This coming Friday, well-known Voynich Manuscript researcher Rene Zandbergen will (briefly) be in London, hence this impromptu Voynich pub meet announcement. 🙂
If you’d like to come along, Rene, Philip Neal and I will be – from 5.30pm to 6pm onwards – at the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, an historic London pub with its own riverside gallows especially for pirates. So if you do happen to have a wooden leg, an eye-patch and a bag bulging with pieces of eight, be aware of the potential for mishap. 🙂
If it’s a nice-ish day (i.e. not raining torrentially), the chances are that we’ll be in the beer garden / patio area – go through the pub, turn left after the main bar, and continue forward to an outside area. Good for dogs, too (particularly if you’re John Kozak, *hint*).
But if it’s a wet day (and let’s face it, that’s the English summer to a ‘T’), be aware that we could end up anywhere in the pub’s two floors. If so, mooch around looking for a table with a slightly tattered copy of “Le Code Voynich” on, and you’re almost certainly in the right place. Hope to see some of you there!
My husband and I may be hanging out at our local pub/roadhouse on “Cursed Friday”. We’ll lift a toast to you, Rene, and Phillip. I was beginning to worry about the whereabouts of some of your ‘regulars’ on the WWW. Have you seen/heard anything from Diane O’Donovan recently? Here’s one for the road: Cheers!
beady-eyed wonder-er
🙂
Same pub as last year? So, the gallows are still in place? I’m trying to remember if it was Saffron Walden which turned one of its oldest buildings into a pub (still existent). Or are there still pubs located on the “London Roads” (ships entry to the Thames), of which your current hangout might be one?
😉
Here’s a cheer’s from me. Why does Saffron Walden ring a bell?
Big hug from Madrid. I’ll be with you in spirit. Enjoy!
Crocuses. Saffron crocuses in England? Yes. B-408 f-35r, illustration illustrates the difference between bulbs and corms. Mythical pair was Crocus and Smilax.
Enjoy your pub-meet. A toast to those enterprising saffron-crocus growers in old Saffron Walden!
Nick, I’m hoping you’ve been marking up your tattered copy of the Vms with at least my Latin nomenclatural identification:
f-1v: tomatillo
f-3v: aconite
f-11v: mulberry
f-15v: squash/cucurbit/lufa
f-16-r: plantago ovata/psyllium
f-49v: turban ranunculus
f-56r: dianthus/carnation/pink/sweet william
f-86 ( v or r is still vague, but IS ‘cosmological” per Rene’s discussion – Alcyone and Ceyx) identifies the dangers of eating the quite edible look-alike ‘alcohol-inky’ which kills by destroying the liver.
So, gentlemen, puhleeze don’t eat any mushrooms the pub might be offering along with your ale!
Cheers!
beady eyed wonder
🙂
Correction to folio 86 (as far as determining whether foldout 3 is reverso or verso): look for bird swimming the waterfall, look for very confused, helpless humans beckoning for help. Hallucinations and death follow the consumption of the wrongly identified EDIBLE mushroom, the ‘alcohol inky’. Compare the illustration with discussion of the ill-fated pair of lovers Alcyone and Ceyx.
I shall now ‘post’ ! Cheers!
beady-eyed ‘one’ der
Anyone who thinks that the Voynich Manuscript is illustrations of plants and herbs, is hopeless in its naivety. After what the author manuscript would ask yourself so much trouble and expose themselves to such a costly book, if it would be just plain herbarium? OK. If it is just plain herbarium, why have you for so many years, and many other researchers are engaged in such a trivial topic? http://gloriaolivae.pl/
It isn’t *just an herbarium*. It is a record of sea-faring explorations, trader routes (silk, mastic, crocus, ranunculi, tomatoes, gold, ivory, slaves….), and astrological tables of royalty who funded the trading activity, Trivial?
I’m hoping that Nick and friends are having a great get-together today.
🙂
As research indicates perganinu, which is written manuscript showed that comes from the beginning of the fifteenth century. At the time, no one had ever dreamed of traveling overseas (to India) – it will happen over a hundred years later.
First: Tomato native to North America – Europe arrived after 1492. For this reason, the argument of the overseas travel trade is wrong.
Second: Crocus sativus L as a spice and dye drug was known in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. In medieval Europe, was cultivated in France, Spain and Turkey. For this reason, the argument overseas travel is also incorrect.
Thirdly: Silk – the secret of its production in 1147 won the King of Sicily, Roger II. In the thirteenth century silk already appeared in August in France. Silk from China to Europe were imported from the third century BC – the Silk Road. By sea began to be brought only about 1,650 years – with the result that at the beginning of the fifteenth century the sea route is not yet known.
Fourth: Black slaves – on the plantations of the New World were needed after Amaryki discovery by Columbus, and not before – the argument of the seas is incorrect.
Conclusion: Manyskrypt Voynich (the date of its creation) is not, in any case, a map, plan or even more record overseas trip.
