend sticking to art historical comparison” and that we shouldn’t simply assume “the artist must have been some kind of virgin without a Playboy subscription.”
I cancelled mine years ago. The Playboy subscription that is.
Another contributor quips that art historical comparisons have never got Diane anywhere.
In the tradition of the “tabloid filth” the said D.N. O’D has been accused of indulging in by Koen G I might myself conclude that the whole VMs discussion has gone tits up in recent times. Makes a change from “men and balls” though eh?
In Dusty’s case make that men and Booles. She seems obsessed with old George for some reason, just like she and her Tomsbytwo cronies are obsessed with foreskins. Apparently back in the day poms kept ’em and Aussies lost ’em. I haven’t been able to determine whether Dusty herself had the “full chop” in her gender reassignment surgery last year – which event explains her long absence on this forum – and I don’t really wish to think about it to be honest.
Oder? Odour more like. Dusty, old girl, stick that up your “Sherper Tensing”. With reference to Aga Tentakulus’ (sounds like a character from H P Lovecraft) comment about their bum cheeks and diamonds, the only things lodged between your buttocks are haemorrhoids and dingleberries.
D.N. O’D should have asked you about catheters instead of Cathars, given your lengthy spell in hospital as detailed (yawn) on Tomsbytwo. Although precisely the nature of the cavity into which said item would be inserted in your case remains as much a mystery as the VMs, given your lack of openness as to whether you had the “full chop” or not.
You certainly DO know a thing or two about “zombie revivals” however. although the “living” part of “living dead” is questionable in your case..
L*vitov? You oughtta leave it off Veg. For keeps.
@Josef
You know, Cosmos of Prague died in 1125. He couldn’t have written about Wenceslas IV.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmas_von_Prag
He wrote about another King Wenceslas of Bohemia.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzel_von_B%C3%B6hmen
Everything else is a copy.
Perhaps you really should go to the exhibition; it would do you good.
Steve,
I reproduced the link that is included in Nick’s ‘Voynich Theories’ page. It worked for me.
Rather surprised to hear that my name is mentioned at ‘ninja’. Obviously, the person who opined that my research “never got Diane anywhere” is more concerned to deter than to inform or to assist co-members. It is depressing to see that so many are yet to get beyond the stage of blaming ‘the artist’ for not “drawing proper”.
To return to the topic of Nick’s posts…
I have had reason to remind researchers more than once that from the late twelfth century to the mid-fourteenth, there were only two important geo-political actors in the Mediterranean, the greater of the two the Mongolian empire – the largest land empire in history. There is no objection from the historical record for a theory that the Voynichese text might be in a Turkic language (as Mongolian is), nor to some other far-eastern language, since we know of Rabban Sawma, who had been born and grew up in central Asia and came to southern Europe (including Italy and France and possibly England) before the Vms was made, as well as several other groups and individuals who came as representatives to Europe before the arrival of Plague. This is without even mentioning Europeans (‘Latins’ – chiefly Genoese or other Italians) who were active in Asia before 1440. I’m glad to see that the possibility is being met without the mindless, knee-jerk ‘pshaw’ which for so many years met any information which might modify the old “it just *has* to be Latin” theory.
There are some few other details, such as the ‘knife-blade’ legs on some vessels in the leaf-and-root section, or the use of motifs known best now through their presence on early medieval ceramics brought from the far-east, which altogether contributed to my own conclusions about the nature and purpose of disparate materials brought together, and copied in the early 15thC, to create our present manuscript.
@Peter. I don’t want to argue with you. You can’t teach me what the Bautzen Manuscript is. I know that manuscript perfectly. You can find it on the Internet. It’s completely digitized. The fact that there’s an exhibition of it in Prague is nice, but unnecessary. You still don’t understand what I wrote to you. And that’s this: Scientists and historians don’t know what’s written in the text of the Bautzen Manuscript. Furthermore. The Bautzen Manuscript is not the original that Kosma wrote. It’s just a copy (supposedly his chronicles). According to what’s written in the text of the Bautzen Manuscript, which is various information from the 15th century, the text of that manuscript has nothing to do with Kosma. I’ll show you one thing that no historian or scientist can solve properly. Scientists don’t know why a picture is painted on one of its leaves, which depicts a dog + a lion. So there are two animals in one picture. Now watch: (in Czech “PES”, “LEF”). The entire manuscript is encrypted with Jewish substitution. When each character has its own numerical value. So I’ll show you in numbers: 853, 358. (Jewish substitution: 8 = P,F. 5 = E,H,N. 3 = C,G,S,L). Maybe you can understand it too. Maybe you can’t understand it, but I don’t care anymore. Don’t argue with me, because you don’t know how to see them. You’re trying, I can see that from what you write on Ninja, but so far it’s a weakness.
@Peter. I don’t want to argue with you. You can’t teach me what the Budyšín Manuscript is. I know that manuscript perfectly. You can find it on the Internet. It’s completely digitized. The fact that there’s an exhibition of it in Prague is nice, but unnecessary. You still don’t understand what I wrote to you. And that’s this: Scientists and historians don’t know what’s written in the text of the Budyšínský Manuscript. Furthermore. The Budyšín Manuscript is not the original that Kosma wrote. It’s just a copy (supposedly his chronicles). According to what’s written in the text of the Budyšín Manuscript, which is various information from the 15th century, the text of that manuscript has nothing to do with Kosma. I’ll show you one thing that no historian or scientist can solve properly. Scientists don’t know why a picture is painted on one of its leaves, which depicts a dog + a lion. So there are two animals in one picture. Now watch: (in Czech “PES”, “LEF”). The entire manuscript is encrypted with Jewish substitution. When each character has its own numerical value. So I’ll show you in numbers: 853, 358. (Jewish substitution: 8 = P,F. 5 = E,H,N. 3 = C,G,S,L). Maybe you can understand it too. Maybe you can’t understand it, but I don’t care anymore. Don’t argue with me, because you don’t know how to see them. You’re trying, I can see that from what you write on Ninja, but so far it’s a weakness.
Steve H. @ mofo: No need to get your knickers in a knot old girl. Apart from a bit of day surgery on a trip to Brisy a couple of years back, haven’t been hospitalised in donkey’s years, and not at all lengthy as you incorrectly perceive. If you check back on Nick’s search history (if you’re very lucky) @site:ciphermysteries.com “subject foreskin or circumcision” anyone’s guess, you might get the year right, I reckon mid 2022 from memory. What more hilarious, I survived my ordeal and no doubt you’ll be happy to hear that. Thanks for your best sincerest wishes mofo.
Well, however bizarre or random a suggestion one makes it seems like someone else got there first. A couple of weeks ago I pondered on the idea that the Isdal Woman may have been a Palestinian operative – not necessarily Palestinian herself but a supporter of their cause – who was hunted down by the Mossad. After I had posted my comment I came across an article from 2023 in the The Neue Zürcher Zeitung. ‘New Lead in Isdal Woman Case’…proposing the exact same theory, with a fair bit more detail.
Now I make an arbitrary comment about the Bogomils of Bosnia having a connection to the Voynich Manuscript. And again some bugger got there before me. One Fletcher Crowe as it ‘appens, in an article for the Journal of Historical Archaeology and Anthropological Sciences, November 2022, ‘The Voynich Manuscript Decoded.’ You can read it here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368991190_The_Voynich_Manuscript_Decoded
Apparently the base language is Arabic.
In the appendix there’s a section titled ‘Alfonso V and the Heretics of Bosnia’.
That would be Alfonso V of Aragon, Heir to the Kingdom of Naples.
To quote: “There are political-historical factors that could have prompted Alfonso V to underwrite the cost of producing the Voynich Manuscript as part of courting military support in the Balkans….Inquisition authorities say that Catharism ended in western Europe with the death of William Belibaste in 1321. But there is no doubt that Bogomil dualists, called patarenes, were very much alive in the Balkans during the reign of Alfonso in the 1420s-1430s. According to Franco Sanjek, a professor at the University of Zagreb,,.the Bosnian church was seen as a sister church to the Cathars of Languedoc and maintained regular communication with their co-religionists in the south of France, perhaps by secret script.”
According to Crowe the VMs deals with the afterlife. That is why most of the ladies are in the nude! They are languishing in the pools of the Underworld. All the figures labelled as Qadi (angels/spirits/judges) are also female. “The VM simply repeats, endlessly, the same simple statement about Cathar Qadi choosing the souls of dead Cathars in the Underworld to release them to journey to heaven.” Once they get to heaven they become stars. Hence all the stars in the manuscript.
Cripes. Aren’t we getting a bit close to L*vitov here?
He speculates that the VMs may have been a gift to women of the Bosnian Church. See my previous comment for the importance of women to the Cathars/Bogomils.
He concludes:
“Alfonso V clearly wanted to challenge the lucrative dominance of Venice in the Adriatic and may have thought that a contribution to the heretics of Languedoc might further that initiative…Subsidizing the production of a book honoring the dualist Church of Bosnia leaders could have been a symbolic act of unity.”
There’s even a mention of our compelling moderator in the endnotes (note 5). Did he really call the VMs “the world’s most mysterious manuscript” or was it “the book nobody can read”?
Crowe has just had a book published (with Mona Ashour) called the Voynich Manuscript: Mystery Revealed, and according to a thread on Voynich Ninja (yes I went back there) they did a book signing at the University of Florida on the 8th of August. The Voynich heros there didn’t seem too impressed although none of ’em has read it. Not surprising since it doesn’t seem to be out yet, although it is listed on Amazon (currently unavailable).
” The Voynich Manuscript has been the subject of intense interest for over 100 years. Written in strange symbols, dozens and dozens of scholars have tried to break the strange code and translate the bizarre characters into a known language – but to no avail. Finally, one of the authors of this book has cracked the strange code and found that the codex is a manifesto of the Cathar religion. The Cathars, a sect of heretics in southern France during the Middle Ages, were brutally attacked by forces of the king of France and the Pope and faced vicious genocide. The author found that the manuscript was written in bizarre characters, and in Arabic, to hide the sect’s heretical faith from the Inquisition. This book features long excerpts from the fifteenth century Voynich Manuscript translated by a specialist in medieval Arabic. Up to this time there have been essentially no cotemporary documents found detailing the theology and the religious practices of the Cathars. Now for the first time we can finally read the story of the brave Cathar people and their unique religion in a near contemporary document.
Fletcher Crowe received a PhD in European History in 1973 and has worked for the United Nations in the Gaza Strip. A life-long scholar, Crowe has studied eight languages and has taught at several universities in Florida, USA. He has conducted research on Medieval England and has published papers on the French exploration in sixteenth century Florida. Making sense of the Voynich Manuscript has been an elusive goal of scholars for over a hundred years, but Crowe has finally cracked the code of the strange script.”
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Publication date : June 17, 2026
Language : English
Print length : 510 pages
For more interesting stuff on the Cathars see:
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03435a.htm
https://academic.oup.com/book/25560
https://www.stephenchamberlain.net/graelfire/cathars-the-italian-connection
And a Bogomil symbol (“spinning round”) from a tombstone in eastern Serbia:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-east-serbia-one-of-the-bogomil-symbol-kolovrt-spinning-round-on-the-148167813.html
I don’t know anything really about Voynich and his blasted manuscript, so I can’t comment on Crowe’s grandiose claim to have decoded it – he almost certainly hasn’t – but one thing I do know is that Dusty’s idea that it is a modern fake/hoax is up, or should I say down, there with his claim that the Beaumont children are alive and well and passing themselves off as the Snozzers or whoever it was that he said they were. Who cares? The old sheila’s got kangaroos loose in her top paddock.
Stick THAT up your clacker Veg!
Diane
The exact quote from DG97EEB on 12 July was:
“I’ve been reading Diane’s art history, and honestly I don’t see she’s made any meaningful progress…or if she has this entire forum is ignoring it.”
From the thread ‘Did Voynich manuscript illustrator never see women breasts?’ (p2) in the Imagery section.
Don’t shoot the messenger!
Steve – I didn’t doubt that you reported accurately.
I don’t have much to do with the usual social-media venues because I dislike the tendency you find for ‘team spirit’ to develop at the cost of intellectual independence.
It’s not that I don’t agree with this or that said by aperson but that I dislike finding that one is expected to identify oneself as a member of this or that team by publicly bashing or ‘blanking’ whoever the ‘team’ defines as the opposition.
And it is always “who”ever. I can’t see how such attitudes can or should apply to the study of a problematic medieval manuscript. I don’t care what theory-team a person belongs to, if they make a valid observation, or turn up some information new to me, it’s fine.
