Many historians and palaeographers have concluded that the interleaved ‘+’ signs added to the Voynich Manuscript’s back page indicate that the containing text is some kind of spell, incantation, chant, charm, curse, pious utterance, etc. Well, it’s completely true that ‘+’ was used in all of the preceding forms to indicate that the (non-silent) reader should physically trace out the sign of the cross at the same time, so this would seem a perfectly reasonable suggestion (if perhaps a little non-specific).
Here I’m particularly interested in the (apparently heavily emended) third line of text on f116v, where I have strongly enhanced the image to make the tangled textual mess I think this has ended up in clear. Note that (as I have discussed several times elsewhere, e.g.here) this line of text seems to end “ahia maria“, which I think pretty much confirms that the ‘+’ shapes are indeed crosses.
So, do we have any idea what the first part of the line originally said? It is certainly striking that all four words at the start of the line seem to end with the letter ‘x’, which gives the overall impression of some kind of magical chant. But what might that chant be?
This is where I wheel in Benedek Lang’s fascinating “Unlocked Books” (2008), which focuses on medieval magical manuscripts from Central Europe (and which you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I’m currently reading). As part of his discussion (p.65) of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (Maximianus, Martinianus, Malchus, Constantinus, Dionisius, Serapion & Johannes, since you’re asking) who were walled up for two hundred years but magically awoke during the reigh of Theodosius, Lang mentions a 14th century Czech amulet with the seven sleepers’ names as well as the text “pax + nax vax“, all used as a healing magic charm against fever.
Incidentally, I should note that “hax pax max adimax” is another piece of nonsense Latin that (for example) appears in Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, and which some wobbly etymological sources give as the possible origin of the phrase “hocus pocus” (though I have to say I’d probably tend more towards the idea that it’s a corruption of [the genuine Latin] “hoc est corpus“). But regardless, I don’t think “hax pax max” is what we’re looking at here.
“pax nax vax“, then, is basically the right kind of phrase, with the right kind of structure, from the right kind of period. I’m not saying it’s definitely 100% right (history is rarely that simple): but even if it’s wrong, it may well turn out to be a very revealing attempt at an answer.
All in all, I’m really rather intrigued by the possibility that this line originally read (or read something remarkably close to) “six + pax + nax + vax + ahia + mar+ia +“: it’s just a shame that the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library doesn’t have finer wavelength (i.e. multispectral) scans of this contentious feature so that we could test this kind of hypothesis out. One day, though…
Hi, Nick
one of my tries to read upper row of this marginalia was similar : “mihi+con+ola+dal+…”, it is possible some of pen strokes were added sometime later. String “six+pax+…” was readed by me “sia+… via+…”, it was done before radioactive carbon analysis 🙂 But without multispectral scans we can not do more – places where pen was pressed harder seems to be written later, but this is only speculation…
Vytautas: I think that the basic starting position on f116v should be that (a) this looks nothing like cipher or code, but a palaeographic multi-language mess, where nearly every word makes no sense; (b) you really wouldn’t expect anyone to do this to their own writing; (c) ergo, some fairly bad process must have been persistently applied to this page by a later owner. So, rather than guess at what mangled words resemble, I’m trying to second guess individual phrases (such as “pax nax vax”). Yes, it’s a pretty hopeful (if not actually outright hopeless) path, but I suspect it’s all we’ve got (for the moment, at least)…
Some unrelated news: it turns out that the rate of decay of radioactive isotopes, such as carbon-14 used in carbon dating, is not constant. (see the article here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html ) What might this mean the the VMS?
Christopher: probably not very much if we’re matching to a correction curve. Edith Sherwood’s objection to the date range isn’t the centre point but the certainty of the spread, and she may have a valid point… it’s hard to be sure without seeing the results written up properly. *sigh*
Note that Athanasius Kircher also mentions this common anti-plague amulet text:-
+ Z + D.I.A. + B.I.Z. + S.A.B. + Z + H.G.F. + B.E.R.S
While Kieckhefer mentions that “one compiler” advises “that if you write “pax + pix + abyra + syth + samasic” on a hazel stick and hit a woman on the head with it three times, then immediately kiss her, you will be assured of her love.” Hmmm… then again, “Putting ants’ eggs in her bath will arouse her so violently that willy-nilly she will seek intercourse.”
Ahoj Nick,
podíval jsem se na f116v.
(f 116v=alchymie), Znaky + = znak A,(gematrie a,i,j,q,y).Jak jsem zjistil v jistých věcech jsi měl pravdu.A to pokud šlo o autora rukopisu. Na straně 116v,je jméno autora a jeho profese. Tímto se omlouvám za moje tvrzení že rukopis napsal D.Stolcia. Ten ho nenapsal. Rukopis napsal jiný český alchymista. I mistr tesař se někdy utne. Překlad 116v dám na web. ahoj J.T alchymista
I suppose that either the newly observed change of rate of decay is infinitesimal, or scientists will model new correction curves that might move the bell curve back or forth a couple of years. It would be interesting though, if it turns out that all items dated in the history of carbon dating are less certain than we thought them to be.
Just what carbon dating needed, right? (sigh…)
Christopher: the point about correction curves is that they correct for all kinds of disturbances such as these. As long as the curve was derived from plenty of datapoints that were satisfactorily datable by conventional means, the curve really should be OK! 🙂
Searching the digital scriptorium under Germany between 1350-1450 just in case the these links don’t work. This link shows the crosses being used.
http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/dlo?obj=ds.UTAustin-TX.TxAuHRH.651&size=large
Page description link:
http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/exist/scriptorium/individual/TxAuHRH-120.xml?showLightbox=yes
German dictionaries says. The last word mich = me, myself. The second to last geil=fertile, horny, lustful
With the picture of the possible pregnant woman in f116v, I’m finding this a strong possible connection.
In the second line the word “vix” shows a strong matching usage in the 1st paragraph, 5th line
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/ucb/images/DS001831aA.jpg
Page description link:
http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/exist/scriptorium/individual/CU-BANC-185.xml?showLightbox=yes
Does anyone have a good Latin/German dictionary link? Trying to find out more on the use of the “8” in scripts. At the end of words shows a capitol S and in the middle shows d’
Pingback: A reference similar to f116v « Some Voynich ideas
yeah but i think the “X”s could be v’s
Steve, the figure-8 was used for “d” or “s” in many places. When it looks like “s” it’s typically an evolution from the Greek sigma character that was often used at the ends of words in languages that adopted Latin characters. When it’s “d”, it’s a variant on the slightly asymmetric “d” that was common at the time.
