Over the last few months, I’ve had some interesting correspondence with Thomas Spande, whose starting point was observing that the ‘Voynichese’ script seemed to have similarities with the medieval Armenian aybuben (‘alphabet’ – its first two letters are ‘ayb’ and ‘ben’). Several other people have proposed this, most recently ‘amandajm’ and ‘Lgh’ on the discussion page for the Voynich Manuscript Wikipedia page: there was also a mysterious “Voynich Armenian Experiment” back in 2000 which seems to have arrived fractionally too early to be picked up by the Wayback Machine; and another mention in the archived Wikipedia talk page.
However, I’m basically sure we can rule out oddly-written Armenian (and indeed all other it’s-an-oddly-written-but-real-language theories) because of the Voynich Manuscript’s peculiarly idiosyncratic word distribution: apart from a small number of high-frequency words, relatively few words or phrases repeat across the whole manuscript, making it a poor match for any real language, whether written directly or even in an simple substitution cipher. This is an extraordinarily deep observation, one which even now few people really grasp the power of: it sits behind Elizebeth Friedman’s 1962 comment that all attempts to interpret the Voynich Manuscript as a simple language and/or a simple cipher were “doomed to utter frustration”. Ignore this at your peril!
All the same, what Thomas Spande dug up next was, well, really rather good. He discovered that a particular fifteenth century physician called Amirdovlat Amasiatsi was working in Constantinople for the Ottomans (i.e. just after its fall in 1453), and that he wrote a large number of books in Armenian. [I added a Wikipedia stub page about Amirdovlat, but note that this still needs a lot more detail to be useful]. The best English-language book on him appears to be “Amirdovlat Amasiatsi: A 15th Century Armenian Natural Historian and Physician” by S. A. Vardanian (1999), though at £144 or so for a second-hand copy, it’s a tad beyond my modest means. 🙁 There are also various studies by John Gueriguian based on his study of Amirdovlat’s books, perhaps most notably “Amirdovlat’ Amasiats’i: His Life and Contributions” in the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 3 (1987) pp. 63-91.
What was nice about Amirdovlat was that despite being chief physician to Mehmed II, he was not at all elitist. In fact, he specifically wrote books in Armenian so that ordinary people could benefit from what he had learned: e.g.
* 1459: Usumn bzhshkutyan (The Study of Medicine)
* 1459: Akhrapatin (Pharmacology)
* 1474: Girk ramkakan (Popular handbook)
* 1478-1482: Angitats anpet (Useless to the Ignorant)
* ????: Vasn nshanats hivantin, zgenats yev zmahun (On the patient’s signs of life & death)
The 25 chapters of Amirdovlat’s book on pharmacology describes the properties of plenty of drugs: yet even this was dwarfed by “Useless to the ignorant”, which listed the properties of no less than 3700 drugs, arranged in (Armenian) alphabetical order. He was a serious-minded yet communicative man, widely read and clearly with a deep passion for medicine. But could he have had anything to do with the Voynich manuscript?
On the positive side, I would very much like to read more about Amirdovlat: though admittedly Galenic, his brand of medicine seems to run very much parallel to that found in the European herbal tradition, the brightest lamp post we tend to look under for our Voynichian lost keys. I also think that when the Voynich is finally deciphered, its contents will almost certainly turn out to be grounded within numerous existing textual traditions (though perhaps not quite in the ways that we expect), and so building up a fuller picture of the range of contemporary textual herbal traditions has to be a good thing. As a result, I can see why Thomas Spande considers Amirdovlat to be a possible source for (and perhaps even author of) the Voynich Manuscript.
On the negative side, I personally think it would be extraordinarily surprising if the Voynich Manuscript came from beyond the European mainland (specifically the Northern Italian peninsula, or possibly Savoy at a stretch). Its alphabet seems to appropriate a large number of 14th century Latin-like tropes; its nine-rosette castles seem to point to Italy, Switzerland or Southern Germany (Sicily at a push); it has Occitan-like zodiac marginalia; its final page handwriting seems like a late 14th-century Savoyard hand; its crossbowman seems to have European clothes; and so forth. I’ll happily grant you that all of these could conceivably be wrong simultaneously… but I’m reasonably confident that they’re not.
Of course, there are two basic Voynich camps to choose from: one that thinks we know enough basic factuality to rule out almost all speculative theories with a high level of confidence, and another that thinks we don’t, that almost everything is still in play. Of the two, I’m in the former camp: but you have to understand that it’s a bit draughty and empty in here… I’m sometimes surprised that canvas walls are able to echo so effectively, but there you go, it is how it is. So, which camp are you in?
Oh dear! Nick, I have just finished going “on tour” with Professor Henry Louis GatesJr’s filmed visit to Timbuktu. One segment was particularly interesting: His interview with two archivists and their library of ancient manuscripts. Incredible!