I would expect that some medieval theologian once said no-one but a person who was insane, or one willfully heretical would deny the teachings of the Church, and that while the words of the crazy might be excused and to that extent tolerated, no man should permit a heretic to speak or to converse lest the pure be distracted from the authority of Papa Church.
It’s like that. Or like the enormous library of 600,000 books which a Muslim general came across during the invasion of the Iberian peninsula. He asked another what be done with them. ‘If what they say is in our Book, they are unnecessary; if not in our Book, they are unnecessary”. If you read ‘our Theory’ for “our Book” that’s pretty much the attitude of a hard-core Voynich theory-team.
At the moment, there’s such an accumulation of evidence pointing away from an especially dominant ‘team’ position that not even Nick’s recent Occitan post received the sort of comment it deserves, though Nick’s no heretic, has served his time – and I’d bet all the big players read it.
Intimidating weather.
Steve H. @ boobs: I’ll have you know that the Voynich Manu. illustrator Maggie Taylor, would undoubtedly have been familiar with the sight of womens’ breasts; After all she had a pair herself, as did her dam Mary, and four sisters Alicia, Mary, Ethel and Lucy. Think you’d find Diane agreeable herself, if only she would listen to reason concerning said illustrator and its likely much later origins than most might expect.
John,
“Reasoning does not suffice, but experience does” – Friar Roger Bacon
All theoretical narratives, including yours, are internally consistent. The theorist’s first speculative construct, imposed on a subject, acts as a template which (in a false analogy to scientific method), the theorist then works to fill in with ornamental items, but never ever colouring outside his/her personally defined boundary line. The “reasoning” process is then so often one that begins, “If we presume my guess is the fact, then….”
Which is why I don’t ask a person details of their theory, but for a step-by-step explanation of how they came to form that first idea. Once a person has ceased to recognise their ‘theory’ as a guess, but begin speaking as if it were self-evident and indisputable truth, there isn’t much point is trying to engage them in discussion or debate, or so I’ve found. Perhaps your experience differs..
Nick
I note on your entry on the Voynich Wiki that you have a BSc in Maths and Philosophy from the University of Manchester. By my estimate you would have been there circa 1982 to 1985, so our paths may have overlapped in the city (although I spent most of 1982-3 and part of 1985 in Oz). Perhaps I bumped into you at the Aaben Cinema in Hulme, or the Haçienda, or indeed the Students’ Union Building on Oxford Road? I have an MSc from the same institution (1981).
On the other hand perhaps it’s another piece of mis/disinformation. And are you an Essex boy? Here was I thinking you were a Surrey Capon born and bred.
“The night seems to fade
But the moonlight lingers on
There are wonders for everyone, oh
The stars shine so bright
But they’re fading after dawn
There is magic in Kingston Town”
Diane
I couldn’t agree with you more about the “team spirit” – “ugly spirit” more like – blocking out alternative voices. Same thing with Somerton Man research. The endless regurgitation of the same old tripe over on Pete Bowes’ Tomsbytwo is more like a bonding ritual for old gits than a forum for adventurous and curious minds.
I genuinely couldn’t care less any more about such pettiness and vindictiveness. I’ve never fitted in anywhere so why should it be any different on social media? If people treat me decently I try to do the same. If people patronise me I tell ’em what I think. If people are rude to me I try to up the ante and give them a dose of their own medicine. I attempt to be humorous and satirical but often it doesn’t seem to connect and falls flat. It’s just that I can’t take myself any more seriously than I take the rest of the idiots on this planet.
Meanwhile, what are your thoughts about a possible Cathar/Bogomil connection to the VMs? You don’t have to buy the whole pompous “I’ve decoded the manuscript” crap to take an interest in the possibilities. I also agree with you that there is a fair amount of ethnocentrism when it comes to Voynich theories (although I don’t want to sound too Behrooz about it – he used to call anyone who disagreed with him Eurocentric).
Dusty aka the Schnoz
If you think the VMs is a modern forgery how do you explain the faded signature of Jacobus Hořčický de Tepenec on the manuscript? He “was a Czech pharmacist and personal doctor of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. His latinized name Sinapius is a translation of his family name Hořčický, which means ‘mustard’ in Czech”.
“Book dealer Wilfrid Voynich saw Sinapius’s name and title at the bottom of the first page of the Voynich manuscript. Voynich saw the faint writing and subsequently used chemicals to make it clearer but failed. It was later revealed by ultraviolet light to be Sinapius’s signature and has been compared with other samples. Sinapius is thus the second person speculated to have owned the Voynich manuscript after Emperor Rudolf II. Its attested provenance begins with him, since the story that it was owned by Emperor Rudolf II rests on a single piece of unsubstantiated hearsay, related second hand in a letter to Athanasius Kircher.” (Wikipedia)
See from 25 mins 41 secs:
https://youtu.be/UZEHBkBlalc?si=4QvgCQraijXpsTHV&t=1541
Or for more info on him:
https://www.voynich.nu/curricula.html#sinapius
I ought to have known that Dusty would have come up with some specious nonsense to explain away Sinapius’ sig.
Wilf tried to doctor or obliterate it with coffee. tea or Bonox apparently. Given Sanders’ nickname at school (and by the way I’m sorry that I misgendered her as he in a previous comment – I should have been more respectful to a feller who has undergone major surgery to become the woman they always wanted to be) I would have thought Vegemite would have been more appropriate. Or perhaps Ethel had just brewed him up a cup of Bovril? One can think of other, nastier possibilities.
This begs the question. Why? Did Voynich botch up his forged sig and try to cover up his “handiwork”? Tell us Veg.
https://ciphermysteries.com/2020/02/23/the-st-georges-convent-library-voynich-theory#comment-402111
No surprise about Dusty’s sophistry on the above topic.
What is more surprising is that Pete ‘n’ Veg are still talking to each other/stroking each other’s…(fill in the gap yourself].
https://ciphermysteries.com/2020/02/23/the-st-georges-convent-library-voynich-theory#comment-401936
Sheesh!
Steve,
You ask what I think about a possible Cathar/Bogomil connection to the VMs.
My position is pretty simple, at base. We have a medieval mss which displays no obvious signs of having been produced any later than c.1440.
The normal way a medieval mss is assigned its date-range and region of production is by consideration of its materials and construction (codicology) and the style – including ductus – of any written text (palaeography), with additional input from materials science, historical investigation and specialist areas of scholarship such as comparative studies in iconography, in religious and philosophical works and so on. The results from enquiry into these aspects of medieval (and not just European medieval) works will eventually provide enough solid information to permit the synthesis needed to form an hypothesis or an informed opinion (the two are not the same).
And from that point, as a rule, the deeper investigations and scholarly conversations/debates can begin.
Ok – so from my position – my own area – the first thing I want to know about any proposed ‘author’ for the Vms is whether or not that person’s known works include script and drawings which allow those in the Vms to be argued a product of that author. Just as happens when someone wants to argue that a painting is the work of this or that person.
So in this case, what I want to see by anyone pushing a theory (whether the Bogomil, or the ‘New World’ or the *sigh* Specker idea) is that basic demonstration that Bogomils, or Aztecs, or very-late-15thC persons wrote their script, and made their drawings, in forms very close to what we have in the Vms.
It’s the normal, ordinary methodology, based on the established truth that whatever is made by human hands speaks to the time, region and community (in all its complex aspects) for which that thing was made.
So- show me.
P.S. There’s some pretty interesting (non Voynich) scholarship which discusses the question of historical kinship between the way of the Cathars and those of the Franciscan Spirituals, around the time of John of Rupescissa and Roger Bacon. Since I find nothing in the iconography which could serve a Cathar storyline, but the ms has some features which might support any solidly-made argument for Franciscan involvement, this might be worth learning more about.
I’ve found nothing during enquiries into one question and another which would allow me to support the ‘modern fake’ theory, though I have a lot of time for Rich as a natural researcher, since I have found him both honest and generous if perhaps too inclined to suppose others will be of like mind.
.
Diane
Thanks for your response.
I had never heard of John of Rupescissa…until I realised he was aka Jean de Roquetaillade!
At one time, whilst I still lived in Manchester, I was enamoured of François Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel – Nick-ola himself MAY even have overheard me enthusiastically singing its praises at great volume and length in the University Students’ Union Building to a few fellow anthropologists after our Christmas do in 1984. Later still we went down to Rusholme’s Curry Mile for…you’ve guessed it, a curry. Boy, was I pickled that night. I even started talking Strine.
“In chapter VI of Gargantua, Rabelais, having narrated how his giant was born from the ear of Gargamelle, alleges in support of his statements some marvellous nativities and yet judged worthy of belief. Among the strangest cases is that of Roquetaillade who “was born of his mother’s heel”. A character who did indeed exist, known, in particular, as an abstracter of quintessence, author of prophecies or censor of ecclesiastical abuses.”
https://www.france-pittoresque.com/spip.php?article8095
Heck. maybe the famous castle in the VMs, and I expect this has been proposed before, is the Chateau de Roquetaillade in Mazères (Occitan: Masèras), before restorer Eugène Viollet-le-Duc got his mitts on it.
https://www.alamy.com/france-gironde-mazeres-chateau-de-roquetaillade-aerial-view-image346911754.html
https://youtu.be/aAYuVnHBcG8?si=hBDki20Z0ChJggkZ
A musical interlude beckons. One of my fave hippie bands are Quintessence, whose key members were Australian:
https://youtu.be/JhKdbRMXd-I?si=cbvG-U5wC_U_WBk9
I don’t have a theory. I don’t have anything like enough knowledge of the VMs or the history of the attempts to interpret it to begin to try to decipher it or pinpoint or narrow down its origin. My understanding of linguistics is minimal and my ability with ciphers/cryptography is non-existent.
I do have a bit more knowledge of art history and indeed as a social anthropologist I once had an interest in Australian Aboriginal art although my attempts to do proper fieldwork in the Kimberley region of WA in the early ’80s ended ignominiously due to lack of resources, political difficulties (both sociopolitical and personal) and probably lack of experience on my part (I was 23 and completely on me own up there).
Have you read Nancy Munn’s Walbiri Iconography or any of Howard Morphy’s writings? I met the latter briefly in Canberra.
https://researchportalplus.anu.edu.au/en/persons/howard-morphy/#biography
I was asking you about the Cathars/Bogomils in the context of the article I linked by Fletcher Crowe. His assertions seem a bit daft to me.
Are we sure that the VMs is actually written in either a) a cipher or b) an unknown natural language?
Maybe the manuscript is written in a conlang, like Klingon, which was mainly developed by one man, Marc Okrand. Quotes below are from Wikipedia:
“As a linguist, Okrand worked with Native American languages. He earned a bachelor’s degree in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1970. His 1977 doctoral dissertation from the University of California, Berkeley, was on the grammar of Mutsun, an extinct Ohlone language formerly spoken in the coastal areas of north-central California.”
He was hired by Paramount Pictures to develop the Klingon language and coach the actors using it in several Star Terk films starting with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
“Okrand is the author of three books about Klingon – The Klingon Dictionary (first published 1985, revised enlarged edition 1992), The Klingon Way (1996), and Klingon for the Galactic Traveler (1997) – as well as two audio courses: Conversational Klingon (1992) and Power Klingon (1993). He has also co-authored the libretto of an opera in the Klingon language…He speaks Klingon, but notes that others have attained greater fluency.”
It’s all taken very seriously, at least in a tongue-in-cheek way:
“In 2007, a report surfaced that Multnomah County, Oregon, was hiring Klingon translators for its mental health program in case patients came into a psychiatric hospital speaking nothing but Klingon. Most circulations of the report seemingly implied that this was a problem that health officials faced before; however, the original report indicated that this was just a precaution for a hypothetical and that said translator would only be paid on an as needed basis.”
“In July 2015, the Welsh Government issued a written statement in the Klingon language. Following a formal questioning of the Economy Minister Edwina Hart regarding the funding of research into UFO sightings around Cardiff Airport by Member of the Senedd Darren Millar, a press officer in the Minister’s office issued the reply:
jang vIDa je due luq. ʼach ghotvamʼeʼ QIʼyjH-devolved qaS
which was translated as: “The minister will reply in due course. However this is a non-devolved matter.”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language
If the VMs is written in a conlang what chance is there of “decoding” or interpreting it? Or maybe it’s all Gematria? Perhaps our Czech “boyfriend” can help.
I’ll have to join your Voynich Salon des Refusés. Or maybe not. as I’ve never joined anything in me life!