Figure-8 wasn’t a common way to write these letters in the 15th century, but it wasn’t rare either. In France, the figure-8 letter-form was used more often than many other places (especially in book hands), but one can find it most places that used Gothic cursive script.
Christopher, the marginalia are completely consistent with late-14th century and 15th century scripts. Even if the carbon-dating is off a little, I doubt if it will be by much.
I took some time over the holiday season, once again thoroughly examined and studied the VM site.
This is not about where the VM was written, but rather where the author grew up, or about his immediate environment. Following the motto, you draw what you know and what you see.
So I read various articles and opinions of other people on various websites as well as some scientific reports. I noticed that some important clues were not addressed anywhere. I will investigate this in the next few posts and present interesting conclusions.
An attempt is made to create a picture with the individual hints. “A kind of puzzle” I also have my own views, as far as possible to keep out. Some hints are already known and others are not.
Pictures can only be shown by link.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2122421687980474&set=gm.1722931554483305&type=3&theater&ifg=1
If I look at this section correctly, then I notice something.
The important thing about this hint is that I notice nothing.
If I look at the ink, I see no color change (light, dark) between the different texts (German, VM, and the + xxx +). There is no change between the drawings and the text either. Although it is almost impossible to make the same color when making the ink. Even if it had been written later with the same ink, thickening by evaporation would have made the ink darker, or appear lighter when thinned.
Looking closer, you can see that the pen was written with the same marks. The line thickness has not changed. That tells me that the pen tip was not cut, and no other quill was used.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2122474584641851&set=gm.1722937824482678&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Direktlink:
http://brbl-zoom.library.yale.edu/viewer/1006277
One could say that the page was later written by another person. However, the drawing style does not allow this. The differences from the overall picture of the nymphs are rather small. Most of the left arm is mostly on the body, while the right is rather stretched. You can also see them in the part with the zodiac signs.
The next part follows:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2124415471114429&set=gm.1726068417502952&type=3&theater&ifg=1
What was probably painted here is either a goat or a ram. You can still see just a horn. But it is certain that if you look closely it is a pair of cloven-hoofed animals. These he also draws in the bull and the ram contained in the zodiac sign, whereas he clearly draws paws in the lion and “whatever animal”. Surely it is not a dog or donkey, he knew exactly what it looks like.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2124451704444139&set=gm.1726130057496788&type=3&theater&ifg=1
This is the only drawing I found. It is a cattle, but the abomasum can be seen.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2127609157461727&set=gm.1731721133604347&type=3&theater&ifg=1
I do not want to go into the text written in German on the f116v page, but I’ll come back to that later.
But it’s no coincidence why he wrote Lab next to the drawing. In today’s sketches the abomasum is usually seen from the side. Historically mostly from below. At least I did not find anything else
It may look like a heart, but it is not. The symbol heart as we know it has existed only since the 1700s. Symbol of life and not love, that came later.
The next part follows:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2127611967461446&set=gm.1731724760270651&type=3&theater&ifg=1
I think I have now created the base with the page f116v, only now it will be really interesting.
Since we know that German is found in the VM, let’s have a look at the language card.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128436810712295&set=gm.1733595906750203&type=3&theater&ifg=1
We know from the VM, 3 different crowns. At one can be pretty sure that it is an imperial crown of the Habsburgs. For the other 2 you can only guess. But I’m pretty sure that one of them is one of them, as I have already seen.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128438237378819&set=pcb.1733599556749838&type=3&theater&ifg=1
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128438394045470&set=pcb.1733599556749838&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Since there is a great deal of chance that the Habsburg Empire is involved, let’s look at the Reichskarte of 1400.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128439370712039&set=gm.1733601680082959&type=3&theater&ifg=1
A crown with a cross was frequently used to represent the Holy Roman Empire. it wasn’t specifically a Christian symbol (when used in manuscript drawings).
In chronicles and allegorical drawings, a three-tiered hat represented the pope, the flat hat with tassels—the cardinal, the flattish rounded crown—parts of Austria, and the crown with a cross—the Emperor.
I don’t know if the VMS uses this symbolism, but if it does, then the cross-crown is probably the emperor (or something to do with the empire). The cross-crown wasn’t specific to any particular emperor, just whichever one was in power at the time.
It is best to take the Reichskarte and place it immediately above the language card.
I once tried to place the Habsburg regional map over the language regions. It did not quite work out as I imagined, but I hope you can see it.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128584764030833&set=gm.1733972406712553&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Third, I lay the border about where swallowtail bats occur. It is important to know that such battlements do not occur north of the Alps before 1500. Pretty much all are in valleys where they open to the south, or more simply south of the watershed.
The first ones where I found are from 1502. Most of them are from 1540. It has something to do with fashion, and many have incorporated the then Italian style of remodeling. The gunpowder reinforced the walls.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128860607336582&set=gm.1734598743316586&type=3&theater&ifg=1
On the basis of the 3 points battlements, language, crown, and the Venn diagram I come to the area with or around South Tyrol.
You might think the theory is a bit thin, but it’s not all clues.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2128861687336474&set=gm.1734604053316055&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Is this a coincidence that fits the phrase “und den mus des” in dialect to the Bavarian and Austrian. Tyrol belonged to the Duchy of Bavaria before it went over the diocese of Chur (1365) to the Habsburgs. Also the sentence ending on page f116v “mich o” fits exactly.
For English speakers not easy to understand, because you would have to ask a local.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2129101767312466&set=gm.1735151566594637&type=3&theater&ifg=1
The Y on the side also indicates the region. This is only used in Ladin as “and”. This also indicates the region around South Tyrol.
He just writes that you should use something, but not something. “and the must this”…” und den mus des ”
Vokale (Südtiroler Varianten)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladinische_Sprache
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1929562683933043&set=gm.1308640219245776&type=3&theater&ifg=1
What also confused me is the sign Aries. Why does he look like this?
What we now know as a ram in the horoscope is the moufflon.
The wild sheep was eradicated in Central Europe in the early days, 4000 years ago as a hunt. He later immigrated from the East again.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2129629410593035&set=pcb.1736223646487429&type=3&theater&ifg=1
This is more of a guess, but would fit in my theory. Today I think he drew the ram as he saw it. A sheep breed that was more to be found in the Alps. Small but very robust. Today, as a meat supplier certainly no longer conceivable, but still a ram.
