A few days ago, I grabbed the chance to meet up with renowned crypto writer David Kahn at the Athenaeum Club in London while he was attending a conference on the Battle of the Atlantic. It was… simply a pleasure.
He very happily signed my well-thumbed copy of “The Codebreakers” (1967), though I have to say it barely seems possible that he wrote his crypto meisterwerk close to half a century ago. He continues to research and write on crypto topics: a collection of his articles (“How I Discovered World War II’s Greatest Spy and Other Stories of Intelligence and Codes“) is due to be released in October 2013.
All that aside, he was eager to know about what was happening in the world of Voynich Manuscript research (and delighted to see my rather battered copy of Gawsewitch’s “Le Code Voynich”, even if it isn’t actually a facsimile edition) and urged me to write a state-of-the-art-circa-2013 summary of it for Cryptologia (he was one of its founders). Incidentally, he half-remembered being told recently that someone had cracked the Dorabella Cipher (which is possible, though slightly unlikely, I’d say).
But alas, my all-too-brief hour was up too soon: I had to leave and once more merge into the grey London streets. Yet the whole thing set me wondering for several days how best to summarize the Voynich Manuscript. Why is it that Voynich researchers can know so much about the manuscript’s minutiae, and yet agree on almost nothing? Why is it that the Voynich’s Wikipedia article is so long, yet says so little? Why write another analysis-paralysis piece on it?
Part of the challenge is that it often feels to me as if nobody has written a single word on the Voynich Manuscript that even remotely does it justice. Rather, it’s as if there’s a honey-pot of non-words and non-phrases for non-historians to dip their paws into, making every article and blog post written on it little more than a sweet (though ultimately unsatisfying) anagram of the preceding ones.
At the same time, in my own Voynich research it’s as if every day is Groundhog Day, where pretty much everyone else in Punxsutawney never learns anything, but instead sticks belligerently to their same futile and unhelpful non-positions, day in and day out. [*] For example, I would agree that it is entirely possible to construct alt.histories where the Voynich post-dates the 15th century (oh yes, and that the palaeography, the codicology, the Art History and the radiocarbon dating are all simultaneously wrong, or perhaps hoaxed in a peculiarly sophisticated way), but why on earth would anyone bother?
It’s a lot like fighting against a kind of post-modernist debating society, for whom the inevitable existence of doubt in any given fact makes it fair game to dismiss it. Such en masse debating may well be a great way of passing time, but it’s surely a lousy way of getting to the truth. I’m not interested in knowing what might conceivably have happened, I want to know what genuinely did happen.
*) All the same, I’m getting pretty good at ice carving. That’s bound to come in useful one day… 🙂
I think that if the manuscript had been given to curators of the Shoyen collection, or to the British Library, we wouldn’t be seeing nearly so many people having their fun with it, would we?
Over the past four weeks, I’ve written an alternative interpretation of the sources used to create the ‘rudolf-owned-it’ story; have discussed the historical context for the sort of micrography found on f.9v; suggested a possible key to the cipher ~ one appropriate to an earlier period than the middle of the fifteenth century; I’ve found yet another example of equivalent imagery from the same Greco-Egyptian environment and early centuries AD as provide a great many others unattested in medieval Europe, and these again within a context consistent with such things as the 5-element system depicted in the manuscript, and which existed only in Manichean communities or in Asia.
Response?
[…… ]
Groundhog Day — Do you know there is a movie (probably now only in an archive somewhere) where every day is Groundhog Day.
Ecshully, it isn’t necessarily the people who are having fun with the VMs who you find bothersome?
😉
Diane: I think you’d agree the presence of Sinapius’ signature on f1r and the story linking the (high-priced) manuscript to its (high-roller) buyer Emperor Rudolf all make for a very convincing and persuasive story.
There are question marks in the overall account, though: e.g. I think it rather more likely that (devout Catholic) Emperor Matthias gave the manuscript to (devout Catholic) Sinapius than (quasi-atheist) Emperor Rudolf.
All the same, I don’t (yet) think your close reading of Baresch’s testimony is enough to stop that whole Imperial procession in its tracks. There’s a lot more to be said about Baresch’s letters, for sure, but that’s a job for another day (or indeed year) entirely. 🙂
bdid1dr: actually, my “ice carving” footnote was a joke for those people who had watched the film. *sigh*
Nick
The signature is persuasive testimony that Jakub had the manuscript in, or by, 1608 – which is the year his teacher in chemistry died, as well as the year he was first called in to attend to Rudolf.