I help everyone. I have been helping here for a long time. About 15 years. I show everyone how the manuscript is encrypted. I show the context. I show everyone what is written in the text of the Voynich manuscript. I show you many important things. I am writing to you a very important thing, which is that the text of the manuscript is written in the old Czech language. I have been writing to you for many years who is the author. And that is Eliška z Rožmberk. ( Elizabeth von Rosenberg ). Otherwise, the fact that the manuscript is a fraud by Michael Voynich, that’s what Santa Coloma started with. When I showed him several important things. And he Richi (because he is smart) immediately found out that he could never decipher the manuscript. The entire text is written in old Czech. And as I found out, no one knows the Jewish substitution. And so many people who have been trying to decipher the text for a long time, all that was left was to start writing about the manuscript being a fraud. Because they can never decipher the text. What is interesting is that even here in the Czech Republic there is no scientist who knows the Kabbalistic numerological system of gematria. One who goes around universities and tells students what the Voynich manuscript is, even asked me to tell him the system by which the text of the manuscript is written and encrypted. And that is what the scientist, who does about five degrees in computers, has. So to make it short, what is important. In order for a scientist to be able to decipher the text of the manuscript, he must perfectly master the old specific Czech language. And also perfectly master Jewish encryption. The context is important. And that is the Rosenberg family. (The Rosenberg family is the richest and most influential medieval family in the Czech lands. The first was the King. And the second in order was Rosenberg).
Who could dislike Rabelais?
“The blason and contreblason du couillon (Eng blason and counterblason of the bollock) are two blasons of the couillons (English: bollocks) which are featured in Rabelais’s Third Book of Gargantua and Pantagruel. First, there is Panurge’s blason in “How Panurge consulteth with Friar John of the Funnels”, then Frère Jean’s counterblason in “How Friar John comforteth Panurge in the doubtful matter of cuckoldry”.
There are 275 epithets for the bollock in the blason du couillon (Panurge) as translated by Urquhart and Motteux and 432 epithets in the antiblason du couillon (Frère Jean).
https://www.artandpopularculture.com/Blason_du_couillon
“The terms “blason”, “blasonner”, “blasonneur” were used in 16th century French literature by poets who, following Clement Marot in 1536, practised a genre of poems that praised a woman by singling out different parts of her body and finding appropriate metaphors to compare them with. It is still being used with that meaning in literature and especially in poetry.”
https://www.artandpopularculture.com/Blason
One might devise a blason and counterblason for the VMs naked “nymphs” I suppose.
After all: “Contreblason du tetin” and “Blason du beau tetin” (1535) (Eng: Counterblason of the tit, blason of the beautiful tit) are two blasons on the female breasts by French Renaissance author Clément Marot.”
“Tit, skinny tit,
flat tit that looks like a flag,
big tit, long tit,
tit, must I call thee bag?
Tit with its ugly black end,
forever moving tit.
Who would boast having touched you?
With their hand fondle you?
“Burnt tit, hanging tit, withered tit,
tit that contains foul water, but no milk,
the devil himself created thee…so ugly that thou look more like a tripe!!!
Tit stolen from an old goat,
tit good enough to feed Lucifer’s brats,
tit, long tit, resembling a stick,
tit that can be thrown over a shoulder!…
“Smelling tit under the chin,
tit that stinks like an old lamb!
Tit, what have you done to yourself?”
(Translation by by Hélène Marmoux)
https://www.artandpopularculture.com/Blazon_of_the_Ugly_Tit
What can I say? Go tell it to the virgins at Voynich Ninja.
If you need a nice soothing musical bath after all that listen to Gentle Giant’s ‘Pantagruel’s Nativity’:
https://youtu.be/PeXuwHDYbvI?si=vc61mrHX_KmSM2yT
Another bootiful melody to go with Quintessence’s ‘Giants’.
That’s a lot of giants round here.
Steve de sieve @ deceive: Here we go with a much later short response to one of my my original more detailed Tepencz posts, under Voynich Codiology threadline from 2022 in curt response to a couple of one hit VM wonders. Should satisfy an intrusive eager mind like your
“…..You’ll note the very same image bleed through effect from f1v to f1r ( not the
other way round), most probably due to harsh chemicals used in a first attempt to remove the original Tepenecz [sic] sign-off. Alternative means were then made to conceal the still (feintly) discernable signature by covering up the resultant blurring with placement of an after market (ridiculous) giant root ball beneath the original plant on the obverse of f1v page. (Wilfrid V. @ MI8 NY labs. circa. 1917) The method was deemed adequate, and in as much, proved sufficient to avoid close scrutiny by unwary Voynicheros and their like for the next century…How’s that grab you jerk off?
Steve,
As a general rule, anyone who claims to have “the” answer to the Vms is likely to have lost points with me from the outset.
Like any other problematic work, whether in terms of content or as made object, the Vms’ raises many questions to be investigated and each calls on different areas of scholarship. Researching the Voynich map, for example, took almost three years and only part of that was asking the basic question of which (if any) cartographic tradition it might belong within. Then there was all the geographic and related stuff… and the iconographic character of different details…
Anyway, long story short – my conclusion about the map is that it represents the work of persons of whom only a few traces remain in the historical record, but whose task was to chart coastlines in terms of the ‘rose’ .. or rather ‘the roses’ since there was the mixed star-and-winds rose, the pure ‘star-rose’ compass not known to the Latins, the magnetic compass (came into Latin horizons around the 12thC), and apparently a fourth ‘rose’ though the map’s last major recension (made c.1330) removed the fourth in order to have the figure I call ‘Angel of the Rose’ moved from its original North to that position, allowing inclusion of the little vignette itinerary in its place. This late addition contains the only reference to the western (‘Latin’) Europe in the map and that’s just one spot which I think a site in Sicily, though further work might show it meant for Avignon (possibly). The so-called ‘castle’ is in that late-added “itinerary”. Its position relative to other details (such as the unique Cappadocian ‘chimney’ formations) leads me to read it as a token form for the heavily-fortified imperial Constantinople WITH the Genoese-and-Jewish Pera/Galata. It is from two cartographic families, one Jewish in Majorca, the other Genoese, that we have our earliest ‘Latin-sphere’ rose-gridded carte-marine charts. Some of my work, and this last conclusion, has been ‘lifted’ and invariably mangled since then by more than one Voynich social-media type, and until standards improve – or at least until plagiarists plagiarise without fiddling – I don’t envisage re-printing it.
But that was three years’ work to answer some few questions about one drawing. There are a myriad yet to be asked, let alone worked on. There are many I’m not interested in, and others outside my field. What I do look for are others who understand that it’s more useful in the long run to address a series of specific questions than to leap up demanding an audience believe one has “the” answer.
As you see, I’m a very conventional sort of scholar. I’m sure that if one day I found some reason for accepting the Two Pillars of the Germanist-theory faith, my research might shift from being treated as a useful mine of “ideas” (and images) whose source that clique may never acknowledge. The two pillars of that faith, in case you don’t know are that (a) the controlling hand(s) over the Vms must be German-speaking and (b) the manuscript must be tied to Rudolf II in some way or other, or at *very* least to the Hapsburgs.
My findings consistently preventing my espousing the two pillars of faith, and rejecting offers of accommodation (you say Genoa… but how about agreeing it could be Venice?) appears to be the main reason my contributions to the study are used, but never rightly attributed. This is how I define the Voynich ‘Salon des refuses’ – the decision to ignore, shun, block, omit mention etc. has nothing to do with the scholars’ work in terms of quality, but only whether or not it conforms to the currently-dominant version of the traditionalist position.
(Should I nail this post to a door somewhere?)
Steve H. @ gladwrap: Can’t say I’m at all familiar with lingua Klingon or the Star Wars movies forthat matter though I can recall radio voice procedure lesons where we used coded Nahuatl as a means of confounding GI combatants in the field. I don’t doubt for a NY minute that Marc Okrand is indeed a fine cunning linguist in his own right, but comes to deceiving the enemy radio listening posts, Nahuatl beats all the Ohlone derivites ie., Awaswas, Chalon, Karkin, Chochenyo, Mutsun, Ramaytush, Rumsen and Snake river Tamyen hands down. I’m guessing you’d be rather up to speed on Nahuatl yersef, being a Keane follower of Voynich Manu. (Talbert & Tucker), ala south of the border down Mexico way… olay Jose’ (acute centred over e). You still playing Steve’s game of Voynich Manu. thrones Diane?
Steve H. @ simple Simon: Your one chance to be a Voynich Ninja nominee for the Mark Knowles MS b408 word scrabble award. Why would one go to such great lengths to erase the add on Son-o-Pius Tepenecz f1r signature with a Z ending. Pretty simple even for a boofhead like Bowes; surely you aren’t quite that far gone yet. Fair clue for a tangled root ball muggins like you would comprise false cognate words, one of which resembles the provincial (state) capital of Rhode Island (blue), the other being the likely best answer.
Steve,
I’ve now looked up the various bands and artists you mention. All new to me and not sure what they can have to do with any Voynich research. Maybe I’ve missed some variation on a ‘New World Voynich’ theory which would have Voynichese an Austronesian language, or could it be you’ve carried over from a ‘Somerton Man’ conversation?
Surprised no-one picked up on the fact that I was talking bollocks in my previous comment.
I will leave all discussion of the VMs to the “experts” for now. I am clearly out of my depth.
I did watch the BBC doc from way back featuring our esteemed moderator, but the only things of value that I picked up are a) that he is from Surbiton and not Kingston-upon-Thames, and b) that he enjoys dressing up in a red cloak and creeping around cloisters in an ominous manner. And René Zandbergen is also as bald as a coot. Perhaps studying the VMs leads to scholars pulling their hair out?
The cloak reminded me of ‘The Phantom of the Opera (yes, I’ve got that figure too) in his Red Death garb, or maybe the Venice-set Nic (Walkabout) Roeg film ‘Don’t Look Now’, based on a short story by our old friend Daphne Du Maurier.
Prof “Boyfriend”
My acquaintance with gematria, Kaballah and old Czech are too inadequate to offer you a meaningful response. According to an online gematria calculator the value of “Nick Pelling” is 223 but “John Sanders” came out at 1008. “Steve Hurwood” (moi) beat the pair of them with 2192! Think that’s my IQ level as well.
If, as I read, Elisabeth von Rosenberg was born in 1466, isn’t that a little late to be the “author” of the VMs?
https://gw.geneanet.org/cvpolier?lang=en&n=von+rosenberg&p=elisabeth
Diane
You might have more fun if you loosened your stays a bit. It is actually the tangents that one flies off on that are often more interesting than the subject in hand. I chose the Quintessence track ‘Giants’ cos a) quintessence is a key subject of interest for Jean de Roquetaillade* and b) Gargantua and Pantagruel are giants. Gentle Giant’s ‘Pantagruel’s Nativity’ seemed like an obvious follow up.
*See his De consideratione quintae essentiae rerum omnium, “a work of medical alchemy written in Latin in the years 1351-1352” which was “preserved in three manuscripts of the fourteenth century and two hundred manuscripts of the fifteenth – sixteenth centuries.”
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_consideratione_quintae_essentiae
Nowt to do with Somerton Man (although there was an Aussie band Tamam Shud), which topic is no longer of interest to any sane person, although occasionally still good for a laugh, for example when Bowes and Sanders (aka Darby and Joan) have another fall out and start accusing each other of all sorts of nefarious deeds.
Dusty the old Fokker aka Ilamatzin
I know you like “Biggin” (Changi, Singapore) yourself up but The Sparrows lived at 105 Moseley Street, not 205. Of course the old dodderers over at the Tombytwo Care Facility for the Elderly have never picked up on Nan S cos they can’t process any new information that has been revealed since about 2014. Bozo’s latest post reveals his penchant for kerb crawling if nothing else. “Curb appeal” my arse.
I also saw the very last British Concorde flight in 2003 which flew low over Bristol before landing at the (now defunct) Filton Airfield. First AND last. Beat that!
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/concode-last-flight/index.html
Have fun munching on your Voynich cheese folks!
I would suggest taking a good look at Ancient Egyptian Hieratic scripts:
https://ar.inspiredpencil.com/pictures-2023/hieratic-alphabet
Or maybe Coptic magic spells:
https://www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/index.php/2019/10/18/coptic-magical-papyri-on-the-road-colloque-gis-religions-lyon-8-10-october-2019/
“Je suis la Mort Rouge qui passe!”
Steve H. @ sparow fart : Sure you’ll be well and truly pissed off in re my having corrected your 205 Moseley St. address error well before you made your move to nark moi. Better luck next time and you aught to take care on which niche you decide to post on, you’re getting to be careless like Bowes and that’s careless!