Alpine sheep, extinct since 1902
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2129629460593030&set=pcb.1736223646487429&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Breeding, since 2018 recognized as a separate breed again.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2129629533926356&set=pcb.1736223646487429&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Today I think he did not just draw something, but exactly as he saw or knew it. A ram.
Also, the plants would fit wonderfully in this region. It would be all the conditions. Heat in the valley, humid or dry depending on the weather conditions of the hills or mountains.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2130951573794152&set=gm.1739540719489055&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Sorry Nick, I’m just doing it …. I’m allowed to
Actually, I just want to talk about the Voynich manuscript, or work on their solution.
I have to bring something else now. I continue to work on decoding the VM, since most of the preliminary work is done, and I accept where to start.
I do not like to use a knife in a (soup) soup when I need a spoon.
Or shortly, I think now, I know where to look.
Prehistory of the picture:
I was asked not to use it before the reportage (book) is completed. This is now 4-5 years ago.
It was once presented to me to look at, and what I would deduce from it.
One was amazed how much I had found out of a sheet in such a short time. So I promised not to use it.
He also told me that it dates back to about 1926 and there are actually 13 leaves. These are family owned.
I do not want to say more …… have fun!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2147512072138102&set=gm.1779490232160770&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Hi Nick.
The first word is = yax. ( 116 ).
1. This is shown on page 116.
2. At the same time it is a word = Jaw. 🙂
( Substitution . 1 = a,i,j,q,y. 6 = u,v,w,x ).
Now we look at page f66r and judge it the same as page f116.
I cut out the empty part so that you can draw the comparison better.
First we look at the VM text above and compare it with the VM text directly above the drawing. I don’t see any significant difference in the color of the ink between the two. Also the handwriting seems to be the same.
If I compare the ink with the drawings and the VM text, no difference seems visible. The hue is still the same.
If I look at the German text now, I still don’t see any difference in the ink. The colour, composition and structure of the ink seems to be the same.
For me it is clear, it was the same hand where the German text, the sketches and the VM text was written.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2166559630233346&set=gm.1828027170640409&type=3&theater&ifg=1
The color yellow in the bucket on page f66r.
It seems that the same yellow in the bucket was also used for the nymphs’ hair and the stars.
Is it still the same color pot and person ?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2166563923566250&set=gm.1828030190640107&type=3&theater&ifg=1
The color yellow in the bucket on page f66r.
Also in the astrological part it seems to be the same yellow.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2166565170232792&set=gm.1828031267306666&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Without many words. Alemanisch compared with Alemanisch.
3 books, 3 authors, 2 topics.
Latin writing style is not the same as German writing style.
After all the hints, it is clear to me now. The author thinks in German. Maybe he writes in Latin.
Because of low vocabulary, = monotone?
Gramatic? General knowledge?
There’s nothing more to say.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2281234412099200&set=pcb.2098326703610453&type=3&theater&ifg=1
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2281234198765888&set=pcb.2098326703610453&type=3&theater&ifg=1
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2223032494586059&set=gm.1955386001237858&type=3&theater&ifg=1
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2222650984624210&set=gm.1954369231339535&type=3&theater&ifg=1
If we already know that the VM has a connection to the German language, one should not search there also for the month names? It is not easy to find astrological signs in the alemanic, but you will be more than surprised when you have them.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2311772992378675&set=gm.2173286509447805&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Peter: to be precise, the Voynich Manuscript has a drawing connection with German / Alsace workshops, but also a strong connection with drawings in French astronomical manuscripts. So nobody has yet any idea what the underlying language is. :-/
Peter: And also a strong connection with Northern Italy. So there are many languages that it could be. Personally my first port of call would be Latin, but there are certainly other possibilities.
Nick
I do not speak the drawings, only the language. Here are the month names. Mars, Abril, May, Jony, Jollea, Augst. These occur in the Alemanic, but the -bre endings not.
Drawings leave a large playing field in the origin of the VM, but not the language. Of course, if it was the same person who wrote the drawing and the text.
Nick
You speak to Alsace. I know what you mean. But he taken finished the workshop. Where the originals, originals really come from you do not know. But I have no indication that something in the VM on the French can be closed.
Peter: there currently seems no reason to think that person who wrote the the zodiac months wrote anything else in the Voynich Manuscript. The script is different, the style is different, the pen is different, the ink also looks different. 🙁
Mark, I’m not saying the VM is written in German, but that texts are in German, and I can follow the thread in different directions. Here especially star sign. The names of the months appear in, or in the alemanic. Nobody seems to really care about that yet. The connection can be found in both German and Italian.
Nick, I would agree with you, but right here it looks different. With color and feather, no differences are so visible. So I have to assume that there is a connection between German text, Zodiak and VM. That does not mean that the VM is written in German, but it says something about the origin. And French is not there.
There is also evidence that it is not North-West Italy, but North-East. That is due to German. And that is just off the French side. If I take the story, there’s even a reason why he encrypted it. And that only in the north-east.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2166559630233346&set=gm.1828027170640409&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Peter: if you look at the physical page (as I did extensively in 2006), you would see that the zodiac month hand ink is completely different to the other inks.
This was not, unfortunately, covered by the McCrone report: 🙁
https://web.archive.org/web/20120112140448/http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/manuscript/voynich_analysis.pdf
Nick, I realize that the names in the signs of the zodiac are not the same ink, but the names are alemanic. Whether this is another unknown person is less important to me at the time than it can be German. It is only a small pebble more in the mosaic to the place of origin.
I hope y’all have finally caught on to my referrals to the “Voynich” journal being stolen from “New Spain” — by the inquisitors — who were swept up into the battles with Suleiman’s armies. Fray Sahagun died before his manuscripts were returned to him in “New Spain” .
beady-eyed wonderer, who has an empty emailbox, nor a website.
Peter: if you consider the month names to be Alemanic then you should also take into consideration that they have been inserted from a later hand and thus not necessarily at the place of the manuscipts origin. These names could have been added in a Swiss or Swabian-Alemanic scriptorium where the codex was preserved for a while (if ever) as well as somewhere completely else. As long as you believe they’re Alemanic.
By the way: I don’t see there any Alemanic.