By then the ms was only 150 years old, and the cost of its copying in the early 15thC would have been about 600 pence. (yes, pence).
For this and numerous other reasons, nheritance from his teacher, Schaffner, is more likely. And between 1608 and 1680 not *one* other person ever suggests the ‘Rudolf’ provenance ~ not excluding members of the community who fostered Jakub and remained close to him all his life. Think they wouldn’t notice that an emperor’s fabulously expensive gift wasn’t among his property ~ all of which save this was willed to them?
That Schaffner or some predecessor might have been given it by Corvinus *is* an interesting thought – still an ugly sort of book for a king.
There is just no evidence for any of Mnishovsky’s assertions: not direct, not second-hand, nothing.
At least, not to my knowledge – do correct me if I’m mistaken.
Nick
apropos of nothing in particular, did you know the Corinthians brought about the downfall of Carthage in psychological warfare between C’thage and Rome because they handed over the Mother of the Gods without anything more needed than the request? It appears to have been some sort of religious duty of a certain strand of priesthood that sanctified things had to be given, never bought or sold.
Interesting, I thought.
Diane: Sinapius was ennobled in 1607, so would surely have used his un-ennobled name had he received it before 1607 (as per the book front page on Rene’s site), so “added to his library not prior to 1607” is a bit closer.
Generally, I have to say that the notion of prior ownership by Schaffner seems to run against the flow of the provenance evidence (such as it is). I’m not saying it’s not possible… but why fight so hard to construct an alt.history that runs counter to what little evidence we have?
Nick, Diane,
Have either of you visited Hrad Karlstejn’s museum? That is where much of Rudolph’s estate ( works of art) ended up after his brother incarcerated Rudolph and then failed to respond to the events leading up to the Thirty-Years war. Much of Rudolph’s treasures also apparently ended up in their Austrian cousin’s estate. Much of what Fr. Kircher published in his various writings/engravings bear the Austrian coat of arms.
Nick,
By 1665/6, Marci had known Baresch for 40yrs.
If you want to accept Mnishovsky’s assertions, as Marci reports them – without endorsement, without additional names from among the Jesuit community to which all four of the main figures were fairly attached – then you have to develop a paranoid tale of theft and intrigue for which there is no evidence either.
No documentary support that Rudolf owned it; nor that he paid so much for any book; nor that Bacon wrote it… nothing.
But Wilfrid liked the Bacon bits; subsequent people have liked the Rudolf bits; the money-factor itself is hysterically funny unless you imagine all sorts of weird and forbidden matter.
It’s not forbidden matter – as well as being kept in the Jesuit college, it probably has an imprimateur.
I think it is filled with uncommon information, and that the nearest we have to its provenance is in Baresch’s letter of 1639. No mention of Rudolf there either.
Bd1r
No, I haven’t visited the Museum.
As far as we know, Kircher never read the manuscript and thus – one supposes – never published it.
D
Nick,
If you like: ‘inscribed not later than 1607’, but date of inscription isn’t necessarily date of first ownership – Tepenec wasn’t a library and could put his name on books whenever he wished. For all we know, he only inscribed it when lending or giving it to Baresch. I think a loan in anticipation of gift is possible because Baresch – by all accounts an honourable man – never claims ownership. I suspect that the anticipated gift didn’t happen only because Tepenec died so suddenly. This would also explain (if we needed explanation) why it was not among the items in his will – as it certainly would have been if given by the emperor and worth 600 ducats.
sorry – not an imprimateur, a nihil obstat.
Interestingly, if it is a nihil obstat, it implies that at some time previous to Baresch’s having the ms, it had been read to or by a member of the religious.
Nick, Diane,
I was trying to point out that the spoils of war (Thirty-Years, and maybe the Hundred Years) ended up in Ferdinand III ‘s court. So, the mystery of the disappearance of some of Rudolph’s treasures/novelties (and maybe Rudolph’s doctor’s notes) isn’t really a mystery.
I visited Karlstejn’s greatly expanded and updated website yesterday — a whole library of manuscripts. Walls of “family” portraits, and a virtual tour. Now, I just have to figure out how to get “virtual” admittance to their manuscript library!
Diane,
Since you’re pretty good with details and minutiae, could you define the terminology you’ve used several times in various discussions: “nihil obstat” and “imprimateur”
Thanx!
ps: you may address me as bdid (Simpler, no?)
DearBdid,
For courtesy’s sake, and because Nick was the first person I know of who linked these terms to the Vms:
nihil obstat see
http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/05/06/voynich-f116v-nichil-update
The two forms ‘nihil’ and ‘nichil’ are attested.