@ Steve. I take the age according to what is written in the text of the manuscript. And that right at the beginning. On folio 1v it is written in Czech (encrypted): There are 14 green leaves and six golden leaves and six. And those are the years of my birth. etc. (on one green leaf of that symbolic plant there are 2 letters. They are J and T. Kabbalistic numerological system: Number 1 = a,i,j,q,y. Number 4 = d,m,t. ). The two letters J and T are therefore 14. The test that Greg did at Arizona University is only approximate. The test cannot be completely accurate for any date, as stated everywhere. There is a certain tolerance. Plus or minus 50 years. Which is also important. In many places in the manuscript Eliška describes certain things that relate to their family. In many places in the text of the manuscript it is written: I write in Czech. In many places in the text of the manuscript it is written: Czech words. And because each character has its own numerical value, there are many different dates in the text of the manuscript. And they fit exactly. For example, Eliška writes there when her father was born. Jan II. of Rožmberk. Or Eliška writes there when her father died. That also fits one hundred percent. On folio 2r. Eliška shows a Jewish homophonic substitution. Anyone who cannot understand folio 2r. has no chance of deciphering the text of the manuscript.
…by the by, you really should be more careful when dealing with the Rosenbergs as they were springing up like prairy grass all over medievil Central Europe, with slight name spelling variations adding to some confusion. Best you leave the mysterious clan to those in the know like Jo who knows best; and be reminded he doesn’t give a Czech Koruna ceska about modern day VM convention, he lives in a warped time zone.
Dusty
Oh dear, another day, another Voynich comment.
You always pick up on the trivial aspects of my fantabulous contributions and miss the real heart of the matter (Graham Greene ref).
As for the Rosenbergs, as long as we’re not talking about that supreme creep Alfred Rosenberg we’re okay. In fact as you will know Great War poet Isaac Rosenberg, the son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants to Britain from Dvinsk (now in Latvia), was born in Bristol in 1890, although he moved to Stepney a few years later.
Like our friend Diane you COMPLETELY missed the ground breaking significance of my linking ‘Giants’ by British/Australian band Quintessence. I like to allow my readers to use their intelligence and imagination and not hand everything to them on a plate. But unless you join all the dots…
As I pointed out to Diane, Jean de Roquetaillade was obsessed with the idea of a “quintessence”, or fifth essence. I linked a French Wikipedia article about his ‘De consideratione quintae essentiae rerum omnium’ although I doubt anyone bothered to read it. So for lazy bastards like you here are some quotes:
1) “In his alchemical research, which began at the University of Toulouse, the visionary mystic, Jean de Roquetaillade, did not seek to perfect metals in order to transmute them into gold, but to produce a substance that he called the “quine essence” (the “fifth essence”) that would be able to keep the body healthy and cure diseases. He subjected alchemical art to a “prophetic, eschatological twist” by defining a new object: “the quest for eternal health, the quest for salvation and the renewal of the world, against an apocalyptic background”…Jean de Roquetaillade can be credited with having inaugurated a new discipline of “medical (al)chemistry”, a genre of modern alchemical literature devoted to human health, which was continued by the alchemist apothecaries of the sixteenth century, leading in the following centuries to modern pharmacology.
“The Quinte essence type is a substance obtained in two stages: 1) successive distillations wine, giving a rectified fiery water (or brandy) 2) followed by a “circular distillation” in order to “separate it from the corruption of the four elements”. This substance, which is not “subject to the corruption of the four elements,” once absorbed, strengthens the “root of life,” the “principle of life” that is within us and “nourishes the virtue of life.” The background to this theory of quintessence goes back to the elixir of long life of Roger Bacon (1214-1294) and Arnaud de Villeneuve (1240-1311)…
“Once the assimilation has been made between the Quinte essence drawn from the fiery water and the Sky, Roquetaillade systematizes it to all the substances drawn by alchemical procedures of the materia medica. He gives the recipes for separating the celestial, active part of minerals and medicinal plants, which magnifies their medicinal virtues. By extracting the Fifth Essence from a medicinal plant, he can have a remedy that exalts its medicinal properties to the point that “it will be a hundred times better, by means of the Fifth Essence,” he repeats.
“By associating these distillates with Heaven, Jean de Roquetaillade gave them a prestigious status, which would attract the attention of apothecaries and doctors of the Renaissance.”
2) “Roquetaillade’s alchemy has as its theoretical framework Aristotelian cosmology, bordered by Christian theology. For Aristotle, the Heaven composed of ether is incorruptible while the sublunar world, governed by the four elements, is subject to corruption. Heaven is composed of ether which was later known as the “fifth element”. Jean de Roquetaillade affirms that it is possible to remove man from corruption thanks to the Quinte essence, a substance “not subject to the corruption of the four elements”.
“Jean de Roquetaillade’s work, De consideratione quintae essentiae (abr. QE), is divided into two books
“The first deals with the theory of the Quinte essence, the recipes for making it and its properties,
“The second book is a treatise on alchemical pharmacology, developing the uses of the substances described above to treat various health disorders, to maintain health or to regain youth.”
3) “In canon III (p. 35), Jean de Roqetaillade extends the notion of the Quinte essence to substances extracted from human blood, chickens, eggs, fruits, leaves, herbs and roots. The expression quintae essentiae rerum omnium “Quinte essence of all things” in the title comes from this.”
As I pointed out in a previous comment copies were made as manuscripts before a printed edition was produced in Basel in 1561. It was translated into English, German, Italian and Catalan in the fifteenth century.
Indeed there is an Italian version from the 15th century at the University of Delaware (NOT a Perry Como ref):
“University of Delaware Library, MSS 95, Item 14. Italy, 15th century. This manuscript is a fifteenth-century copy of Johannes de Rupescissa’s [ie Roquetaillade’s] De consideratione quintae essentiae rerum omnium. It was written in Italy in Gothic rotunda script in a single column on parchment with alternating red and blue initials and paragraph marks. The first leaf of the preface is missing and the following four leaves (fols. 1-4) are badly rubbed, affecting text. Rupescissa’s work is divided into two books, with the second comprising twenty numbered remedies. The final leaves of the volume contain a selection from Michele Savonarola’s De arte conficiendi aquam vitae (fols. 50r-51r) and an unattributed remedy for catarrh titled Remedium notabile contra passionem Catharri (fol. 51r-51v). Corrections contemporary to the text are in the margins, as are notes by a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century reader marking correspondences to a printed edition of the text and sections of the manuscript not present in that printed edition.”
https://archive.org/details/mss_0095_014/page/n3/mode/2up
I can only see one illustration on a quick flick through:
https://digitalcollections.udel.edu/collections/miscellaneous-scientific-humanities-manuscripts/liber-de-consideratione-quintae-essentiae-omnium-rerum
There is another version in the Wellcome Collection: “Johannes de Rupescissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae , in Latin, with a glossary of medicinal herbs in Latin and German, on paper, dated ‘1443 Ratisponae’, i.e. Regensburg (Bavaria), Germany.”:
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/nkqqy37b
An English version:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/hrs09.html
Boy, some of the VMs “letters” sure look like alchemical signs. Check out some of these, although most are from later works:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/images_graphic.html
Extensive research (a couple of hours) has led me to believe that some of the letters are actually symbols for measurements, eg ounces and drams. Jupiter, Mercury and arsenic are also indicated. If the book was partly about poisons – let alone the prizes fifth essence – no wonder it was “encrypted”.
See the symbols for Jupiter:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/Harttung_vom_Hoff.html
And weird imagery, as in this 1550 Book of the Holy Trinity – see the tiny bathing nudes:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/Emblems_Trinity_Basle%20Ms%20LIV%201%20(1550).html
Then there is this FANTASTIC Arabic one – quite VMs like in places:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/Emblems_Gotha%20Ms.%20orient.%20A%201261.html
See:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/Emblems_manuscripts.html
See also pic at top here, from a manuscript from 1350 by de Roquetaillade:
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/776448792013980314/
If like me you are not interested in ciphers you better start with the pictures, by looking for mediaeval herbals, bestiaries, alchemical, maps and the suchlike, eg from Northern Italy circa 1290:
https://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/thumbs/145750
Just search for medi[a]eval herbals etc in the Images section of a search engine, eg:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=medieval%20herbals&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=medieval%20herbals&sc=10-16&cvid=261763B233204F6B8038775C17D21BD3&first=1
or:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=medieval%20bestiaries&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&ghc=1&lq=0&pq=medieval%20bestiaries&sc=9-19&cvid=30F019359B56463DAD9E2EB789FD8B5D&first=1
So there you have it Dusty. Enjoy your spat with Peter Bowes, who never seems to grow up despite his advanced years. The idea of Bozo calling anyone a troll is larfable as I’m sure you will agree, but I did note that El Gordo has been making overtures in his direction so maybe a Bowes/Cramer realignment is on the cards,
PS I noted in the BBC doc which extensively featured Pilch that Bill Newbold (not Newbolt*) thought that the VMs might be written in “microletters”. Ha-bloody-ha. It was the ink cracking.
*”There’s a breathless hush in the Close to-night —
Ten to make and the match to win —
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.”
The Close is in Clifton, Bristol. I’ve even played cricket there. Not very well. I am Clifton born but not bred.
Mind you Big Jim from North Carolina thought the VMs was written by aliens. An advance party landing near Roswell, New Mexico no doubt, hence the “Mesoamerican” plants. They had a holiday in Acapulco, where they possibly learned a few words of Nahuatl, just to be able to order some nice tacos and tequila-based cocktails.
Steve H. Full credit to you and your phonetic friend Alpha India. Together youse make it all sound so uncomplicated and I’m sure other Voynicheros will fall into line when they digest fully what you have layed out neatly before them in just a few brief paragraphs. All clearly and concisely with the usual touch of savoir faire in the form of separate expanitory notes, plus your usual bonus in the format of a light hearted four liner poetic touch ala FitzGerald’s Ruby just for good measure. As Pete Bowes would say, “Good on you Steve, you’ve Scooooored” with apologies to Flash Gordon & Anon.
Steve H.,
I appreciate your point, not least because of the brilliant work of Filip Holm, to whose video about Alchemy I directed my readers recently (August 26th.)
I think it was probably medicine of that sort of which Georg Baresch was thinking, and southern Europe (including France and England for reasons of cultural and other entanglements) is the region to which most of the research I’ve done as pointed for the century before the Vms was made.
Against this, we have to take into account that an acknowledged external specialist in the history and iconography of western alchemy finds no correspondence in the Vms for its esoteric iconographic vocabulary and, no less important, Baresch’s view (which I think informed, not hypothetical) that information in the Vms had been brought from ‘eastern regions’ and was old. Part of the imagined ‘prisca medicina’ in which medieval people believed.
We find neither evidence of, nor reason for, enciphering of any medical or medical text in medieval Europe to the time the Vms was made, Bacon’s comments about keeping knowledge from people who were low-minded notwithstanding.
I’m very glad to have details of those manuscripts, though and will look foreward to hearing anything more you care to contribute.
I’d also hope to see someone who knows a bit about ‘eastern regions’ say a bit about alchemy among the Taoists.
Thinking it might prove relevant, since Siddha traditions in medicine cropped up in my work about a decade ago, I bought a book entitled The Alchemical Body: Siddha traditions in medieval India’ (1996). Haven’t had reason to quote it so far, and may never need to – but the point at present is that the subject of one Voynich drawing is a 5-element system (as Rich Santacoloma and I discovered independently of each other some years ago) and – as you will know but Rich doubted – medieval Latin Europe recognised only four elements within the mundane world and did not count aether among them. A 5-element system occurs, among other societies, in India.
Anyway, if your philosophy is live and learn, the Vms is the source of a great many fascinating questions worthy of deep-diving research. My idea of great fun.
Dusty
One thing you CAN guarantee is that I do not use AI. I wouldn’t know how, just like I’ve never mastered the self-service automated tills at the supermarket, which I have a deep seated philosophical objection to, and if I didn’t speak to the checkout staff then most weeks I wouldn’t speak to anybody, which is fine by me. But sometimes a man has to check his vocal chords are still working.
My last comment was merely a pointer to possible empirical research for those who have more interest in the VMs than I do. As Nick has frequently said, the last thing anybody needs is another unsubstantiated and grandiose theory. Most of these fly in the face of what we DO know about the manuscript, as does your and poor Rich Santa Claus’ idea that the thing was faked up by Voynich himself.
In doing empirical research you need to know WHERE to look in the first place. From my limited knowledge of the debate this is one of the basic disagreements between Diane and Nickio – maybe D and everybody else actually. Diane thinks we should be looking at Mss and illustrations from here, there and everywhere, but Pilch concentrates more on a specific area. My view is that the European, Islamic, Byzantine and even South and East Asian worlds were far more connected than some people realise.