So, I logged on to Wikipedia. I’m so excited that I think I’m just going to refer you to just one file (photo) and let you backtrack:
File:Timbuktu-manuscripts-astronomy-mathematics.jpg
I have a very elderly computer (upgraded several times) or I would attempt a full-link.
I’m going back to my perusal of wiki’s great Timbuctu article.
a’tout a l’heure!
Professor Gates heads Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Studies.
One last note: Because I’m not sure Professor Gates is aware of the Voynich ms at all — even though he began his studies at Yale. (?) D’ye think he might be interested in knowing about the Voynich?
I think that the manuscript as we have it may well be a product of western Europe. But I cannot think the first formulation of its content, as distinct from manufacture of the object occurred there.
There’s also the question of whether the writer/s of the manuscript, whether or not European, were actually in Europe at the time.
PS when people speak of the scribe/s as ‘author’ it gives me hives!
There’s nothing to support such an assumption, except perhaps that further assumption that the text is a fifteenth century, European, invention.
Does one grant a nihil obstat to a meaningless or unreadable text? Not terribly likely, I should say.
PS – Has the author of the book about Amatsiasi compared the list of medicinal drugs in those works with either or both the Vienna Dioscorides, and the (Syriac) Book of Medicines? I’d be very interested in the results, especially since Amatsiasi was an Armenian.
Last – promise
About Armenians, possibly, if ‘Tarsic’ means Armenian, and not e.g. Tati.
In Arabic ‘tars’ means an metalwork plate, often impressed with religious or magical signs and/or images. ‘tars Daylani’ – means images of the Medes literally. Metaphorically, cards on metal foil, then paper. Also later refers to printing plates.
“…Master Peter of Lucolongo, a faithful Christian man and great merchant, who was the companion of my travels from Tauris, himself bought the ground for the establishment …
I have now had six pictures made, illustrating the Old and New Testaments for the instruction of the ignorant ; and the explanations engraved in Latin, Tarsic, and Persian characters, that all may be able to read them in one tongue or another”.
Diane: I haven’t yet had a chance to read Vardanian’s book – it’s on my Christmas list, but at over £140 second hand, I’m not sure if I’ve been quite that good this year. 🙁 When I do see it, though, I’ll be sure to report back on what Vardanian has to say…
Diane: even in the 21st century the Voynich manages to evoke a dramatically wide range of responses, so I don’t see why it couldn’t have been assessed for a nihil obstat 500 years ago.
Bobbi: having myself looked into the Timbuktu manuscripts before (it’s a long story, to do with a very funny screenplay I wrote), I can say that it is a substantial body of work (Wikipedia says 700000 mss, but I’m told there may well be much more in private collections) that would probably take years to compare comprehensively against the Voynich. However, I would say that I don’t recall any of them having any cipher content at all – though please feel free to find a counter-example, I’d be extremely interested to see it!
PS: the link you gave – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Timbuktu-manuscripts-astronomy-mathematics.jpg – seems highly likely to do with Egyptian decans (10 degrees each). As such, it’s not quite a match for the VMs, but it’s heading in the right direction… 🙂
Earlier this month I have been researching African sources of the indigo dye used extensively by Tuaregs. Dang if the drawing I found online looks just like the acacia tree (and seed-pod) that the huge flocks of African goats denuded. Makes me wonder just how successful today’s world-wide efforts to feed the starving humans in Africa can possibly amount to much more than “a drop in the bucket”. Ennyway, not so many years ago, members of an on-line knitting forum were trying to raise money to buy goats for starving African families. Clueless?
?!!!!????!! Merry Whatever Holiday Suits You!
Looking at manuscript pages in Armenian from this text it seems not to work out so well. The images come from this nice website or ancient archives, and while I don’t read Armenian, by clicking around it is possible to see many more texts close-up, none of which look much like the VM.
Nick, in re Timbuctu and your “long story”: I, for one, WOULD like you to “Do Tell”!
One last note for today: Leo Africanus, aka: Hassan Al Wazzan apparently studied there for awhile before he was rounded up with other slaves and shipped to Europe.
Bobbi: with a little bit of luck, one day soon I’ll get the chance to pitch “The Cipher Code Conspiracy” to a film studio: I’ll be sure to post a bit more about it here when I do. 🙂
The reason I mention “Leo Africanus” is that he apparently became a “favorite” courtier/scribe of the European Royalty — and eventually the Pope. I seem to recall reading that Leo Africanus wrote an autobiography. (?)
If I recall, from earlier discussions, the VMs was supposedly “discovered” stored in the Villa Mandragon (?) which had become a Jesuit Library (?) — and eventually purchased by Voynich (?).