Not so my frankified Latin which does not exist in any known historical source.
However, on imprimatur see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprimatur
Nick, Diane:
in re the link you referred me to: Great discussion and great enlargement of the handprinted cipher.
My take on that word which appears in the last folio (116v?) of the Vms is: Ancyra, or Ancyranus, or Ancyranus-a-um, or Monumentum Ancyranum (an important record of the reign of Augustus found at Ancyra).
per Chambers-Murray Latin-English dictionary. There are several just as likely “heros” histories whose names begin with “anc” or “anch” or “ancr”…….Just my take on what may be southern gothic miniscule, or maybe Benedettan miniscule, if from monasterial sources.
Wikipedia discusses Monumentum Ancyranum and the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Most interesting is the third paragraph of discussion:
The Monumentum Ancyranum was first made known to the western world by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, ambassador of Ferdinand of Austria, to the Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1555-1562) at Amasia in Asia Minor. Busbecq first read athe inscription and identified its origin from his reading of Suetonius: he published a cof parts of it in his Turkish Letters.
An external link will take you to Bill Thayer at Uchig.
A scholarly book about Athanasius Kircher was published several years ago. I no longer have it and don’t remember whether it mentions the Voynich manuscript. But a copy is at the National Cryptologic Library at Fort Meade, Maryland, where the excellent Rene Stein (a woman though her first name is in the masculine) is the librarian and can probably provide the bibliographic details and perhaps can check to see whether it mentions the Voynich manuscript. Good luck! David Kahn
Dear Nick and ProfK (if I may address you thusly):
On several other pages of Nick’s discussions, I have referred him to the US Military division (codiology) records which are now being released onto the W W W. I have recognized two of the “Voynich” folios which were released from Brigadier John Tiltman’s “unsolved” files:
DOCID: 631091
Voynich ms folio 49v (Boenicke image #1006171) :
Turban Ranunculus
DOCID: 631091
Voynich ms folio 56r : Dianthus (caryophyllacae) which has many references to the Caryotides, the Caria district ofSW Asia Minor, The full discussion begins to tend toward a more ominous tone in re the temple handmaidens.
Thank you, sir, for your reference to Fort Meade’s offerings!
I shall attempt to contact our current “librarian/research analyst” to see what other related documents she may have on hand.
Again, merci beaucoup! epharisto! gracias!……..
Nick, Prof K, & anyone else interested: Find references, online/wiki/etc, in re Crimean Gothic (used by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq).
Dear all, I think we need to replace the word “steganography” to reflect something else than its accepted original meaning. If a message be concealed under a postage stamp or on the scalp of someone with a full head of hair or overlaid with wax, that according to the Wiki, is “steganographic writing”. The full message is there, not encrypted, just concealed as if invisible ink were used. As Nick first used that word in 2009, it referred to glyph modifications that convey special meanings. I think many examples I have found also. like “c” under a “)” designed to look like a backward “s” is another example. These are really concealed “Tironian notes” like maybe “crypto Tironian notes”? Nowhere have I seen Tironian notes blended with a glyph, except maybe the VM. The T.N.were not made to confuse (although they evidently did just that, eventually leading to their disuse) but just to save time. They were the conventional shorthand for Latin. Most of the examples I have found in the VM, incorporate the T.N. “)” but overlaying the upper part of the tipped “?”, or above what I think is a “c” null. I am suspicious that some of the scribal flourishes that look like a “d” are “m” or “n” fused to a “)”. Nick was first to use the term “steganography”:in the VM context and maybe he should get naming rights to what he was referring to with those subtle glyph modifications for “4”, “8” and “9”. Or is this just a sub-type of steganography?
Tom: steganography (concealment by obscurity) and cryptography (concealment by content transformation) aren’t either-or, they’re merely different (and often complementary) approaches to broadly the same problems (privacy and secrecy), ones that can happily coexist within a single entity.
For example, it could be argued that a simple monoalphabetic cipher is more steganographic than cryptographic, because it changes nothing about the message other than its cosmetic appearance. By way of comparison, an Enigma message retains the outward appearance of letters but transforms their internal content completely (in fact literally so, because a letter there cannot encipher itself), and so is purely cryptographic.
In the case of the Voynich, I think what we see is a well-orchestrated combination of both cryptographic and steganographic tricks, from a time when both types were considered fair game. Treating it as purely one or the other is an approach most likely doomed to failure! 🙂
Concerning folio 9v, and its micrography and by reference to other conclusions drawn from the manuscript’s imagery etc., I think I might mention that a Yemenite named Ibn al-Hawas wrote a rhymed treatise known as ‘Flower of the Yemen’.