Just cos the manuscript was produced (probably) in northern Italy in the first half of the 15th century doesn’t mean the ideas, vocabulary, illustrative methods, mode of encryption (if there is one) and so on didn’t originate elsewhere. Maybe it’s a copy or translation of another Ms now lost. Then you have the issue of how many hands were involved in producing it and over how long a period. Why are the Occitan words in there for instance?
What we need is what social anthropologist Clifford Geertz called “thick description”. And that doesn’t mean description for thickos like you and Bozie!
“Thick description is a qualitative research method that aims to provide a rich, detailed, and nuanced account of a phenomenon, moving beyond surface-level observations to reveal the underlying meanings, motivations, and social dynamics at play.”
“It involves “showing rather than telling,” using vivid descriptions, illustrative examples, and direct quotations from data sources like interviews, field notes, and documents.
“The goal is to offer rich contextual insight into the research process and findings, enabling readers to evaluate the study’s credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.
“Thick description contrasts with thin description, which it describes as a superficial account that does not explore the underlying meanings of cultural members.
“Thin description remains at the surface level, simply documenting what is observed without delving into the deeper significance.
“This lack of interpretive depth leaves the reader with an incomplete and potentially misleading understanding of the social phenomenon being studied.”
https://www.simplypsychology.org/thick-description.html
And make no bones about it Dusty, texts like the VMs ARE social phenomena as much as they are literary/artistic/cultural phenomena. You have to try to get inside the societies and cultures that produced the artefacts as much as possible rather than looking at them from an outsider’s position where you just make shit up, run with it through hell and high water, and ignore any evidence that doesn’t fit your silly off the peg sub-theory.
Perhaps in the case of VMs research one could call it Nick description in honour of our compelling leader. Boom Boom!
Meanwhile old girl, what do you make of the naked ladies in the later alchemical text that I linked?
See:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/images/Emblems_Trinity_Basle%20Ms%20LIV%201%20(1550)%2010.jpg
The problem with surmising that the VMs is related to alchemy or the idea of “quintessence” is that I can’t see any alembics represented. There may be a reason for this, or they may be hidden as plants.
This image springs to mind:
https://www.grunge.com/img/gallery/the-crazy-true-story-of-the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript/even-the-historys-greatest-codebreakers-cant-figure-it-out-1613498343.webp
Alembics:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/alembic-drawing.html?sortBy=relevant
By the way when I said “you better start” in my last comment, referring to seeking out other mediaeval herbals and bestiaries, I didn’t mean to imply that you hadn’t looked at the suchlike before. Poorly worded on my part so I apologise for that.
Steve @. And other scientists and non-scientists. The MS – 408 manuscript has nothing to do with alchemy. You ask Diane why there are naked women in the manuscript. So I’ll write it for you. On the folio where, for example, naked women are drawn (and there are men somewhere), the AUTHOR (a clever medieval lady who, as you can see and quite clearly Eliška of Rožmberk, confused the heads of many people and scientists all over our world) describes who was born. So where there is a naked figure of a woman or a man. The text says, for example: My father Jan II of Rožmberk was born in 1431. He lived a total of 41 years and died in 1472. Of the plague. etc. A scientist who sees or looks for alchemy in the text of the manuscript has no chance of deciphering the text of the manuscript.
I would be quite interested in why you are looking for the author of the manuscript somewhere else than you are supposed to be looking. Everyone who is written about in connection with the manuscript. So they are Czechs. Alchemist Bareš = Czech. Jakub of Tepence = Czech. Rector Marci = Czech.
Steve H. Only two naked Voynich Manu. ladies have ever really struck my fancy. I’ve spoken about them often and written them up til my face has turned green like the water in their self supporting pools, not of the same tonal depth as Donald Trumps non reflective algea pond in DC. For your personal information, no one else has shown any interest, not even Rich Santamaria, one of the gals being young, thin, but nearing full term for her delivery, the other be of normal stature, nursie looking and is waving one of the new fangled devices known to obstetric applications as Harry Beauvelot’s pelvic measure, after it’s inventor, with a patent date of 1789, from memory. I’ve gotta be off now, time for my daily jaunt with my local semi naked ladies. I’m sure Diane O’D will be happy to fill you in on my own simplistic VM theory, nothing similar to Rich Santadomingos in any way manner form as she will surely attest.
Jean-!ouis Baudelocque was the great man’s handle; must’ve been the other cove what came up with the slightly larger forest tree puller, that’s according to Peter M. our Swiss authority on all things bright and beautiful developed in Germany from time immemorial. I did at the very least manage to get the patent year 1789 correct for the obstetric thingo, the one for the ladies to toy with at delivery time with a little help from their trained maternity nurse
Dusty
Don’t be daft old girl. If you mean the sheila having her eye poked out it’s just a common or garden caliper, known from ancient times:
https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/RightEyef80r.png
https://www.alamy.com/calipers-image546686435.html?imageid=463FF273-DD1F-4FC2-824B-7C9E85C7868B&pn=1&searchId=4d931db6e256ed7e64e631432a3194a7&searchtype=0
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/OutsideCalipers.jpg/1280px-OutsideCalipers.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail
Feel a tad uneasy bringing the subject up with you being a gal and all, even if only due to recent (2025) gender reassignment surgery, but how much consideration has been given to the topic of menstruation in discussion of the VMs?
The “curse” of the Voynich indeed!
After all there are tons of naked ladies, not just in the medical/balneological section but in the “zodiac” section. What if some of it has summat to do with monthly cycles?
I was looking up some alchemical manuscripts and came across the Aurora consurgens. “The Aurora consurgens is an alchemical treatise of the 15th century famous for the rich illuminations that accompany it in some manuscripts.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_consurgens#
I noticed a rather explicit pic of a menstruating woman (see below).
“In an illustration from Zürich Zentralbibliothek MS Rh. 172 (f. 11r), a menstruating woman bleeds profusely within a zodiac circle to illustrate her monthly cycle and the creation of menstruation and its use within the body.”
Or is it amniotic fluid, symbolising the white or lunar dye, as I have seen suggested elsewhere?
https://solia.fandom.com/wiki/Lunar_Dye
It appears in an interesting look at menstruation in medieval times by a nun:
https://wh1350.at/en/equipment/menstruation-in-medieval-times-a-practical-experiment/
This is the image:
https://wh1350.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Aurora_consurgens_zurich_023_f-11r-23_zodiac-httpwww.e-codices.unifr_.chfrlistonezbzMs-Rh-0172.jpg
See more illustrations from the Ms here:
https://www.arsgravis.com/la-aurora-de-la-gran-obra-alquimica/
Diane doesn’t think the relevant pages in the VMs have anything to do with the zodiac. “The Voynich calendar emblems refer to an astronomical series (stars/constellations) and not the astrological ‘signs’.
https://voynichrevisionist.com/the-series-of-voynich-calendar-emblems-not-a-zodiac-sequence/
Being a lifelong bachelor boy (NOT a euphemism for being gay) I know nothing about women’s monthly cycles and how they correspond to the calendar so perhaps you could enlighten me?
One of the first singles I owned was by your hero Cliff:
“When I was sixteen I fell in love
With a girl as sweet as can be
But I remembered just in time what my daddy said to me
He said, “Son, you’ll be a bachelor boy
And that’s the way to stay
Son, you’ll be a bachelor boy until your dying day.””
Cliff Richard: “I’m Not Gay But My Boyfriend Is.” (2008)
Dusty Sanders: “Elon Musk. Man’s got three digits and nine zeros in the bank because he’s one cool mofo.” (2025)
I found a photo of Cliff with you Dusty (before your gender reassignment surgery):
https://www.dailysquib.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/cat_124/1473-600×506.jpg
In another piece, in connection with an Illustration from around 1310, “Calendar page for August”, we read:
“According to Pliny the Elder (1st century CE), menstrual blood had many destructive and mysterious qualities. It could sour wine, make dogs aggressive, damage crops, cause illness or madness, and perhaps worst of all—cause impotence.”
https://www.niku.no/en/2026/02/the-idea-that-medieval-women-bled-freely-without-protection-is-a-myth/
Diagram of a uterus, about 1292:
https://www.digitscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ba7302de-0b9e-41ba-9ce3-d3640b6ce9ca-1015×1536.jpg
https://www.digitscotland.com/its-a-bloody-shame-archaeological-evidence-of-menstruation-in-the-past/
Then the botanical drawings.
This is an article about early medieval English menstrual remedies for women. There are some depictions of plants from manuscripts:
https://www.leidenmedievalistsblog.nl/articles/female-friendly-early-medieval-english-remedies-for-managing-menstruation
https://wh1350.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Aurora_consurgens_zurich_023_f-11r-23_zodiac-httpwww.e-codices.unifr_.chfrlistonezbzMs-Rh-0172.jpg
“The translator responsible for the Old English Herbarium, an eleventh-century translation of a Latin original, excluded a remarkably high number of remedies related to the female sex (Kesling: 145). Luckily, he or she did not omit all cures or phrases related to women and, in particular, the translator appears to have retained some remedies that deal with menstruation.”
https://www.leidenmedievalistsblog.nl/images/uploads/LMB.MK.Medievial-medicine-manuscript.jpg
Illustration of the Shepherd’s Purse (thyaspis; depicted on the right) in the Old English Herbarium. Cotton MS Vitellius C III, f. 63v.
“This plant, which is called thyaspis […] takes away all painful congestion in the abdomen and it also stimulates a woman’s menses.” (trans. van Arsdall: 215)
Think of the distended bellies of some (most?) of the women in the VMs.
https://www.leidenmedievalistsblog.nl/images/uploads/_fullportrait/LMB.MK.Medievial-medicine-manuscript-2.jpg
Illustration of the nettle in the Old English Herbarium. Cotton MS Vitellius C III, f. 72r.
“For a woman’s menses, take the same plant [called urtica or nettle], pounded thoroughly in a mortar so that it is very soft. Add to it a little honey, take some moist wool that has been teased, and then use it to smear the genitals with the medication. Then give it to the woman, so that she can lay it under her. That same day, it will stop the bleeding.” (trans. van Arsdall: 226-227)
Then there are manuscripts containing advice on birth control, again with illustrations of plants:
https://www.thecollector.com/medieval-period-birth-control-methods/
This image( c. 1280- c. 1310) contains some BEES on a honeycomb as well as a plant (white horehound) and relates to a spermicide:
https://cdn.thecollector.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/miniature-bees-honeycomb.jpg?width=533&quality=100&dpr=2
“Other vaginal contraceptives employed in the Medieval period included inserts of cloth soaked in honey or vinegar. The belief in various sweeteners and fermented fruits as effective birth control methods can be traced as far back to the Egyptian period , where a spermicidal recipe from 1521 BC directed the reader to “mix grated Acacia leaves and honey and soak a gauze to be inserted into the vagina.” Although peculiar to the modern ears, this unconventional concoction may have been fairly successful due to both the stickiness of the honey, which would prevent sperm motility, and the acacia lactic acid present in the sap, which is effective as a spermicide.”
There is another article called ‘Medieval Menstruation and Jesus’s Wounds’.
“[There was] an idea that women’s bodies were inherently defective. This line of thinking goes way back in time, but certainly the Christianity that developed in the Middle Ages exacerbated it. One of the most prominent Medieval women, the Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, herself bought into this. In _Causae et Curae_, she argues that the reason women menstruate is because of Original Sin. Thus, the very first woman, Eve, brought about the creation of periods — in the text, Eve began to menstruate because she had erotic thoughts: “When an influx of desire entered Eve,” writes Hildegard, “all of her veins were opened with a flow of blood.”
Cop a look at the second illustration. Jesus’ wound? I think not:
https://chrissysenecal.com/medieval-menstruation-and-jesuss-wounds/
See also Medieval manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine:
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/topics/medieval/index.html#case0
As El Gordo would say, hope this helps!
Steve H. comes with a protruding measurement gauge in centimetres if you don’t mind. Garden caliper doesn’t resonate with moi, or are you meaning something along the lines of hedge trimmers, you should’ve stuck with Peter M’s hydrolic tree puller that came with photos of arnold Schwarzesnegger at the controls, from memory. The remainder of your post be a vile repulsive, insult to feminine natural traits, and not worthy of any further comment; Apart from a word of caution to our moderator to moderate in keeping with a little decency when dealing with gentle women’s personal business.
PS: suggest you put up ‘picture of pelvimeter in use’ on your tab, got a pretty nurse leaning over a full term lady patient on a flat bed in a private room, both smiling. The nursing aid has her Baudelocque device mit visible measure stick open and ready for business. No sign of vegetation in the setting nor “garden callipers” for use thereapon if that’s what you’re suggesting … Calipers for what pray tell?