Being a former records management specialist (whose index, alone, was some 30,000 entries), I am, today, an-almost-compulsive “indexer” of information. (Though not quite on the scale of “Google”.)
I shall now go back to my online “reading” of Amir Doviat (which has some 30 pages dealing with the meanings/interpretations of the use of blue pigments in religious paintings!
Bobbi – even though the dates are a bit late for A.D. to have composed the matter in the Vms, the might have drawn from the same sources. I can’t tell you how much I would like to have a list of the plants that he mentions, especially any of non-European and non-Mediterranean origin.
And on the topic of blue pigments – what has he to say about azurite, if anything? My understanding is that most Armenian manuscripts used few mineral pigments, but most places on the other side of the Bosphorous preferred them.
I’ve recently found a cute article linking pigments in Islamic mss to where and when they were produced. Azurite, and ‘atacamite or paratacamite’ occur there too, and in combination with lamp-black and verdigris.. but not all in the one manuscript, as for the Vms.
On cursive Armenian forms – a chart of characters and variants is in this article – limited readership I’m afraid.
A Greek Papyrus in Armenian Script
James Clackson
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik , Bd. 129, (2000), pp. 223-258 (p.229)
JSTOR
Nick, I’m still above the sod. Had to do some chemistry in the interim, i.e. the real stuff, not alchemy. In answer to Diane O’Donovan’s interest in cursive Armenian. The best source is the massive tome by Michael E. Stone et al., Album of Armenian Paleography. Aarhus Publishing, 2002. This has ca. 200 examples of handwritten Armenian over ca. 500 yrs and shows great changes every 10 yrs or so. There is an eastern and western version. What distinguishes Arm. is that it is a phonetic language so no diacritical marks are needed. The VM it will be noted is loaded with them, particularly with those pesky c like things. You made a very useful observation that the m-like thing with the flourish has that flourish laid down first. I have a fanciful explanation for this. It is an integral part of the letter and that letter is the Arabic “s”. But it is done in reverse, i.e. the mirror image of the normal glyph. Now the
Armenians had many examples of crytographic writing but these so far reside in private libraries like that of Harry Kurdian, Whichita, KS. The redating of the VM is a little annoying. Still it does fit the form of Arm that might be used in the VM where two glyphs arise after 1300, the treble clef like thing and the simple o. Armenians had no zero in their numbering system so when they go to using arabic numberals they use their letter o as a substitute. That is why it looks small and out of place. If you think Vardanian’s book is a budget buster, then Stone’s is another one at $300 USD and no used ones available. I own one of the Stone books (appropriate discription) and it is the lovliest book I ever plan to own. It was sent by some kind of special courier from UK. I am now thinking that the VM was written in a combination of Armenian and Arabic. I will send in another email, my tabulation of the herbs in Vardanian. It is a quick distillation as the main focus of Vardanian was Amasiasti as a healer with herbs and not so much on the herbs themselves. Many herbs are given with a Persian name as well so I am thinking this was for Armenians in the area of Turkey where he originated, Amasia. Oddly enough I think the herbalist of the VM was an “Ignorant” yet found Amasiasti to be useful. More on this anon. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, On the prowl for hidden writing, I found, right in the first herb of the herbal section, f1v, two Latin (Roman) letters in the bottom green leaf of upper left leaf stem, the clear letters “C H” that I take to be the initials of the tinter. I think this implies the tinter was European but more importantly could likely read the VM text as I am nearly certain tha the original VM herbal was untinted. The scribe could have been directing the coloration but that seems unlikely. The deliniation is nearly flawless whereas some of the tinting is very slap dash. A four yr old could do a better job of staying within the lines. Some of the tinting was done in stages, some careful, other parts careless and parts retinted. Other hidden writing occurs here and there (e.g 29r, “W A”? upper leaf on rt) and appears also to be Latin but we would need Nick’s access to background subtraction of color to bring these out. Cheers, Tom Spande
Dioscorides, late of the Roman army under Nero, retired to Cilicia in what was then Armenia to make his great illustrated herbal. He likely had contract with Armenian herbalists but too early for Amasiatsi. I think the Armenian herbals were not illustrated. Tom Spande