Cheers
Nick, I see your point. What puzzles me about the VM is why go to such extremes as to use a cipher substitution, make- believe word lengths, no punctuation and on top of it use “steganographic” tricks? It seems to me, that the only people who could ever make sense of the VM are the two (?) scribes themselves? When they leave the scene, the VM becomes an “orphan annie”?
Nick & friends,
Is it that you don’t recognize the significance of my references to Busbecq and his note (and likely in his own handwriting) which appears in Voynich Manuscript folio 116v)? Ankara, Turkey (Busbecq was Ferdinand’s diplomatic representative to “Suleiman the Magnificent” prior to the siege of Vienna. Busbecq is attributed as bringing the tulip to Europe (actually, Busbecq sent the tulip to his friend Clusius). Other plant specimens that caught Busbecq’s eye were Dianthus/carnation and lilac (maybe syringea).
I’m still digging for the name of the person/adventurer who first brought the saffron crocus to the attention of Europe.
Dianthus and Turban Ranunculus were two others of the Vms folios which Brigadier Tiltman and fellow codebreakers were unable to decode. DOCID: 631091 Voynich Manuscript.
A thought about ‘9’s
Looking at this manuscript today – perhaps the ‘9’ shapes have been moved down onto the line to save space, but were originally/are meant to be read superscript.
Brit.Lib. MS Sloane 3095 f. 9
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=7276
There’s a constant and elegant minimalism about the manuscript’s imagery, and the way it conveys meaning.
This makes me wonder why a verbose cipher would be used, as so many people believe. But the text’s present form might be a15thC creation, I suppose, and so made in a very different context from that informing the remainder.
Diane: Tironian ‘9’ shapes happily lived on the line or as a superscript, both were perfectly acceptable as I recall. ;-9
If they are Tironian, why aren’t they removed from stats? Why aren’t they taken as a means to isolate and classify parts of speech?
On the offchance that the text really is Arabic (as argued recently by another of your readers) then logically shouldn’t that allow isolation of the root which precedes a Tironian ending?
Or don’t you want to run decipherment 101 through your blog?
Are there any more quest~(
Diane: as codebreakers have pointed out for at least the last 45 years, the Voynich Manuscript’s ‘9’ glyphs may superficially resemble Tironian / late-medieval ‘9’ glyphs, but that doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it may well be a small goose with a sore throat and piles, who’s to say? 🙂
And as far as Voynich theories go, people are free to hold whatever opinions they like, and to draw whatever conclusions they like. However, being able to prove them powerfully enough to convince other people is another matter entirely.
Nick,
I do understand that most people interested in this manuscript see the process of research as one of forming an idea of some possible answer, and then setting out to prove it, with an eye to pursuading as many other people as possible that they are correct.
So it’s merely a personal preference that this isn’t my aim or method; my aim is to learn to understand the intention of the original makers, and to work out the history of the work/s before the fifteenth century.
Whether any other person finds the process interesting, accepts my conclusions, has less to do with how compelling an argument may be than whether the person is free to accept the information, or not.
Though we like to think that we are persuaded only by reason, the fact is that we believe as our peers and our own situation permit. No bible believer is permitted to believe that another faith is as valid as their own; no skeptic is free to believe that a religious viewpoint may be as enlightened and true as their own.
The same holds, whether we want to think so or not, in scholarship and in science.
No one working in the sciences dares object to innovation on moral or ethical grounds – unless they are an Einstein.
There are still people convinced that the earth is flat, that the bible holds an enciphered key to the date when the world will end, and others who believe string theory is bunkum (which it may be for all I can understand it).
The idea of a ‘compelling’ argument is completely dependent on the temper of the times and your audience.
So far, in my own work, the manuscript is proving compellingly consistent and constantly knocks me out. I like it very much.
People will believe as they like, and tend to believe as their peer-group thinks they should.
Diane: if that’s true, I have no peer group, because I find I rarely believe things that others do. 🙂
Or rather, I typically believe things that others only grudgingly accept much later. 😉
Funny – I’d picked you as a dedicated skeptic.
🙂
I propose a Voynicheros’ motto:
6 impossible things before breakfast!
Perhaps we could wear it on an embroidered belt.
Diane: belt? Cilice, surely? 😉
Aaaaah. Being buried in minutiae again. Big “9” = K or G
Smaller “9” = X
When the larger “9” figure ends a phrase: “ceus, geus, cius,”
The smaller “9” = excuse, exit, exact, execution
Belts can represent “circular thinking” — if not obfuscation.