Es sind die Dialekte. In Bayern, Oesterreich, Tirol, ist es alemanisch. Zürich, Bern….Hochalemanisch. Im Wallis Höchstalemanisch.
Man sieht es schon am Endungs-i. ( y )
Wy, ( Wein ), by ( bei ), Mai ( May ), Juni ( Juny ), Juli ( July ) , das ist Typisch alemanisch, welcher Dialekt auch immer.
Dann noch Mars, und Augst. Auch normal.
Die -bre Endung aber nicht. das lässt aber die nähe zum Lateinischen vermuten.
Da die vereinzelten deutsch Vorkommnisse in Nordwest Italien Höchstalemanisch ist ( Wallis ) diese kommt aber im VM nicht vor. Das schliesst für mich die westliche Seite eher aus. Im Osten wären wir im Tirol, da passt einfach alles.
Für mich sieht das ganze eigentlich schon ganz normal aus.
It is the dialects. In Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol, it is alemanisch. Zurich, Bern …. High alemanic. In Valais highest alemanic.
You can already see it on the ending i. (y)
Wy, (wine), by (at), May (May), June (Juny), July (July), this is typical alemanic, whatever dialect.
Then Mars, and Augst. Also normal.
The -bre ending but not. but that suggests the proximity to Latin.
Since the isolated German events in northwest Italy Höchstalemanisch is (Wallis) but this does not occur in the VM. That excludes for me the western side rather. In the East we would be in the Tyrol, everything fits.
For me, the whole thing actually looks quite normal.
Nick
If I look at the pages f73v + r, I see both inks, light and dark.
At first glance it looks to me as if the ink has become too thin for the author and he has put together or bought a new one.
Then some corrections were made to the drawings and VM words were added.
I leave out the possibility of a 2nd person.
If I look at 73v + r, the month names have signs of a split feather. Interestingly, I also find this split in the texts with light ink. You have to take a closer look, you see it less in the thin ink than in the thick one.
I wonder if the person had the same impression as me ? ( It looks like shit ).
Did he cut the feather again ?
If I take the new dark ink, did he use it for further work in the book ?
What does the font comparison look like ? Is it a 2 person where the work continued?
Did the 2nd person really know about the encryption system or did he only copy words ?
So many thoughts for a few month names, the VM curse struck once again.
Betrachte ich die Seiten f73v + r, sehe ich beide Tinten, hell und dunkel.
Für mich sieht es auf den ersten Blick so aus, als wäre dem Autor die Tinte langsam zu dünn geworden und hat sich eine neue zusammengestellt oder gekauft.
Dann wurden einige Korrekturen an den Zeichnungen vorgenommen und VM Wörter dazu gefügt.
Ich lasse einmal die Möglichkeit einer 2. Person weg.
Schaue ich auf 73v + r, haben die Monatsnamen Anzeichen einer gespaltenen Feder. Interessanterweise finde ich diese Spaltung auch in den Texten mit heller Tinte. Man muss etwas genauer hinsehen, man sieht es in der dünnen Tinte weniger als in der dicken.
Da frage ich mich, hatte die Person den gleichen Eindruck wie ich ? ( Es sieht ja scheisse aus ).
Hat er da die Feder neu geschnitten ?
Nehme ich die neue dunkle Tinte, hat er diese für weiter arbeiten im Buch benutzt ?
Wie sieht der Schriftvergleich aus ? Ist es eine 2 Person wo die arbeiten weiter geführt hat.
Hatte die 2. Person wirklich Ahnung vom Verschlüsselungssystem oder hat er nur Wörter kopiert ?
So viele Gedankengänge für ein paar Monatsnamen, da hat der VM-Fluch wieder einmal zugeschlagen.
Why is there confusion about the carbon dating? On
Peter’sRene’s site it is clearly explained that the smooth “theoretical” curve was calibrated in detail using tree rings etc. for the time frame of the VMs.http://www.voynich.nu/extra/carbon.html
And I am NOT saying tree rings in Patagonia or on Mars are different for that time, because that would invite another off-topic rage…
Ger Hungerink: it’s because radiocarbon dating can be strongly affected by specific local environmental factors (e.g. urban centres vs industrial areas vs rural areas, which affects the amount of pollution / wood burning, which in turn skews the radiocarbon values etc) or even local animal diets (if the animals were fed seafood, this also affects the raw radiocarbon values). These are two (of several) factors which are known to reduce the precision of radiocarbon dating (or rather, to confound it a little). Furthermore, there is a little bit of mathematical difficulty involved in ‘blending’ multiple radiocarbon values together if you want to use multiple samples to get a tighter dating range.
Which is not to say that radiocarbon dating is worthless (because it really isn’t), but rather to say that it’s not as historically precise as some people want you to believe.
Nick, OK, but as long as it is a European manuscript, and “not from Patagonia”, the extent of bias must be known and accounted for. From the 15th Century there are so many things where the precise age is known that can be checked against their carbon age, that the variation in the results will also have been measured. And taken account of.
Even if a 95% probability interval between 1404 and 1435 is considered to be too tight, I would say no chance what so ever it passes 1493… almost five times further off the average than 1435, and that’s a lot.
Ger, I don’t want to restart this discussion yet again.
However, just a hint: if you can follow the statistics on the quoted web page, you will see that local variations in C14 concentration have been reflected in the uncertainty. You may want to read the paper(s) by Reimer et al.
Now it is not a bad idea to allow a fudge factor, expanding the uncertainty beyond the formal sigmas.
This means that the probability that the date is after 1438 can well be greater than 2.5% . However, there is no justification for believing that it is greater than 50%. Or anywhere near it.
Rene: even though you have the centre of the bell-curve on your side of the argument, the weight of certainty does not travel with it. If the radiocarbon dating contradicts historical evidence, then we have a problem to solve: and I think it is your belief in the tightness of the curve that is the problem, not the historical evidence.
For example, I’ve gone looking for similarly-shaped and similarly-formed humanistic hands in (I think) more than fifty palaeography source books (as I’m sure many others have), but haven’t yet found a single example dated prior to 1450.
Clearly, you think that radiocarbon evidence should have primacy over historical evidence, while I think the reverse is true, though within bounds… and I think we’re still within bounds here.
Nick, in my opinion historic evidence is important but if that puts the age far beyond the carbon dating, and I mean substantially more than 95%, say 3 sigma, than the probability of the “history” being wrong (e.g. a falsification) is far greater than the carbon dating being (completely) wrong. As with DNA, the measurement can be trusted, but still DNA can be manipulated so as someone else’s is found on the crime scene.