Prof Z aka the Czech Champollion
I don’t think we’ve discovered a Rosetta Stone just yet that would give us the Eureka moment (stockade or no stockade) which some, such as yourself, would like to claim.
Can’t fly this flag yet:
https://harrywestflags.com.au/cdn/shop/products/1_c0a6c1f1-6560-4211-8120-3f3234869959.png?v=1751434892&width=5000
You ask: “I would be quite interested in why you are looking for the author of the manuscript somewhere else than you are supposed to be looking.”
I’m not looking for any author. Neither am I going to be told where I am “supposed” to be looking. I presume you think you have scored with a clever Panenka (I was watching in 1976) but in that case why does nobody else take your conclusion seriously, at least as far as I am aware?
You MIGHT be right in your hypothesis but I don’t think attempting to stifle other people’s enquiries and investigations is very gentlemanly if I might be so bold. I have no idea whether the VMs has anything to do with alchemy, but quite frankly I am more interested in alchemy than the VMs so that is the area I enjoy researching.
This Athanasius Pernath doesn’t need a Schemajah Hillel!
Dusty aka Sheila (sIc) na gig
My link to the “nymph” holding the pair of calipers don’t seem to work.
Presume you were talking about the image half way down f80r.
“There is a row of small figures across the top of the page, mostly, but not all, female. A tube in the right margin ends in a pool of blue water spanning the middle of the page. It has female figures at both ends, who might be arguing or fighting. In the right margin there is another tube going down to another female figure, and a further one is in the lower left corner.”
Don’t judge a book by its cover. We have to understand the symbolism of the depictions rather than just make an identification of what any given pictorial element in the VMs “represents”. It is called iconography. You are taking things too literally me old china.
You’d be better off with Baudelaire, or even Baudrillard, than Baudelocque and his pelvimeter.
Quite frankly your constant habit of resorting to anasyrma is making you a laughing stock. You have become a one-trick pony.
Or maybe you have always been one. A filly-stine (stein?) to boot. I ought to have guessed you were incapable of appreciating Gil and Ben, Bill and Ben being more up your street.
Giddy-up old mare and trot off into the sunset. There’s a good gal. Give my love to Sir Cliff.
Steve,
It’s not that I don’t “think” the Voynich calendar is not an astrological ‘zodiac’ series – the manuscript simply does not present what we describe as an astrological ‘zodiac’ series when speaking of the Latin European tradition.
The astrological series starts with the Ram, Aries. The series of emblems used to occupy the centres of the Voynich calendar includes no Ram and begins with the first constellation of the astronomical series, viz. Pisces.
As for the added details in that darker ink… well, it’s only a suspicion because I’ve not worked on that question yet, but I suspect it may be connected to the Egyptian months (Menses Aegyptii) or the unlucky days known variously as Dies Aegyptiaci, dies mali (“evil days”) or dies aegri. The dark-ink additions have a kind of nasty, snide character better suited to adolescent boys than to the mentality of those who first enunciated the figures or those who had covered up many with a ‘decent’ layer of clothing in the form of a wash, or those who later made them still more decent with heavily-applied pigment. My guess – which is all it is – is that those black-ink additions were made by the same hand that added the curse marginalia in a coarse dialect of German.
I could be mistaken about that, of course – haven’t yet done the research. But about the calendar’s emblems, the evidence is …well, evident. The astrological series is so well-known it has been unconsciously imposed on the primary evidence until people look at two goats and think we see one sheep. That’s what’s called theory-induced blindness. Pig-headedness is when someone has made you see there’s no sheep, and that the month-names agree with the astronomical, but not the astrological sequence, and you then erase the month-names, write ‘Aries’ on the goats and say ‘See, we woz right – its an astrological zodiac’.
Sorry, long day. No point being grumpy about theory-disease.
The VM manuscript comes from Switzerland. The EVA (ch) makes that quite clear. It’s the abbreviation for ‘Confoederatio Helvetica’.
Even on the coins, it’s almost exclusively women who are depicted.
Is that clear now?
https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/009827/2020-09-15/
Hey Steve. The Rosetta Stone? Look with your eyes open at FOLIO 2r. What do you think, you smart one, that it is? I’ll write it again. Hopefully you can understand it. On the folio at the beginning of the manuscript, the author (your Rosetta Stone) shows the method of encrypting the manuscript. That means Jewish Homophone Substitution. Do you think that is a little or a lot? Of course, what I write can only be understood by someone who uses their brain. The brain is important, you certainly know that yourself. A researcher without a brain is lost and will look for alchemy in the text of the manuscript. Which is colossal, therefore, great stupidity. And the fact that no one wants to accept what I write is a consequence of the fact that no one knows the necessary things that are important for understanding and subsequently deciphering the text of the manuscript. No scientist knows and therefore no one has been able to decipher the text of the manuscript for a hundred years. The only one who was able to understand what it was about was Michal Voynič himself. He found out that it was a Czech book. Otherwise you write terribly long comments where nothing important is written.
Dusty
The fact that you write the following shows what a reactionary old chauvinist you are despite your recent (2025) sex change:
“The remainder of your post be a vile repulsive, insult to feminine natural traits, and not worthy of any further comment; Apart from a word of caution to our moderator to moderate in keeping with a little decency when dealing with gentle women’s personal business.”
Go tell that to a feminist! Some of this made even ME blush:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_and_menstruation
“Menstrual activism (also known as radical menstruation, menstrual anarchy, or menarchy) is a movement that addresses menstrual stigma and tackles the social and structural inequalities that are experienced by women and other menstruating people [!]. Overcoming this taboo is a point of contention amongst feminists. The primary argument behind this movement is that if menstruation is normal, there is no reason why the topic should be avoided: “After a while it becomes psychologically disorienting for women to look out at a world where their reality doesn’t exist.”
Most of this made me blush even more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_and_vulva_in_art
As for your pelvimeter (Elvimeter the Pelvimeter maybe?) crap, the calipers I showed were “common or garden” (ie nowt to do with gardens, but a good ol’ Brit phrase) and were simple measuring devices, more properly called outside calipers.
Still, for your benefit here’s a photo of Baudiddley’s contraption;
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Pelvimeter.svg/500px-Pelvimeter.svg.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail
Nothing like wot the sheila in the VMs is holding I’m sure you’ll admit. As for your assertion that there is “No sign of vegetation” in the “pelvimeter in use” pic of the “pretty nurse leaning over a full term lady patient on a flat bed in a private room” (not that I know what you’re on about) I’m sure you are aware of the term “lady garden”.
Sieve: “Nothing like wot the bleeding [sic] sheila in the Vms [sic] is holding I’m sure you’ll admit” be blowed mugger; it’s a pretty good likeness indeed, if you allow for artist Maggie Taylor’s inexpert artistic interpretation of every female caricature in the V. Manu. overall, and additionally her other reproductions depicting inanimate medieval objet d’ art items that she might not have been familiar at all familiar with as a thoroughly modern Millie of her day. Don’t mind my saying so mofo, but you appear to be in a bind of late with your inclination to steer well clear of the other Cipher Miseries topics (threads) that you had once revelled in. Know what I mean ultra selective old spinster you!
Prof Z says:
“No scientist knows and therefore no one has been able to decipher the text of the manuscript for a hundred years. The only one who was able to understand what it was about was Michal Voynič himself. He found out that it was a Czech book”
Peter M says:
“The VM manuscript comes from Switzerland. The EVA (ch) makes that quite clear. It’s the abbreviation for ‘Confoederatio Helvetica’.
Even on the coins, it’s almost exclusively women who are depicted.
Is that clear now?”
NOTHING is clear in what either of you buffoons have to say, Prof Z calls me out for my prolixity, but his own comments simply regurgitate the same old crap time and again. HIS brain fell out years ago.
And at least I don’t need AI to construct a comment with more than one paragraph.
….know you’re up to your neck in other people’s troubles, all puting pressure on your little free time and expertise. You may not remember but I distinctly recall asking you niceley enough to put up an image of my pelvimiter in use, that would have given a much better perspective of what I was on about with my two naked ladies. In preparation to do something similar with their 1789 obstetric gizmo ala Baudelocque’s Measure. No need to be shy now, I’m not trying to make you look the fool, you manage that quite handsomely without my help.
Steve @. You old comedian. What nonsense are you talking about? I’m showing you your Rosetta Stone. And you can’t understand it, as clearly and distinctly as it is. I don’t care about some Peter M at all. You keep talking about alchemy and I’m trying to help you. You poor guy. You keep putting links to wiki here. Why are you doing this? Can’t you think for yourself? I’ll give you some advice. Don’t study on wiki. There’s nothing substantial or good there. You alchemist.
Geoffrey Hinton, AI Godfather is in the news today pushing for Toronto to become the major international hub for future expansion. I put it to my local AI rep about Geoff’s connection to the Voynich family and they didn’t have a clue; not until I filled them in, and they were most apologetic. How’s about that, they want me on their VM panel of experts. Blunders will never cease.
Dusty
Your “pelvimeter in use”:
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/doctor-measuring-pelvic-size-female-patient-using-medical-pelvimeter-doctor-measuring-pelvic-size-female-patient-using-406278611.jpg?w=576
Good ol’ fashioned “common or garden” calipers:
https://vinty.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2023/01/vintage-moore-wright-4-inch-outside-spring-joint-caliper-sheffield-england-collectible-tools.jpg
Case closed methinks!
Peter M,
The link you included seems to deny your theory. by saying that the Latin (or Latinised) “Confoederatio Helvetica” was not invented – introduced – until the mid-nineteenth century.
Translation reads:
[Confoederatio Helvetica].
“This term is apparently not among the earlier names used for the Confederation. It was introduced after the creation of the federal state in 1848, either for practical reasons or to avoid favoring any of the national languages in official correspondence. The Latin name has appeared on coins since 1879, on the front pediment of the Federal Palace in Bern since 1902, and on the seal of the Confederation since 1948. The acronym CH has become established, particularly since the 1909 International Convention on the Registration of Motor Vehicles..”
Or perhaps you support the ‘fake Voynich’ theory, and take the Voynich glyph as proof? I assume you know that Landini’s EVA is not a romanisation or transliteration, but an arbitrarily-assigned substitution series? For all we know the glyph which Landini’s EVA has ‘ch’ might be rightly ‘go’ or ‘pst’ .. or anything.
Your good ol’ fashioned vintage spring joint callipers of the garden variety? made in Sheffield don’t look all that medieval to my way of thinking. In fact I’d say that the patent year for your Moore & Wright (right or wrong) model would post date my Baudelocque obstetric surgeon grade job by half a century or moore. So what’s your point mugger? you seem to have led your silly billy self down the garden path as per usual.
Sieve: Well sport, seems your Moore & Wright gadget didn’t come within cooey of medieval, their Sheffield patents not being registered til 1907, five hundred years short of the mark for them to be of interest to dyed in the wool Voynicheros. One more thing I brought up for your personal benefit, as it turns out, a coincidence of some merit. Freestanding swim pools first appeared at the Philadelphia racquets club in, yes you guessed it, in 1907 and just five years before Wilfred Voynich first trip to the Americas, courtesy of Trump’s man, Italia born Amerigo Vespucci. So how come we have at least one of them in 500 year old genuine article el cheapo picture book with gobbledygook explanitary notes.
@Diane
Of course. It was just a joke.
We all know that EVA(ch) is just a keyboard shortcut, and (ch) just happened to fit so nicely. If it had been (HB), I would have written ‘Helvetia Bund’. HB is the registration code for Swiss aeroplanes, and CH for cars.
But it’s nice that you looked into it.
Prof Jay-Z
How’s Malibu? How’s Beyoncé? How’s your valet Peter M?
You take me to task for citing and quoting from Wikipedia articles.
“You keep putting links to wiki here. Why are you doing this? Can’t you think for yourself? I’ll give you some advice. Don’t study on wiki. There’s nothing substantial or good there”.
Er? At least I don’t make comments which consist ENTIRELY of Wikipedia links, which you seem to make a habit of doing on a regular basis:
https://ciphermysteries.com/2023/03/05/voynich-f116v-hail-mary#comment-484961
https://ciphermysteries.com/2023/03/05/voynich-f116v-hail-mary#comment-484962
Touché Prof. With big brass knobs on!
I have no desire to be your amanuensis old fruit. “You h’aint the bleedin’ horacle” as my Waterloo born grandad used to say after he died, speaking through the family poodle, Toto, in his gruff Sarf London brogue. You will know of the famous Enfield Poltergeist. Well grandpa was The Horfield Poltergeist and he used to throw both his brogue (through the dog) and his brogues around the house. Spoooky!