.
“8” “9” next to each other make the word ending “aes-ceus” — and often ends a phrase.
Diane, I’ll let you find another symbol I’ve encountered only a few times in the Vms text, and which serves as terminating a discussion or ends a final paragraph: ” itius “
Diane, Have you decided if the book was dictated to a scribe or was copied by a copiest ?
Dear all, Here’s my whack at the diglyph “89”. I think that numbers in this case were real Arabic (i.e. Indian) numerals and refer, after Romanization, to the Armenian letters “e” and “t”, In fact the “e” is a phonetic “e” usually written upside down. Together they indicate “et” or simply the Latin for “and”. Armenians (like most Arabs) used letters to represent numbers and this fact was for me the “crib” to involving Armenians at some stage in the creation of the VM. I think “8” is always “e” and “9” is always “t”. There are a few Tironian “9s” (as superscripts) also indicating a deletion has occurred under it.
Armenians were prominent in Kaffa, in Cesme and other areas under the control of the Genoese but I find only a few references to them on Chios. Only some poor Armenian prelate gets exiled there by the French, then eventually ends up dying in the Bastille. Otherwise Armenians seem to end up working for the Ottomans in medieval Chios, collecting taxes, which needless to say, made them personae non grata.
Bdid
When you speak of discussions in the Vms, do you mean that the text has the form of question-and-answer?
Diane, answer to your last “?” : no
Nick & Prof K,
Have either of you had a chance yet to view some of the DOCID documents which are appearing on the WWW? So far, they’ve been documents from Brig. Gen. John H. Tiltman’s decoding files. I’m hoping to see more, soon.
Dear all, A few punctillios. The alphabet of the Armenian language was totally phonetic with 39 glyphs. No diacriticals were used. The 9 = t was, in the case of “89 = et” , the fricative t written as t’ as in the word “eat”.
B’s comments that some of the “9’s” are odd and larger is certainly true. I am assuming she means some have a long “tail”. The descender goes way to the front. I think this is another cryptic scribal abbreviation, not just a flourish, and might stand for “st”.
One possible explanation for adding an additional layer to the VM onion by means of the arcane scribal abbreviations is that without them, the code was already known to some. Armenians but not them alone, were code meisters and maybe the cipher substitution of the VM was known to some already. I have given up trying to get Abrahamyan’s book (in Armenian) on Armenian codes (ca. 400) and was hoping against hope that I might just spot, for example, some gallows glyphs. Doubling letters to represent a single one was used by the Armenians in the 10th Century. I think the “c’s” are used in that context in the VM.
The task at hand is distinguishing scribal flourishes from hidden macrons.
Diane may well be right in that making some glyphs in the VM by quill or reed pen will take more than one stroke. I think though that the backward “s” could have been accomplished with one stroke and not two as very often used.
bdid1dr: I’m pretty sure that I’ve read everything Voynich-related that has been declassified to date (including Tiltman’s paper you repeatedly refer to in comments here).
Every page of the Voynich Manuscript has long been scanned and released on the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s website, so I don’t really know what you’re hoping I’ll say.
Xplor
In mainland Europe’s Latin culture, script so small and even gives a first presumption that it is the work of a professionally trained clerk/cleric – i.e. a scribe.
In those (Latin and Byzantine) traditions, as well as in certain other regions, a scribe served as copyist whether copying from a text or from dictation and ‘scribing’ was considered an occupation fairly low on the social scale.
Not so everywhere, though.
I guess I was hoping you might have more to say about Tiltman’s efforts, and whether Tiltman was working in synchrony with Currier’s.
What caught my eye (on Tiltman’s DOCID documents) was that two of the botanical items he worked on were from the Ottoman Empire. One of those two plants was the “Turban Ranunculus” and the other was “Dianthus” from the Caryotides section of the Ottoman Empire. Also from Tiltman’s file is “Scabiosa Caucasica”, again a plant with origins in the Ottoman Empire.
Last, but actually what I haven’t found, yet, in the “Vms/B408 is the discussion/letters between Clusius and Busbecq in regard to the tulip bulbs Busbecq sent to Clusius.
So, I’ve been looking for writers, scientists, teachers, diplomats, doctors,…..who may have had associations with the various Hapsburg empires in the late 1400’s through the late 1500’s. So far, two VIPs have appeared; and both had close ties with the Austrian and Bohemian Emperors — and Leyden/Leiden University: Carolus Clusius and Ogier de Busbecq.