In your case 1450 is not too bad if you assume the averaging of the estimated vellum’s ages was not allowed that(?) way if they could be from different age themselves. Or was that taken into account too?
Ger Hungerink: it would be a grave mistake to think (a) that radiocarbon dating is a ‘pure’ bell-curve, and (b) that the position of a given sample is merely randomly placed within that curve. So you have to be very careful about applying pure statistical constructs such as sigma, which also affects your ability to combine multiple samples into a single composite range (which also relies on the curves being pure bell curves). So there are a lot of ways in which the application of simple-minded statistical thinking can yield unrepresentatively narrow bounds here.
Ultimately, is 1450 so very far away? I think it would take an extraordinarily narrow-minded view of the data to argue that it is.
Nick, since I agreed 1450 was not that far away I am not sure about what you said. Anyway on top of the carbon age range come the maybe ten or twenty years before the vellum was actually used.
Nick wrote: “For example, I’ve gone looking for similarly-shaped and similarly-formed humanistic hands in (I think) more than fifty palaeography source books (as I’m sure many others have), but haven’t yet found a single example dated prior to 1450.”
Since I am interested to know about the “similarly-shaped and similarly-formed humanistic hands” did you describe that somewhere?
To be more precise about my remark: “1450 is not too bad if you assume the averaging of the estimated vellum’s ages was not allowed that(?) way if they could be from different age themselves. Or was that taken into account too?”
If one measures (roughly) the size of one stick five times averaging gives a tighter confidence interval. But measuring five slightly different sticks one time each gives a confidence interval more like that of the top of the largest to the bottom of the smallest. Or even more, considering the unknown distribution of (more than the five) stick lengths, I would think…
Ger: ultimately, I think the most sensible range will turn out to be broader than the kind of mathematically optimistic reading that Rene presents, and yet narrower than the statistically broadest reading.
It’s such a shame that Rene apparently feels compelled to keep on trying to shut down what is – in truth – an only slightly different technical reading of the same basic scientific evidence.
Ger: as far as the humanistic hands search goes, I’ll try to find my various pages later and will include a link here for you.
To me who’s knowledge level of statistics is rather poor, all this sophistry about bell-curve and sigma doesn’t count so much. If the carbon dating can be taken as serious in general, than the time frame of sometime between 1404 and 1438 can be taken as serious as well, and a probability of 95%
is a largely sufficient starting point.
Even if the parchment was stored and used only one or two decades later, the time frame would still remain quite reasonable, and I don’t see there any conflict between radiocarbon and historical evidence.
As for the paleographical evidence, I have seen a lot of similarly-shaped hands prior to 1450, mostly in the transitional shapes connected to the emerging use of paper instead of parchment. Altough unusual for a script on parchment, the somewhat hasty shapes still fit together with the given time frame and, by the way, emphasize the private character of a personal notebook for whatever secret use.
Charlotte Auer: if you could collect together any images of these transitional hands that you have used to inform your opinion, I’d be more than happy to post them here as a guest post so that others can see what you’re talking about. This would be a very useful contribution, in my opinion. 🙂
Nick: to collect together these *transitional hands* would become quite a bit of a fulltime job because most of them aren’t digitized yet and only accessible in libraries and the professional literature. However I’ll try to get some of the typical examples together.
Concerning the paelography of the VM there is a pecularity which is very often overlooked: the manuscript is not written in any common book script but rather in a more or less volatile style that originates from documents and commercial or private notes. Not to confound with official imperial or clerical documents, of course. In mundane documents and manuscripts the *transition* of the writing is much more visible than in formal books. Unfortunately these kinds of manuscripts are far from beeing as attractive as beautiful books of hours or illuminated herbals and therefore have to wait for digitalization.
After a long break I’m now preparing some updates for my website (in German), including a detailed view on the paleography of the VM and it’s characteristic features. So I could write an abstract in (hopefully comprehensible) English and add some of the most interesting *transitional hands* as a guest post. Just email me for further details.
If there is contrary evidence, one has to judge the evidence by its reliability.
I am not aware of any reliable evidence contrary to the C-14 dating, and I am aware of reliable evidence confirming it.
This obviously implies that I do not find any of the following reliable:
– the identification of a humanist hand and the resulting post-1450 date
– the parallel hatching
– the murano-style glass identified in the Pharma section.
Of course, the opinion of Sergio Toresella cannot just be discarded, but there are other opinions by equally qualified people who considered an earlier date.
In particular, with respect to the humanist hand, this is highly contested by several paleaographers. What’s more, humanist handwriting was not used for philosophical (including medical) manuscripts. Finally, even if there is a transition between gothic and humanist, this could very well have happened in the 1430’s. But also later, of course.
Overall, there is nothing here that is weighty enough to cast serious doubt on the correctness of of the C-14 dating.
The C-14 dating could be wrong, of course. No contesting that. But that’s another thing that has a probability attached to it. If we generously put this at 10%, we stay in the same half century.
And, really finally, there were four independent samples, which all point to the first half of the 15th C (or even earlier).
Hence my confidence. It is completely independent from any hypothetical provenance of the MS.
Rene: OK, so it is your opinion that these pieces of historical reasoning are not (yet) reliable enough to reduce your confidence in the tightness of the radiocarbon dating as currently presented. That’s fine.
So… what do you think the reliable evidence confirming the radiocarbon dating is? So far, the only solid thing I’ve seen is the clothing styles in the zodiac roundels (which I am happy to date to the 1420s, and probably the late 1420s).
However, this is only an earliest date, not a latest date: and you have long pointed to the substantial difference between the drawing style in the zodiac section and the rest of the figures as drawn as a strong indication that the zodiac section roundels may well have been copied from an earlier (probably German / Alsace) calendar at a later date. Are you now backpedalling on that?
Rene: I should also add that your last comment doesn’t show any obvious understanding of the difference between humanist hands and humanistic hands, and there’s a world of practical difference between the two.
I am no native speaker and maybe I am missing some of the finer points of the English language, but from my readings of published research in English I don’t see much difference in the meaning of Humanist and Humanistic hands. But Rene is quite right in his statement. And the real point is that I don’t see anything in the ms., at least not in its original form, that does not fit a dating aound 1420
Helmut Winkler:
1) humanist hands are 15th century formal hands, executed in top-end manuscripts, designed in deliberate homage to the stylishly clear Carolingian book hands of the centuries up to 1200 or so.