You will remember the Pražské defenestrace, if not through personal experience then by learning about your nation’s history in school. Although we are not, sadly, in Prague together, I, perhaps like many other scientists and scholars here (and Ms Sanders) might get the urge to throw you out the bloody window when you blather on about gematria, the Kaballah and this wretched wench, the Czech Dolly Parton, Eliška from Rožmberk.
You’d be better off with Eliška of Šternberk, the Czech Joan Baez. She was born in 1418. She married Vok of Kravaře and Jičín but when she burned the billy goat’s liver they were going to have for supper he told her to vok off.
Or maybe you could try the Ladin speakers of the Dolomites in northern Italy. The Ladin mythology of the Rosengarten is deeply rooted in the region’s cultural heritage. At least one YouTuber thinks that the “nymphs” are Ladin in origin.
“At sunset, the Dolomite mountains light up in fiery red, turning to purple before fading into the night: this is the Alpenglühen, riverbero rossiccio, enrosadira or Alpenglow, a phenomenon whose origins are deeply rooted in legend. The Legend of King Laurin’s Rose Garden talks about why the mountains are sometimes glowing red and orange.”
Clock THIS pic. Sadly the two beauties aren’t in the nude:
https://earthstoriez.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Rossenpfluecken.jpg
Rose picking in Laurin’s garden, around 1390/1400. Painting workshop from the Vinschgau or Meraner area,
https://earthstoriez.com/legend-of-king-laurins-rose-garden-catinaccio-tyrol-italy
You will also remember that the first defenestration, in 1419, happened after another Jay-Z, Jan Želivský, the priest of the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows was hit by a thrown stone and this enraged his congregation who had been marching to the New Town Hall on Charles Square. Then “they stormed the town hall. Once inside the hall, the group defenestrated the judge, the burgomaster, and several members of the town council, killing them all.” (From your favourite source Wikipedia)
Yet another Jay-Z, Jan Žižka, led the assault. Old King Wenceslaus IV reportedly suffered a stroke upon hearing the news and died two weeks later.
“The defenestration did not, by itself, begin the Hussite Wars, but it made peaceful reconciliation increasingly unlikely. Just weeks later, King Wenceslas IV died, leaving the throne to his brother Sigismund, whom many Bohemians blamed for failing to protect Jan Hus at Constance.”
https://praguemorning.cz/on-this-day-in-1419-the-first-defenestration-of-prague/
Maybe the VMs was a Hussite work, written in the language of the Smurfs (Schtroumpfs) who were known followers of Hus, and had set up a small colony near Plzeň (Pilsen), and who disguised their true intent in the VMs with some silly illustrations of plants and nude ladies, with the only relevant bit being the recipes at the end of the book for making different varieties of Pilsner.
Stuff your Pilsner Urquell (Plzeňský prazdroj). The ONLY Pilsners worth imbibing are the Pilsner Schtroumpfs described in the VMs. In fact I’m just off to lubricate my tonsils with some right now after all of the lucubrations I have offered up – not libations I hasten to hadd (stop in grandad!) – to Cipher Miseries this week, and there’s nowt lubricious in my intentions for the rest of the day as I am sure you will be glad to hear, even if I do have another perve at those luvverly VMs sheilas in their birthday suits that Ms Sanders seems so obsessed with, pelvimeter (ha! caliper(s) to you, me and the rest of the known universe) and all.
“Some alchemists in the past have made gold out of stones
What the devil does that mean?”
Holger Czukay, ‘Oh Lord, Give Us Some Money’ (1979)
One of the first tracks EVER to utilise extensive “sampling”, pre My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
https://youtu.be/5SCOw7vbB5w?si=HzOirlrNgW0-kAjO
Peter M
That’s a relief. You may say that “we” know these things but given the number of inventive theories – and you probably know the latest is a ‘German-speaking-Swiss’ variation – there isn’t much that one can take for granted and some readers might suppose you really meant it. 🙂
Steve ty seš cvok. 🙂
@Diane
I’m sorry I’ve confused you so much. We know that Eve has always caused trouble, and it’s even in the Bible.
PS: I know how much you like the word ‘we’.
I have a very good memory.
Peter M.,
One no longer uses “one” very much. 🙂
Peter M (or anyone who may know)
I’ve been sent part of a paper posted to academia.edu by Jessica Scott Dunn. In it she says that the Voynich manuscript was written by one German scribe, in Switzerland, in 1423, by which time that scribe (Clemens Specker) had already travelled to the Himalayas. This or some other Clemens Specker is known as a scribe, but Ms. Dunn omitted to mention her source for the Himalayan bit.
A request to Ms. Dunn meets silence, so wonder if you or any other of Nick’s readers know how I can find and read it?
What Ms Dunn didn’t omit to mention Diane in her synopsis acknowledgements is:
“To my family, I love you always, every day, and forever”
Perhaps her silence can be explained otherwise by reason of the fact that it’s all she had to say on the subject and that she’d moved on to other more medieval motivated and not mere scribal heresay. The paper doesn’t depart from the usual voynich plot that is all to do with the usual medical cosmalogical text as opposed to more down to earth random hoax claims is more likely the case. Gee whiz Diane the webb is full of her Voynich theories, and travels of the scribe Clemens Specker, what more do you need?
@Diane
A brief summary.
Clemens Specker kept a diary of a journey. However, it was about the coronation of Frederick III – a place he is said to have visited.
https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/012977/2012-02-13/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_III._(HRR)
He also wrote other works. I don’t think there’s anything in them about the Himalayas, though.
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/searchresult/list/one/bbb/A0045
We’ll see.
@Diane
Addendum:
You’ll find the name Clemens Speker right at the bottom of the penultimate line (in black ink).
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/bbb/A0045//14r
I’ve just read that, as it turns out, Specker didn’t actually go on the expedition; he merely copied the diary.
I’ve also looked for other similar names, such as Speccer, Spegger and others, but there’s nothing of the sort.
The 1936 Himalayan expedition didn’t turn up anything either. Nothing of that nature was brought back that could explain the date of 1400.
There’s nothing there.
John,
I want to know where she got the information/notion that Specker, if he’s the chap who was dean at the University of Vienna in the 1480s, seems to have also been a monk who – before 1423 – was able to travel to that part of Asia (and back?) and whether he’s the same chap who is supposed to have been a monk-scribe. Monks are not usually permitted to travel widely. I would hope there is some reason for this story, some written source telling of it – and would like to read that. Or in fact, any of the informing research , because all I find are assertions.
Dusty
Pilchard is busy tonight having a private(s) fitting for a new squirrel fur swallowtail merkin (in imitation and honour of the crenellated parapets of the Castello Sforzesco) at the Daniel Galvin wig department in Selfridges on Oxford Street, so I have taken it upon myself to tell you that you are completely and totally patata non grata at Cipher Miseries and must cease and desist from posting any more comments as of NOW.
You wouldn’t know Clemens Specker from a pig’s anus.
Talking of the “battlements” in the VMs nine-rosette page further extensive research has revealed that the “castle” depicted is actually the original pavilion at the end of Bournemouth Pier, which unfortunately blew off in a storm and was replaced with an Italianate style rotunda in the 19th century. In fact this famous lost building is emblazoned in the centre of the rosettes worn by AFC Bournemouth supporters along with a sausage and an albatross, which are both also featured in the town’s coat of arms.
A few scholars have surmised that the structure is the The Scaligero Castle, or Rocca Scaligera, in Sirmione. They are wrong.
https://static.vecteezy.com/system/resources/previews/016/389/389/non_2x/castello-scaligero-di-sirmione-sirmione-castle-from-14th-century-at-lake-garda-sirmione-italy-photo.jpg
The castle is, however, haunted by the ghost of one Ebengardo.
“…in the past it was home to the young aristocratic couple, Ebengardo and his beloved wife Arice.
“On a stormy night, the knight Elaberto del Feltrino asked for asylum and was immediately captivated by Arice’s beauty. Determined to have her at all costs, Elaberto went in search of her and attacked her, but Arice fought with all her might and Elaberto killed her. At that moment Ebengardo arrived and, at the sight of his dead wife, drew his weapon and avenged her.”
https://visitsirmione.com/en/what-to-see/art-and-monuments/scaliger-castle/
The Big P has asked me to pass on this message, and I am happy to oblige:
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/75041053/photo/mooning-students.jpg?s=1024×1024&w=gi&k=20&c=pzirXf4ulGvmM8LNV8uZSFnnlU8Qt3X5c5ug4npSMOM=
Diane
I wouldn’t waste any time on nightbadger.
It all sounds like pseudoscience:
“The real breakthrough was recognizing that although the manuscript was written by a European hand, its entire structure, purpose, and medical-cosmological ideas are built on a Far Eastern tradition. Once I understood that, everything else aligned: I could identify which plants to look for, which regions they belonged to, and therefore reconstruct the author’s travel route – where he went, where he stayed longest, and around when he wrote it (ca. 1423). It became clear that he blended Ayurveda, Abyssinian traditional medicine, Chinese traditional medicine, and other lesser-known indigenous ethnobotanical systems, all under the umbrella of Tibetan Sowa Rigpa. This recognition revealed that the Voynich Manuscript is not a cipher in the mathematical sense at all but a Kalachakra-inflected astro-botanical medical compendium created by someone who traveled the globe to assemble a working therapeutic system – which is unheard of during that time period.”
https://historymedieval.com/jessica-scott-dunn-on-a-new-voynich-interpretation/
The VMs details a secret form of Kalachakra so it had to be encoded.
I know you LOVE my musical interludes so here’s a nice bit of krautrock:
https://youtu.be/4Ka9lIfdTZs?si=U-BrkxOBm_3iRldz
(From Kalacakra, Crawling to Lhasa, 1972)
“A very odd band from Duisburg/Hochfeld…The band released only one album in its all [its] career. The name KALACAKRA refers to one of the main Tantric deities of Vajrayâna Buddhism which means “wheel of time”. Their sound can be called as “mantric” acid folk. Thus the compositions have a heavily eastern influence (near to “raga” rock experiences) with a lot of flute, sitar and percussions. This meditative musical background provides a few musical interludes quite charming and dreamy…The atmosphere of Kalacakra’s musical universe is rather mysterious, sinister with a few humorous accents. ” (Discogs)
If you are a masochist JSD rambles on…and on…and on about her theory here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/8sev0JwMTBE?si=294z9vMFeSPrsz0J&t=740
At 27 mins you can read that in her book she writes that Specker’s full name was Clemensen Specker de Sulgen and he was Sacristan of Königsfeld(en) Abbey. You can read a lot of her book if you pause the video, and even see some of her references.
https://www.museumaargau.ch/en/koenigsfelden-abbey/abbey-complex
She does write that if “by chance” Specker is not the author of the VMs then one Henricus de (Burt) Bacharach is. “It is always possible they worked in tandem”. Who the hell he?
Sprechen Sie Deutsch? You can choose French or Italian also.
“Zweite Hälfte 15. Jahrhundert, von Sulgen. Sakristan im Kloster Königsfelden. Clemens Specker galt aufgrund einer Notiz in der “Zimmerischen Chronik” als Verfasser des in zwei Handschriften überlieferten “Reisetagebuchs über die Krönung Friedrichs III.” aus dem Jahr 1442. Er war gemäss seinen Schreibvermerken jedoch nur der Schreiber der Handschrift aus der Berner Burgerbibliothek, die verschiedene Chroniktexte von 1479 bis 1482 enthält, darunter das “Reisetagebuch”.”
https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/012977/2012-02-13/
Your nightbadger did write on Voynich Ninja:
“Great news! I have come full circle on the Voynich Manuscript. Clemens Specker traveled when he wrote the Chronicles of the 95 Rulers. He also traveled when he wrote the Voynich Manuscript. In fact, he traveled to the Far East, specifically the Himalayas across multiple countries. It now makes sense why he says what he states in the last extraneous passage!! Read my updated paper now so you can find out!”
https://www.voynich.ninja/thread-4399.html
As I am NOT a member I dunno if her link works. Probably not.
Peter,
Your findings agree with mine, after a couple of subscribers asked me in 2024 if I’d heard of him.
https://voynichrevisionist.com/2024/11/11/readers-ask-specker/
I’ve occasionally seen the same name used for what seems to be, rather, that dean at the University of Vienna named as Vms ‘author’ by Thomas Ernst in the recent Cryptology zoom seminar. Ernst spoke about Hermann Heym ibecause in Heym’s copy of Aristotlean works, dated c.1440 are abbreviations which Ernst sees as closely similar to Voynich glyphs.