Dear all, I am at work on what is the most approachable part of the VM, i.e. the herbal section. I struggled as did the Sherwoods and others with matching the illustrations in the VM with the real thing and I finally threw in the towel. My old Culpeper herbal was just not up to the job. I found only a few and those were uncertain. The VM has the following clues that might indicate we are all barking up the wrong tree in assuming the VM illustrations resemble in any accurate way, real herbs. The following jump out immediately: Nearly every flower and/or pod is blue, often a really dark shade. This is most unusual in Nature; many parts of the herb are often only very lightly tinted with a wash or left untinted altogether. Leaves are oddly shaped, often mirror images of one another. Little oddnesses abound like a snake like creature transversing rootlets, smiling faces and eyes embedded in roots. Well others have noted and commented on this. I propose a new way of looking at the herbal illustrations. The herb drawings are templates FOR THE MEDICINAL USE OF THE PLANT. They contain clues embedded by the deliniator for his own use. This implies he was not an herbalist himself and needed to be reminded of what parts of the plants (roots, leaves, flowers) were used and what they were used for. He is lifting this out of existing herbals and maybe they are Armenian as I think many of the suggested uses are problems that preoccupied them (aphrodisiacs; freckles, war wounds) or afflicted them (elephantiasis, eye disorders). So spots on leaves don’t correspond to any spot one would find on a real herb candidate but to pox; leaves greatly curled suggest gripping pains or constrictions; roots with stone like protrusions relate to passage of bladder or kidney stones and nothing to do with the colon although sometimes a lumpy root may indicate the plant is a cure for constipation. With this paradym, I am working on my own approach to understanding the herbal section. It fails in identifying plants in this first iteration but will suggest candidates by the medical uses encoded. Now why encode in the first place? The Armenians and Iranians probably would not have bothered with anyone writing about their herbs. Famous Arab herbalists existed and at least two prominent Armenians. I am guessing though the VM herbalist was an amateur who might have been trading on the world reputation of Armenian medicine and phytotherapy. Maybe Italians were the ultimate consumers? The VM ended in Italy but I think it was the calendar reforms in the VM that interested Gregory and not the herbs. The VM ends at a papal retreat used by Gregory, the reformer of the Julian calendar. All for the moment, Cheers, Tom
Dear all, many medieval herbalists like Amirdovlat Amasiasti used ground up gemstones in their preparations. A blue cube-like chunk will be seen as an ingredient of an herbal mix on plate f102r of the VM. It could be some copper mineral? It appears to have some hidden characters ending with a “5”. Cheers, Tom
I saw some of the Voynich manuscript on internet recently. By chance I was using Google Translate today and noticed that the Armenian script seems a close match (in comparison to any other alphabet I can remember seeing).
Just in point of fact – an Armenian production (book-block stitching, stitch supports etc.) would be pretty difficult to discern from one made in western Europe if made after the Crusader period. I noticed when I asked a very different question of a codicologist a few years ago, he included mention of Armenian manuscripts in what seemed to be if not a ‘marked manner’ at least one with a certain oblique ‘tone’ to it.
But the reason I’m posting today is that I’ve found mention of what is said to be an Armenian cipher. This is in a footnote ( ) to G.F. Hill’s History of the Arabic numerals in Europe. Written in 1915 it could be now debunked, or deciphered – I don’t take Cryptologia – but he says,
“Brosset has published an Armenian cryptographic system which he supposes to be of belong to the eleventh century, showing numerals approaching the European forms, and has called attention to Georgian inscriptions of the eleventh century which show figures [numerals, I guess] resembling the Indian. He then goes on to give the reference, but since I’ve no idea how to reproduce the various accents here, I’ll email that reference – to a journal article published in 1864 – by email if you, Nick, or any of your correspondents would like it.
Hill’s reference to it is in his Introduction (n.1 pp.8-9), Hill seemed to think without sighting the ms, that it was sixteenth not eleventh century.
Dianne: Marie Felicite Brosset (a bloke not a sheila) spends half his working life on Armenian numeral translations, getting his theories out in the public domain for 11th century dating &c., only to have them shot down in flames by Arabian expert G.F. Hill in 1903, obviously a tad too late for the old Frenchman’s rebuttal. One thing I noted in the Hill assertion was, that he thought Marie Felicite’s claim for 11th century dating was more likely to have been 16th century. This puts one in mind of something similar with regard to Wilfrid’s like 500 year deception with his B 408 job, ie., 20th as opposed to 15th century. Thanks for reminding those who’d forgotten; I hadn’t.
omitted the reference.
G.F. Hill, The Development of Arabic numerals in Europe (Oxford: Clarendon, 1915).
If Thomas Spande is still around, he might like to know that some non-Voynich-linked codoicologists speak well of his Armenian possibility – not on other than codicological grounds, but there you are. I admit I was surprised, which made me feel a bit ashamed of myself. Why shouldn’t it have been made in Armenia?
Also – NIck – thank you as always for your thorough background checks. I had thought Thomas’ the first ever Armenian theory, though there’s no doubt Thomas didn’t then know of any precedents. He told me at the time it was my mentioning Armenian involved in the production of ceramics in east Asia which piqued his interest and all the work he did after that was all his own.
Since it seems that Thomas, like so many others was mostly just ignored away, and I’m about to mention the region, this ‘research-in-progress’ post of yours has been illuminating and saved me heaps of time.