2) humanistic hands are 2nd half of the 15th century informal hands, typically using transitional script shapes where scribes who had been trained in humanist hands tried to write in other hands.
There is a palaeographic world of difference between the two categories of hand, which I’m genuinely surprised that you and Rene both seem unaware of.
Rene’s comment listed three specific pieces of dating evidence, each of which I think points to a date not earlier than 1450. Putting the difference between humanist and humanistic hands aside, what are your specific objections to the parallel hatching and the Murano glass dating claims?
Nick,
I have some difficulties with your definitions of humanist/humanistic hands, but thaT is neither here nor there.
About parllel hatching: I don’t see any parallel hatching in the sense
of the word in art historyin the VMs.
About Murano glass: I don’t see any glass vessels or jars in the VMs, these jars are ordinary ceramic or possibly metallic vessels. That I have doubts if the jars are conemporary with the small plant drawings is something else, I suspect they are later.
But you are missing the point. There are what I would call Rules of Evidene. I am no natural scientist myself (I had some science at school, of course) and I don’t believe everything scientists are telling us, but I don’t see how you can argue against an obviouslyy state of the art C14 dating. And according to the RoE you would have to show that the date is impossible by pointing something out which is impossible. I must say that I would have said the VMs is first hall of the 15th c. without C14 and I suspect Bernhard Bischoff was of the same opinion, but that is neither her nor there as well
Helmut: your difficulties would be solved if you read up on humanist vs humanistic, rather than poke holes on my two-line summary.
Parallel hatching: I would tend to agree that the kind of mature parallel hatching seen in Leonardo’s drawings is absent. But I am talking about 1450-1460, when parallel hatching was still new and taking shape.
Murano glass: it is the rows of polychromatic dots on a glass container that was completely characteristic of Murano glass in the 1450-1480 date range (but not before 1450). That’s hardly a surprising or strange connection to suggest, and it’s easy enough to corroborate and test.
You talk about rules of evidence: I’ve offered three independent historical arguments as to why I think it was impossible that the Voynich was made before 1450. And yet the only dating argument I know of that supports a 1400-1450 dating is the clothing in the zodiac roundels (which I’m happy to date to the 1420s), even though the rest of the figures in the manuscript seem more typical of the second half of the 1400s.
So… where’s the evidence supporting your dating assertion? Or is it the case that you just find it easier to roll along with the radiocarbon dating, rather than actually engage with the subject?
Helmut: I strongly suspect that the ghost of Bernhard Bischoff would be annoyed to be summoned without good cause. He wrote on many enciphered documents, though never (as far as I know) on the Voynich Manuscript: see http://philipneal.net/voynichsources/bischoff_summary/
As an aside, Diane O’Donovan went through a long period (hopefully now finished) where she routinely constructed her ‘arguments’ around her attempted reconstructions of what (she imagined) Various Great Historians would have said to support her conclusions. Needless to say, I really wouldn’t advise following her example. :-/
Philipp Neal is quoting BB’s original paper, there is an augmented version of the paper in his collected writings where he comments on the VMs, incidentally that was the first time I heard of the VMs
Murano glass and parallel hatching: I think you make the same methodological mistake many researchers are making, i.e. taking similar features as a sign something is derived from something else
The Voynich script is not a Humanist/ic script
I don’t mind admitting that the ms. could be some ten or twenty years later than 1420, even 1450, but the later you put the date, the more difficulties you have in explaining the marginalia which are surely later than the main content, but I have some difficulties in putting them somewhere in the seventies or eighties. And you come in the vicinity of the Santa Coloma argument that parchment can lie a long time around (something I don’t see as well). The parchment was bought and used. The VMs is not like a copy of let’s say Catullus,to be kept for a long time, but it is ‘Gebrauchsschrifttum’, notes someone made and kept for his personal use and these notes were preserved mor or less by chance (I would compare it with the magicians manual Kiekhefer edited, even if this is a bit farfetcheed)
Helmut: thanks for that, I (and I suspect almost all other Voynich researchers) was unaware of the augmented version of his paper, I’ll go and have a look for that later.
Murano glass and parallel hatching: if I had looked for these features in isolation, I would agree that it would tend to be prone to the kind of methodological mistakes you mention. However, these both emerged from a very much wider search of 15th century documents and drawings. And, of course, everyone is welcome to repeat that work for themselves.
The Voynich is not a humanist script, but it is a humanistic script. All the while you push the two together as if they are a single thing, you will continue to get this wrong.
For me, I put the date at about 1450-1460: I don’t see that this presents any difficulty with the marginalia. And, even though Rene likes to disagree, I think that there is enough cumulative uncertainty in the radiocarbon dating to mean this is basically still in range without having to require anything like Rich SantaColoma’s mythical vellum warehouse. 🙂
I knew I had the reference somewhere
Bernhard Bischoff, Übersicht über die nichtdiplomatischen Geheimschriften des Mittelalters in: Mittelalterliche Studien Bd. 3, Hiersemann: Stuttgart1981, 120-148
Helmut: excellent, thanks! 🙂
Honestly, I do not understand the term humanistic either, in terms of the VM.
Maybe it’s the translation.
Writing is one thing, pictures another.
I have written here 2 pages, from a book 1349 -1351. It contains some consistency in detail over the VM. Even if it is not the same topic.
Headgear, wine, dragon, clothing, circling and drawing of scree and sand.
That’s just 2 pages.
Therefore, for me, setting a creation date based on images is a dangerous thing.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2029471363942174&set=p.2029471363942174&type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1997121997177111&set=gm.1486846024758527&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Hi Helmut,
Just wanted to say thanks for the reference to CLM 845. I hadn’t heard of it and just placed an order for the Kieckhefer book: looks very interesting!
Black & white version of the ms is available online.
Helmut Winkler: thank you for saving me a lot of time! I just startet to write almost the same arguments before reading yours, and because you’re right I don’t feel any need to repeat you in my own words.
Just a little remark: you say ” the marginalia which are surely later than the main content”. How do you know? Is there any proof for that?
And: “The parchment was bought and used”. Same question. Parchment could have been bought and not used in due time because of local wars, plague and other reasons which also made a normal use for “Gebrauchsschriften” impossible those times. However we can realistically assume that it was used as soon as possible, and that a time frame for that would be rather narrow. Apart from this I have no doubt that the VM is a “Gebrauchsschrift”.