This morning I was able to google/wiki to find correspondence between Busbecg and Clusius. This correspondence has not been mentioned (so far as I can tell) by any of the museums (Boenicke, Karlstejn, The Met/etc.) in relation to Boenicke manuscript 408).
My “wild goose chase” yielded much new hints as to provenance, and how the manuscript ended up in Kircher’s archive (NOT with Roger Bacon!) Busbecq’s bulbs went to Clusius in Leyden — as personal correspondence. Busbecq’s manuscript of his travels through the Ottoman empire ended up with his employer (Ferdinand I of Austria). Subequent events put the manuscript into Rudolph II’s extensive library and works of art. Provenance is hard to prove, here, however there is mention of Clusius being Rudolph’s physician at one time. I can’t find some on-line discussion written by University of California (campus unknown) in regard to the team of physicians who attended Rudolph’s father.
I guess I can’t really say “History in a Nutshell” seriously, without at least one witty, humorous, punny………?
Nick, Diane,
Yesterday, I visited Leiden University’s Clusius/Busbecq correspondence files (white script on black, photostatic copies, courtesy of Eastman Kodak film). Very interesting; unintelligible, but familiar to me. Dutch?
Dear Bdid1r
I’ve encountered Busbecq mainly in connection with the Julia Anicia codex, obtained in 1569 from a Jewish physician in Constantinople.
Diane, Busbecq and the Julia Anicia codex: Are you able to compare Busbecq’s handwriting with the Boenicke Ms 408,
folio 116v (first line at top of page, in particular)? I’ve translated that line of script as referring to “Ancyra”/”Ankara”, with mention of a monument to Augustus.
The pictorial element (f116v)which appears next to that first line of script is simply portraying the long-haired goat (angora) which provided very strong fibers for handspinning (spinners and weavers called the yarn “mohair”). As an aside to the discussion of angora goat hair, I’ll mention that I have spun the wool of both the angora goat and the angora rabbit: yarn of the goat is itchy; yarn of the rabbit is very soft and warm.
Back to the discussion of the Vmscript: other “Turkish” words appear in those three lines of discussion: imperixaes, imam, otmon, marmara — and, finally, what may have been the scribe’s “sincerely yours” in the form of “Agape/thank god” or perhaps Turkish equivalent of “inshallah/praise allah”.
sorry Bdid1dr
Have you any pictures of fat-tailed goats?
Here’s a fat-tailed sheep, pictured in 5thC Antioch
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Allard_Pierson_Museum_-_Mosaic_of_a_fat-tailed_sheep.JPG
Here are some, showing the same characteristic ‘kick’ to the tip of the tail that you see on f.116v.
http://adjisoe50.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/fat-tailed-sheep.html
and, as you know, the sort of hat shown on the figure adjacent is also found as customary headwear in old societies located around the shores of the Indian Ocean – even in medieval Persian imagery.
Fat tail sheep: A lot of problems raising them: feces get trapped under the tail, flies lay eggs in the mess, infection sets in, wannabe mama sheep have great difficulties……
True, fat-tail sheep and angora goats come from the same part of the world. Ask any person/Persian which animal is preferred for either meat or wool.
And then — in the West Indies we have a breed of Sheep called the Barbados, which are commonly mistaken for goats………
And back to the animal which MAY very well be the fat-tailed sheep: Even today there are hats and coats being made which are called Persian Lamb: Made from unborn/newborn lambskin (fat-tail babies or mohair babies ?)…..
Diane, Nick:
Don’t get me started on which animal skin would have been used for making either Vellum (semi-transparent skin) or Parchment (best for writing upon both sides). So, what skin is being used for most, if not all, of the folios of the Vms/Boenicke 408?
Dear all, The true fat tailed sheep has a black or brown head and neck and such a huge tail that some even had a device to help the sheep move about. The mosaic link Diane provides appears to have taken liberties with the coloration of the head and neck. There was a semi-fat tailed sheep thought to have originated on the island of Chios, Greece. Has dark ears and nose only and prized for milk. That doesn’t look much like the mosaic image either.
Sorry, Diane, if I’m now going to divert, momentarily, the discussion so I can tell ThomS to check Ellie’s recent portrayal of the mastic shrub on her blog.
Back to “sheepish” or “goaty” discussion: I still think y’all should be looking at my recent discovery of the written communications between Ecluse and Busbecq: Busbecq being Ferdinand I ‘s diplomat to Suleimein. Busbecq was also corresponding with Ecluse/Clusius/d’Ecluse when Ecluse became a teacher of botany at Leyden/Leiden. Most interesting was Ecluse’s previous employment with Rudolph II and Rudolph’s parent.