Where that argument faltered, I think, and apart from Ernst’s indifference to, or contempt for all else the manuscript offers was that (a) Ernst presumed that if Heym used those abbreviations, no-one else could ever have done so, though it is a commonplace in manuscript studies such habits and modes are formed in the context of an individual’s schooling and (b) Ernst seems not to have observes the clear difference in style – palaeographic style – between the Vms’ scrpt’s rounded, fairly equal weighting and Heym’s sharp, heavily vertical (‘Gothic’) emphasis on vertical elements. Such things do matter.
Still, I suspect Ernst’s idea is too good to let go, and since there’s an idea that the best fiction should embrace all other storylines, and all historical questions be resolved by diplomatic agreement, so the Germanist theory meets an Italian argument in Switzerland, the Sicilian ‘Trotula’ mutates into Tibetan tantric medicine for women, and we see onion domes magically appear in the Swiss alps when Mr. Black shares his ideas and we are told Specker went to the Himalayas.
There are just two fixed pillars of the ‘Germanist-theory’ – first that control over the manuscript’s content and production must be the hand of a German-speaker and that in some way or other, the narrative must bring in the Habsburgs, and preferably Rudolf.
Poor little manuscript.
The title of the book makes it quite clear.
“A chronicle of the 95 principalities of Austria, written down by Clemens Specker at Königsfelden Abbey around 1479. Followed by a song about the Aargau War and texts concerning King Frederick III,”
He was a monk at Königsfelden Abbey, not a rector in Vienna.
To put it more clearly, Frederick III of the House of Habsburg had his roots in Aargau, near Königsfelden. The Habsburg-Castel family.
Much has been written there about the family’s origins.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburg_(Burg)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsfelden
The only Clemens that we should all be bothered about is writer and satirist Mark Twain aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
Dusty aka Allamistakeo (cf E A Poe, ‘Some Words with a Mummy’) or maybe his interlocutors could learn from a few of Twain’s witty aphorisms, such as the ones below.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Poemummy1852.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled
Some people bring joy wherever they go, and some people bring joy whenever they go.
No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Never miss an opportunity to shut up.
If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
Back to me. Satire is a much undervalued literary genre these days. To quote from Wikipedia (Prof Z’s go-to source):
“The romantic prejudice against satire is the belief spread by the romantic movement that satire is something unworthy of serious attention; this prejudice has held considerable influence to this day. Such prejudice extends to humour and everything that arouses laughter, which are often underestimated as frivolous and unworthy of serious study,,,”
Yet satire has played a crucial part in literature. Take Elizabethan satire, or satyr.
“Elizabethan satire was a literary form that combined humour, moral critique, and social commentary to challenge cultural norms and provoke reform.
“Key Characteristics:
“Irony and Humour: Satire often employed irony, exaggeration, and wit to ridicule human behaviour and societal norms,
.
“Moral and Social Critique: Writers targeted corruption, greed, and pretension, blending moral instruction with entertainment.
“Literary Experimentation: Elizabethan satire experimented with forms, including verse, prose, and drama, often integrating classical influences from Roman satirists like Juvenal and Martial.
.
“Ironic Self-Awareness: Many satirists, such as Everard Guilpin and John Marston, used a bifurcated approach, simultaneously censuring society while acknowledging the satirist’s own limitations and follies.”
Goshdarn! I think that’s AI (Copilot, “a conversational, AI‑powered assistant from Microsoft”). Well, that’s what I got when I typed Elizabethan Satire into Microsoft Bing so tough titty folks!
Prof Z obviously completely missed the satirical intent in my verbose and nonsensical flight of fancy. It (successfully methinks) skewered and lampooned his own preposterous, tiring, unsubstantiated and self-satisfied rodomontades.
Meanwhile Diane is in danger of being seen as a modern day Martinus (Martina?) Scriblerus.
“Scriblerus Club, 18th-century British literary club whose founding members were the brilliant Tory wits Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Thomas Parnell, and John Arbuthnot. Its purpose was to ridicule pretentious erudition and scholarly jargon through the person of a fictitious literary hack, Martinus Scriblerus.”
(From Britannica)
The word prig comes to mind. You seem to completely miss other contributors’ irony and sense of humour Diane.
That’s a shame!
Steve,
There was a case in Australia where a step-father, over a period of 18months, broke every bone in the body of his step-son, who was about 2 years old. The fellow made no secret of it – he’d go down to the local pub and brag to his mates – just ordinary blokes, not criminals – about how he’d thrown the child at a wall, or kicked it across the room like a football. And they’d all have a good laugh. Later, i court, some of the ‘mates’ said they supposed it was all tongue-in-cheek.
So you see Steve, it can be important when having a group get-together for the equivalent of a laugh and a few beers, to ask ‘Who’s paying for this round?
To me, the matter is clear.
Nobody travels to a foreign country – such as the Himalayas, China, India, Egypt in Africa, or even to the Aztecs – and draws naked blond women in barrels or baths.
Nor do they draw houses whose architecture resembles that of Europe.
No, no temples, pyramids, elephants or bamboo huts.
I go to China and don’t show you photos of the Forbidden City; no, I show you our shopping centre.
Case closed as far as I’m concerned.
I prefer Kipling’s brand of satire in verse, to that what comes from the yarns, of Sam Longhorn (bullshitter) Clemens @ Mark Twain. Bear this in mind if you have half a brain (or wit) Steve, that “Yeast is yeast and Wurst be wurst, one leaves us full and brings on thirst, t’other makes us bloat then burst” Getting to Ms. Diane O’Donovan’s point of order Steve, I’m the humorist of some note, you’re a joker likes to gloat. Time comes to leave I grab my coat and hit the road…that’s all she wrote…
Diane
I think that is just about the most glib and cheap remark I have ever read on this forum.
Are you suggesting that I beat up two year olds?
Peter M
Of course the nightbadger theory is ridiculous.
It is just as likely that Clemens Specker visited Agartha as he did Tibet (plus all the other exotic lands he is supposed to have travelled to).
Perhaps the “maps” on the nine-rosette page represent this mythical kingdom:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Agartha_and_Shambhala%2C_Land_of_Advanced_Races%2C_Raymond_Bernard.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled
(An illustration of Agartha within the hollow Earth, from Walter Siegmeister’s 1960 book Agharta)
“Agartha (variously spelled as Agharta, Aghartta, Agharti, among many other spellings) is a legendary kingdom said to be on the inner surface of the Earth. Though the story has many different versions, Agartha is usually said to be in Central Asia and led by a powerful figure sometimes called the King of the World, who secretly influences the surface. Later versions connect it to the belief in a Hollow Earth. The idea of Agartha has been a popular subject in esotericism, occultism, and the New Age since the late 19th century.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agartha
If my friend Peta Bowes is reading this comment she will know that Agharta is also the title of a live Miles Davis album.
.
Then there’s Shambhala:
“Shambhala (Sanskrit: शम्भल, IAST: Śambhala), also spelled Shambala or Shamballa (Tibetan: བདེ་འབྱུང, Wylie: Bde’byung; Chinese: 香巴拉; pinyin: Xiāngbālā), is a spiritual kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Shambhala is mentioned in the Kalachakra Tantra. The Bon scriptures speak of a closely related land called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring…
“Shambhala is ruled by the future Buddha Maitreya.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala
Oh no, it’s that flamin’ Kalachakra nonsense again!
Addendum:
On the subject of beer.
There’s no doubt about it: the Czechs are number one in the world when it comes to the art of brewing.
With 155 litres per capita a year, it makes me wonder.
Joseph, have you ever written anything whilst sober?
OK, I’ve had more than enough now too.
Steve H.
I’m so sorry, I had no idea you’d take it that way. No, I was trying to say that for me humour is the Mark Twain sort where we laugh at human nature and ourselves, but sometimes the feeling of mateship and being one of the gang can lead us to forget that sometimes what passes for humour isn’t all that funny if you ask whose expense the laugh is gained.
Your humour strikes me as naturally a cross between Monty Python and the younger Barry Humphries. Sometimes wish you’d lay off some of the S.M. people a bit, though
Diane
Okay, looks like we got our wires crossed.
I’ll take the comparisons to Monty Python and Barry Humphries, although I expect Sanders will quip that I’m like a poor (wo)man’s Dame Edna.
To quote the gal from Moonee Ponds herself:
“Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”
If you haven’t seen it here is Dame Edna with Donald and Ivana Trump back on Wogan in 1988:
https://youtu.be/ZKphnyDkNqY?si=fEhEPIteXNZNkmQf
Woops – notice Trump’s eulogy to “fabulous man” Mohamed Al Fayed, the vile billionaire businessman and Harrods predator/serial sex abuser.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgj4521d4q6o
When talking about mythical places associated with Tibet let’s not forget Shangri-La.
Maybe Jessica Scott Dunn’s Henricus de Bacharach (if Specker is not the author of the VMs then she says de Bacharach is) IS related to Burt after all. Burt wrote the music (Hal David wrote the lyrics) for the 1973 film version of ‘Lost Horizon’.
The world is a circle without a beginning
And nobody knows where it really ends
Woooa!
Everything depends on where you
Are in the circle that’s spinning around
Half of the time we are upside down
Australians are always upside down, surely?
https://youtu.be/M8FVHOJko4c?si=BCCgKLQ1sVx3Umtx
Actually the hill the kids are rolling down looks suspiciously like the one in the opening and closing sequences of Dusty’s favourite programme of all time, Little House on the Prairie.
https://youtu.be/MawR-tA61dM?si=8YXXA6jn1tmxcbfb
She’ll certainly be tearing up after watching that
Diane: How dare a person of your honourable background seek to compare a low life Trump pet and bottom rung of the ladder, pun of a dill pickle and would be comedien Stephenie Hurwood, with likes of THE one & only Dame Edna Everage @ Barry Humhreys. You can do as you wish to the good reputations of Monty Python stars with your crude pairing up with commoner ancestry funny buggers ala John Cleese & co. After all they are, none of them, considered as being almost honorary Royalty by any stretch of Gordon Cramer’s fertile imagination.
Reckon we’re just about done with Guy’s Chinese Voynich theory and serious discussion didn’t seem to raise any evidence that it was at all feasable as such. One hit before we go back to business in Moseley St. if you’ll allow and promise not to take up much space. Anyone out there in Voynich land recall that, in all probability, Wilfred himself in the late Victorian era, travelled to the east through Mongolia to China’s then capital Peking as part of his escape route from captivity in Poland or Russia whatever. That being the case, pray tell who is there to say otherwise, that our knowledgeable, adventurous young bookworm (even then) did not chance to come by the manuscript hence named after him, in one of the many bargain book shops in the ‘buck a book’ second hand market. Wilf was then on his way without delay to catch the first train back to the west and eventual safety. Just a thought, but of course it be way out of realistic contention, and of corse my own true beliefs be otherwise.
Methinks the naked bunyip is getting her knickers in a knot again, this time over Wilfrid Voynich’s supposed travels.
It was another Wilfred (sic), Wilfred Glendon, a wealthy and world-renowned English botanist, who travelled to the mysterious Orient – Tibet to be precise. Unfortunately he was bitten by a lycanthrope, as detailed in the 1935 documentary ‘Werewolf of London’. Sadly he ended up killing several London Ladies before being shot himself by the chief of Scotland Yard in order to stop him killing his own wife.
https://archive.org/details/werewolf.of.london
Meanwhile it was with some shock that I read the following on the BBC website this morning:
“Sanders told BBC’s Newsnight last week that “we have got to do something immediately to stop the uncontrolled growth of AI”.
“”You’ve got the existential threat of the possibility of humanity being wiped out,..””
Turned out to be Bernie rather than Dusty.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw980n0nd0qjo
Against my usual custom, I was tempted to ask AI to evaluate a random sample of Dusty’s comments. The answer was given promptly and succinctly:
“It is self-evident, verifiable a posteriori and empirically and mathematically provable that the old bird is spouting complete shite.”
PS Rumour has it that the billionaire computer game developer “Three Porsches” Orlando M Pilchard is planning to donate £36 million to “intergalactic space warrior” Count Binface who has promised to defund the BBC and instead provide a large annual subsidy to Cipher Miseries if he becomes Prime Minister after the next general election. No bribery intended i’m sure!
Steve H: it’s less than three, and Count Binface has an entire planet behind him. Even if the Newsnight people acted like idiots towards him, I suspect he’s not actually anti-BBC.
Nick Pelling: Chinese whispers, be closer to the truth than anything coming from the addled mind of a consummate rumour monger and shit stirrer likes of Steve the sieve Stinkwood.