Nick: I’m afraid that your distinction between Humanist and Humanistic hands is really not consistent with professional paleography. It may be your personal interpretation, but at least in scholarly paleography I have never heard of such a distinction. I would be grateful if you could name me a reliable source for that assumption.
Charlotte: the source certainly wasn’t Bischoff (whose English translations use the word “humanistic” for everything to do with humanist hands) and it dates from long before I read Derolez.
The short version is simply that the formal humanist hands (the revivalist “litterae antiquae”) that emerged from Poggio and Niccoli underwent diffusion (i.e. an untidy merging) with other hands (particularly in Northern Italy) from 1450 onwards (as I understand it, some date this to 1460 onwards). Derolez calls this untidy mess “Gothico-Antiqua” (though I don’t think his attempt to semi-formalize this is at all the best part of his book on gothic), but the source I was relying on called it “humanistic”, as a way of contrasting it with the original set of hands that were actual “humanist” (from which these all sprang).
So: do you think it would help if I replaced “humanistic” with “Gothico-Antiqua (per Derolez)”, even though I don’t really agree with Derolez’s way of describing it?
@ Nick: I have been reading a lot of inflated ‘guesses’ concerning manuscript B-408. Just so you know — I have TRANSLATED EVERY ITEM in the “Voynich” manuscript. I have also IDENTIFIED every botanical item AND identified the manuscripts (whether leather or Mulberry TREE BARK).
I’ve also visited Suleiman’s library/manuscripts. For a while those manuscripts were held by Suleiman — in order so he could dicker with the Spanish representative who recovered some two hundred manuscripts – from Suleiman’s ‘library’. BTW that same representative returned to Spain with some horses, a camel, and a giraffe.
bdid1dr —– which translates to ‘beady-eyed wonder’
Charlotte Auer,
marginalia are written after the main text more or less by definition, I mean it is unlikely that they were written before the main text. The question is how long after the main text they were written, a few days or several decades. My personal opinion is that the main text was written around 1420 and the marginalia (including 116v) a generation later, around 1450.
About the parchment: You don’t buy a writing pad and put it into the cellar to ripen, it is not cheese. You use it the next time you are going to write something and this is also true for a medieval scholar, who was very likely not overaffluent. Like many other things in this business it is a question of likelihood
Nick: I think it would be utterly helpful to leave all sophistry about termini (or missleading translations) aside and to concentrate on the fact that humanist(ic) writing was widely spread over the last two centuries of the Middle Ages up to the early Renaissance and thus appeared very often in mixed or transitional shapes depending on their purpose as for example bookhands or mundane scripts.
The most helpful would be to convince Beinecke to finally get a sound paleographic study by one of the most renowned experts done.
Bischoff, Derolez and others are still indispensable in the field, but research goes on, new discoveries are made almost daily and there is a young generation of enthusiastic researchers who dare to look beyond the old frontiers. We should take that into consideration.
Charlotte: what I’m talking about is the diffusion of humanist shapes, stylings, and ductus into existing Gothic hands to create the whole ugly world of half-gothic, half-humanist, half-baked transitional hands. I think Derolez struggled to find a term for it because it was basically the long slow death of Gothic in the second half of the 15th century. And when people started to see all the elegant lettering in printed books, that was what they wanted to ape, not the old Gothic rubbish that had been hanging around too long.
There were other handwriting transitions going on (and I think you’re talking more about those), but my conclusion is that Currier’s Hand 1 (the person who wrote most, if not all, of the Currier A pages) was a scribe who had been trained to write in a humanist hand: and that we see that scribe’s training emerging and diffusing around the edges.
All the same, it would indeed surely take a professional palaeographer to make a proper judgment call on all this, which I don’t believe has yet happened. So on that much I think we can both agree, at least. 😉
Nick,
I wonder what leads yuu to doubt Barbara Barrett’s view of the script – is it her evidence or the argument she made from it? I ask because I’ve not been able to read her articles yet, but elsewhere you’ve mentioned that she considers the hand formed by Carolingian style.
Also – it does seem odd that none of the specialists in medieval manuscripts is on record as supposing the script affected by Humanist style – at least not the specialists I’ve read so far such as Kraus, Panofsky, E.P. Goldschmidt or Voynich himself.
All saw it as proper to an earlier period – with most attributing the content (if not the manuscript’s manufacture) to the thirteenth- or the fourteenth century.
It would be very interesting to know which specialists Kraus consulted – Bischoff would have been the obvious choice, of course.
PS I should perhaps add that Kraus and Bischoff were in contact, with the former having ‘probably’ gained an opinion from the latter concerning another manuscript now in the Beinecke.
See: Iris Shagrir, ‘The Guide of Beinecke MA 481.77’ (note 22 p.10)
in
Benjamin Z. Kedar et.al. (eds.), Crusades, Volume 10. (2016)
Diane, one of the reason humanist hands emerged was because Gothic was unattractive and becoming increasingly hard to read. One of the models they used to essentially “reform” this trend was earlier medieval hands (including Carolingian) and some of the Italian hands that had retained some of the better characteristics of earlier hands.
These older hands were not only more attractive, but easier to read. It was a good judgment call.
I suspect that one of the reasons these emerging hands dispersed so quickly was because people like Poggio, one of the exemplary scribes, traveled widely. In addition to scouring the continent for manuscripts, he spent five years in England, and it seems very likely that his distinctive and beautiful script caught the attention of scholars while he was there.
I have posted samples that show how similar John Dee’s handwriting is to that of Isabella d’Este. Poggio may have been one of the historic influences in this trend toward humanist scripts.
Concerning the text on 116v, I have collected more than 1,000 samples of text, gleaned from more than 10,000 manuscripts specifically selected for their similarity to the text on 116v.
I have been specifically researching VMS scripts since January 2008 (after I familiarized myself with the VMS plants). Based on the evidence I have so far, I believe the notes to be circa early 15th century (probably first half).
As far as the Voynichese main text is concerned, I’ll repeat what I’ve said numerous times. People who invent alphabets generally space the symbols wider, and write them more simply than evolved scripts, which means one has to be VERY CAREFUL in comparing their characteristics to evolved scripts.