So, if you’d like to see some very similar handwriting to which appears in Boenicke ms 408, check out Leiden University’s fascinating archive of the Busbecq-Ecluse correspondence.
Thomas, there are numerous breeds of fat-tailed sheep, including ones which don’t have the dark ears. Naturally I chose pictures of breeds which most closely resemble that pictured in the manuscript.
Actually, anyone who might still be interested: I mentioned the goat only because subject of discussion was Ancyra/Ancara/Angora; a huge area under Suleiman’s Ottoman rule. The discussion which accompanies that illustration on Vms folio 116v is discussing that region as well as the Cyclades and other Turk/Armenian/Greek territories and islands.
Various Vms botanicals are also indicating their origins: Turban Ranunculus and Dianthus are two examples I’ve given in previous posts. The handwriting on those folios match the handwriting on f116v. The handwriting on folio 116v matches the handwriting (Busbecq’s) in correspondence in the possession of Leiden University. Busbecq sent the first tulips to arrive in Europe (Netherlands) to his friend Clusius, who was teaching at Leiden.
I’m now trying to discover if Busbecq may have been using his ambassadorial privileges to send other samples to any other correspondents. I’ll keep y’all posted (if you indicate any further interest in my explorations).
Vms folio 33v: Scabiosa Caucasica (Pincushion Flower):
The discussion is a curialim sanatio for skin infections such as mange and scabies (telecaeseus) (of the soil). Origin of the flower is found in its botanical name, the Caucasic region.
So, I am once again attempting to find discussion between Ecluse and Busbecq. I foresee several hours of squinty research in Leiden’s archives. Mainly, I’m trying to see if the manuscript preceded Busbecq’s gift of tulip bulbs to Clusius.
Nick, forgive my using your blog to pass a message to Thomas, but I know no other way to reach him.
Thomas,
I’m not sure exactly what role Armenians played in the trade in exotic plants into Constantinople during Michael Psellos’ time (11thC), but I know the idea of aromatics and perfumes interests you, so I thought I’d mention that Psellus described the Byzantine Empress Zoe as spending much time and energy in creating perfumes (aromata)
In one place he says that “One matter above all claimed her attention and on this she expended all her enthusiasm.. the offering of perfumes (aromata) and of all those products which come into our land from India and Egypt” (bk VI, Chapter 159).
John Duffy mentions the passage in a paper delivered at Dumbarton Oaks in 1993.
He points out that Psellos launches immediately into a discussion of perfumes, herbs and stones and their ‘theurgical associations’ and that that Zoe’s apartment “was converted into a workshop where braziers burned winter and summer. Here servants helped Zoe and her sister measure out herbs, boil the mixture, and catch the streams of perfume as it flowed off. Psellos’ artful prose makes it all sound like an alchemist’s laboratory”.
In a footnote Duffy adds that Psellos uses specifically alchemical terms: e.g. ‘to transmute the natures of the aromatics’ and… the ‘stream of gold / golden stream’ in describing oil extraction.
Duffy’s essay, in case you want the details:
John Duffy, ‘Reactions of Two Byzantine Intellectuals to the Theory and Practice of Magic: Michael Psellos and Michael Italikos’, Chapter 5 in Maguire, Henry (ed.), Byzantine Magic, Dumbarton Oaks, 1993.
I should say Psellos does *not* consider Zoe’s practice magic, and some modern writers (not Duffy) seem to have difficulty understanding what a clear distinction between religion and magic was perceived by medieval Christians. Basically, the difference was between showing honour and attempting to coerce.
Hope that comes in handy for you some time.
Diane
Nick, Diane, ThomS, and ProfKahn,
In re works of Busbecq, Clusius, and Dodoens: I refer you to a discussion which appears on Bill Thayer’s website:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia romana/aconite/clusius.html
I’m hoping ProfThayer is still maintaining his blog, and still responding to comments. I’m still waiting for my book order at Amazon.com for Busbecq’s letters. My current reading also has me on tenterhooks:
“Tulipomania – The story of the Worlds’s Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused” – Mike Dash
Mr. Dash’s notes/bibliography is fascinating in itself.
Dear Nick, (and fellow followers):
Yesterday and this morning I found the final proofs for validating my translation of the Voynich manuscript. All of the various proofs (and a major archaelogical dig (Monumentum Ancyranum) still ongoing, back up my translation of folio 116v of Boenicke Ms 408.
So, Diane and Nick, the manuscript was written by Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, while he was performing his diplomatic duties (for Ferdinand I, Austria) at Suleiman ‘The Magnificent’s’ court and dominions.
Nick, it was your attempted translation of the first two lines of script on folio 116v which you very carefully hightlighted, for which I am now giving you grateful thanks.
I am continuing my folio-by-folio translation of Boenicke 408 — each of which will have my citations. I will not be burdening you with my alpha-substitutions and translations, from hereon. Diane, you can rest easy now and devote more attention to your own blog. Y’know, you may be right that the animal portrayed on f116v was a particularly fat-tailed sheep, rather than a goat. I’ve spun the wool of both, and I’ve also knitted sweaters and caps from their fiber as well as the angora rabbit. I’ve also handspun (Navajo spindle) and Navajo “churro” sheep’s wool. I dyed the wool in a fermentation vat of prickly-pear fruit juice. Too bad I put some unwashed fleece into the dye vat to help ferment — prickly pear “wine” sure smelled good!
bd1d1dr: good luck! “I believe you’re wrong, but I hope you’re right”. 😉
Dear Bdidr
Have you an explanation for why someone like Busbecq would use such poor parchment, already 150 years old and deviate so notably from medieval styles in art?
Are you arguing a Phrygian origin?
D.
PS Bdid1r
If you’re about to exit, and suggest I do the same, I think we need some sort of hairy, greenish sort of theme for our mutual exit. Any preferences?
D
Good heavens, Diane! I’m most certainly NOT suggesting that you “bow out” too! It was your graceful response to my query about “nihil obstat” that opened the door, so to speak, to Busbecq’s writings. I’m still awaiting delivery of his “Letters” book which I ordered from Amazon ten days ago.
As far as the age/dating of any particular vellum/parchment goes: I’m betting that Busbecq was supplied with writing materials either from his boss, Ferdinand I (Austria) or from his Ottoman host, Suleiman. After all, Busbecq spent some six or eight years at Suleiman’s court. He may have had ample opportunity to sketch botanical items wherever he went – and accompany the sketches with field notes. Until I get the book (Busbeqc’s Letters) and another more recent book which also discusses the correspondence between Busbecq and Clusius “Tulipomania” – author Mike Dash, I won’t be able to back up my “hunch”. Another favorite source of information (history) seems to have retired lately: Bill Thayer (penelope) at U Chicago. He does discuss, however, Ancyra and the Augustian memorial monument (which is the subject of the VMS folio 116v).
I’ve never claimed to be an expert in historical research. I am a retired paralegal with expertise in records management and maintaining the continuity of any particular record, and its storage. (“That Which Brings Your …to its Knees”, is a very good example of Nick’s meticulous “records-keeping”. )
Diane: “some hairy greenish sort of thing”… pages 50-51 of “The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq” (Forster/Roider) Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge
“watered camlet” (mohair)
You don’t have to join me in my efforts to reproduce that particular item of clothing. Heh!
beady-eyed 1-der 🙂
Diane: Busbecq discusses further the flocks of mohair goats and fat-tailed sheep (pages 46-47, Forster/Roider). Some of the older sheep had little two-wheeled “platforms” upon which to rest their heavy tails while dragging them around. No kidding!
🙂
Nick, Diane: I’m planning to attempt to translate the rest of the discussion on f116v, although it is very faded and almost illegibile. I’ll keep y’all posted.
Just to get y’all off the hook: I’ve moved on to other pages of Nick’s discussions but I am still translating various Vms folios besides Monumentum Ancyranum res Divi Augustus (folio 116v). Most recent translation was Mindy’s mention of one of the women who appeared to have a hole in her stomach.
🙂
In re your earlier discussion of Sinapius’ ennoblement (in 1607): Busbecque was “legitamized”, by Charles V in 1549. Nick, you really should invest in a copy of Forster and Roiders English translation of “The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq”. I think my paperback copy cost me less than $10. My paperback copy of Caroline Finkel’s “Osman’s Dream” was a bit more, but worth every hapenny. It was my mother who taught me the English money system (way before the recent development of the “Euro”). Not quite trivia being offered by me, just remarking on how fast history’s pages turn, now that we are cruising the W-W-W almost at the speed of lightning.
Adieu!
Hi Nick,
Apologies for the abrupt request, but I was wondering if you had any contact information for Mr. Kahn? Curious to get in touch with him about one of his books on Herbert Yardley.
Thank you!