I studied many alphabets, many cipher scripts, and many invented scripts in 2008–2011 (missionaries invented numerous scripts so they could teach their subjects to read and write) and a high proportion have these characteristics—wider spacing, less connectivity, more upright shapes.
In contrast, scripts that have evolved gradually tend to undergo changes that make them faster and easier to write, and often have narrower spacing, more connectivity, more cursive-style serifs, and more leaning shapes (bookhands don’t always lean but cursive hands tend to lean at least a little bit and, in the later humanist hands, quite a bit).
If anyone is to give a palaeographic opinion on Voynichese, I would strongly suggest they study cipher scripts and invented scripts first (e.g., the missionary scripts). Comparing Voynichese directly to medieval scripts without considering the differences between invented and evolved scripts could lead to erroneous results.
JKP: the basic reason that sixteenth century hands looked so similar is that people learned to write from a small number of printed books that were both similar to each other and widely distributed.
Diane: if you look specifically at Currier A, you should indeed see similarities between it and some Carolingian scripts. But this was exactly what the humanist hands were (almost entirely) built on, so there are similarities with that too.
Why, then, choose one over the other? Personally, I see 20+ things that link the Voynich directly with the 15th century, and none that link it with the 12th or even the 13th century. But others are free to think what they want.
Nick: What are the widely accepted reasons outside of the carbon dating for the 15th Century dating? I can think of some, but I would be curious as to what others might be. When, I say widely accepted I really mean in the opinion of 3 or more people.
Mark: the 15th century quire numbering hand, 15th century quire numbering system, parallel hatching – all three of these point to a latest date of 1500, and without a lot. Similarly, we now know that the clothes depicted in the zodiac roundels are (with very little doubt) from the 1420s: so the manuscript can’t sensibly have been made before then. All of which gives a fairly conservative dating ‘sandwich’ of 1420-1480 or so.
When talking about the zodiac in the Voynich MS, if I ever used the word ‘copying’, it should certainly be understood in the way that a copy would be made in the presently prevailing style. This is what allows dating of manuscripts based on such styles. Of course, in some cases, the old style can still be distinguished, e.g. in astronomical drawings copied from arabic originals.
With respect to the reliability of the C-14 dating, one simply cannot make any generic statements. There are times where it allows fairly accurate dating, and there are times where it is almost useless, due to the variations in C-14 content over the ages.
So even if one is aware of a case where the dating could be 50 years off, this cannot simply be transferred to the case of the Voynich MS. For its date (of the parchment) the calibration curve is quite steep going to later years, while it will allow much earlier dates due to the inversion of the calibration curve in the 1300’s. For example, putting an error factor of 2.5 on all four of the standard deviations moves the high end of the 2-sigma area to 1440 (though my calculations are a few years low – see my web page). The lower end is down all the way to 1328, since the small peak there increases significantly.
Now there are suggestions for a later date as well, for example in the Sun and Moon faces. These were used much more in the second half of the 15th C, but I am not aware of any hard limit.
Nick wrote: ” …the basic reason that sixteenth century hands looked so similar is that people learned to write from a small number of printed books that were both similar to each other and widely distributed.”
Yes, I know Nick. I have specifically searched for “model books” for script, calligraphy, and drawings, to better track the dispersion and location of exemplars for manuscript illuminations and handwriting (I’ve posted examples from “model books” in a couple of my blogs).
But model books would not have been so similar in widely separated regions unless people (like Poggio the scribe and collector) traveled and disseminated or collected manuscripts that included models, and provided examples.
Nick, I have no problem dating the manuscript’s manufacture to 1405-1438. That means that, in theory, I have no objection to the hand’s being influenced by the effort to adopt Greek habits which gave us the ‘humanist’ style in Latin script.
I differ in thinking there are good reasons for debating the assertion that the sort of costumes seen in the calendar centres are inventions of the Renaissance, whether one adopts the more recent habit of dating the Renaissance to the 1400s onwards, or the older practice of associating it with the sixteenth century.
And of course, about there being ‘parallel hatching’ of the Renaissance sort in the ms you are quite mistaken as I and others have often tried to explain.
But my question was not why you believe the script influenced by ‘Renaissance hand’; I know you have reasons for that view. It was, rather, that you are in the minority in usually also have reasons for things you ‘doubt’ – because without that, doubt is no more reasonable than credulity – and I so I wanted to know what it was about Barrett’s own evidence and/or reasoning which you found faulty. Of course, she may not have presented any evidence or any effort at a reasoned argument. As I say, I’ve not yet read her papers.
Nick: I am fascinated that you can offer such a specific date on the clothing. How can you say the 1420s so precisely? Is the idea that the manuscript cannot date from before 1420 something that others like the usual crowd would also agree with. Being able to be so specific on this point whether one accepts the carbon dating is interesting I think.
Mark: see http://ciphermysteries.com/2018/11/20/diebold-laubers-workshop-and-the-knotty-problem-of-necklines
Dear Nick and friends: I am exhausted by trying to make the “VMS” readable and understandable. I am especially thankful to Professor Leon Portilla — and his very clear writing of his book, “Broken Spears”
I’ve already read four of Fray Sahagun and his students, tremendous books — especially “Earthly Things” — and “The Gods” . (Books one and eleven).
Most importantly, to me, were the illustrations and discussion of the MULBERRY TREES.
The mulberry trees were famous for their bark — which was stripped from the trees. The bark was then pounded into relatively thin sheets of ‘vellum’/”paper.
Mulberry paper was sometimes traded for vellum (animal skin).
beady-eyed wonderer
That may have been the case in China, was specifically used for banknotes. In Europe, however, the mulberry had no use in papermaking, because it was the rags.
The mulberry had great influence in the silk production. No mulberry – no caterpillar, no caterpillar – no silk. The processing of silk has established itself around 14th century around Venice. See wiki.
Furthermore, the mulberry is not present in the drawings of the VM. Maybe he will be mentioned in the VM text. But otherwise there is no indication of the mulberry.
I have quite a bit of mulberry paper. It’s not the best paper for writing because it’s quite porous and the ink bleeds, but it’s great for art projects.
I haven’t seen any medieval European manuscripts written on mulberry paper (at least not yet). If they exist, they must be quite uncommon.
Mulberry was included in some of the medieval herbals, but not for papermaking. It was mostly for the berries.
Many thanks, JK ! The so-called “Voynich” manuscript displays a single mulberry fruit.
bdid1dr