Nick,
I came to that pub at 8.50 – went through all rooms twice – even on to the pebble shore – could’t see any bald heads anywhere,
Tony: oh no! We were on a table in the patio beer-garden at the back, just as planned – really sorry to have missed you. 🙁
My apologies, Nick, for monopolizing this latest discussion while you were away. I was not inviting argumentation; same old same old. So, do you have some new news for us? Was Mr. Neal able to add to your knowledge base? Mr. Zandbergen, have you taken the opportunity to visit online the museum in Florence? A cut crystal dish, which is portraying the elements of the story being told on folio 86-r3?
Tony, I sympathize with you.
🙂
Nick
I’d better invest in a new pair of glasses then –
before I do –
you and Rene haven’t started wearing toupees?
Tony: “I’m not bald, I get my hair cut this way”. 😉
So, guys, how did your meeting go? Nick, have you been able to cruise the Mexicolore website yet? There is stuff on their pages for every age level. Much of the ‘stuff’ can be found in the “Voynich’ manuscript (Boenicke manuscript 408.) I have been having a lot of fun and have been gaining quite lot of understanding of contents of the manuscript.
In my pre-teens, I read a book (a novel) about the Peruvian method of communicating over long distances with ‘quipu’s. Ever since then I have been fascinated by pre-missionary methods of communication.
So, Nick, you just have an unusually high forehead?
😉
I enjoyed meeting those who were there. Sad that I didn’t get to meet Tony, but I had already left by 8:50 PM…
bdid1dr: no more than any other bald guy. 🙂
Back to Beneventum? Nick, I know you, “beady” and likely others have pondered Beneventan as related to the cipher text of the VM. I note that, as you have long ago, that some of the ligatures look familiar. Some recent publications that might shed light rather than heat on the VM are 1) a copy of the famous Elias Avery Loew book on Beneventan (with amendations by Virginia Brown) is now in print and affordable; 2) Patrick Adams Caddell has recently had published a book on the history of Montecassino and the armies who fought over that abbey. The “10 Armies from Hell” include Armenians. Armenians were prominent in the history of Beneventum and also the greatest of medieval monasteries founded by Benedict. Why am I trying to dust off this old topic? Simply because of two odd curiosities: 1) Benevantan used the “&” a lot, really a lot, when conventional medieval Latin cursive did not; 2) right at the edge of the Duchy of Beneventon is located the city of Troaia which had a castle that defied all attempts to breach it. I think the only place in the VM where Toraia is mentioned is in the very tiny script at the right margin near the start of the herbal section on the depiction of that thistle. BTW Gregory, as an aside, I and a few others think that some herbs/plants are not totally fanciful but pretty much resemble the real thing. Anyway, why indicate Troy on just the one plant? I had trouble explaining my decrypt as the Troy in Turkey (modern day Hisarlik) but it sort of falls into place in Beneventum as a place to be sort of proud of particularly if that were originally home. Well the Venetians get into the Beneventum act, export monks and that unusual script across the Adriatic to the Dalmatian coast (Dubrovnik particularly) and then I postulate that the Armenian traders who stuck like fleas to the Venetian dog, end up in Samos, Greece and when forced out by the Ottomans (ca. 1450), they flee with the Venetians to Chios where that island controlled by the Genoese had cut trading deals with the Ottomans over the production and harvesting of mastic. Safe harbor for awhile. That’s it today from Sugg’s Corner. Cheers, Tom (awaiting two precious books).
I have for you, and also to all the other questions, which the plant can be seen no folio 38R? In my opinion, not the plant itself is about, but about what you can see on her. Is a closer approximation can not be seen as a chance Paratroopers landed by parachute? What do you think?
“Raindrops” – against the background of green leaves is a parachute canopies – this is the story of a failed attempt to invade Cuban emigrants to the southern Cuba, in order to overthrow Fidel (Bay of Pigs Invasion – April 1961). The comic manner (in a close – the highest bud, visible paratrooper) was told invasion of the Cuban island.
Nick & Friends,
Full circle to Monte Cassino: Several months ago, you reviewed a book (novel?) which topic discussed the pre-bombing evacuation of Monte Cassino’s vast collection of works of art. The evacuation was done with the collaboration of a French physician and a German military officer.
Well, not too long ago, one of our famous actor/director celebrities, George Clooney, made a movie about the theft of works of art and sculpture from German-occupied countries. Macabre, to say the least, were items such as a large bin full of gold (tooth) fillings.
Movie: ‘Monuments Men’
ps: ThomS, I assume you know that Monte Cassino has a large cemetery for Armenian WWII military defenders (?)
Gregory, I don’t at the moment have an ID on that plant but I think it is a fern and the little canopies are not parachutes but, in my opinion, something equally weird (well maybe not so totally over the top weird as what you propose!). They are the “yang” symbol for “male use of the plant”. The little dot indicates the directionality of the yang symbol (look at the center symbol of S. Korean flag as a yin/yang refresher!). I am guessing the fern served as an aphrodisiac and that originally 6 little yang symbols were included but maybe the overly conscientious plant delineator removed one,(concentrating the dose slightly) and unfortunately ripping the page by this operation. It has been sewn together and retinted in that area and this could be original tinting? Well anyway f38r is certainly not one of the easy plants/herbs to identify and your proposal of a parachute drop into Cuba gets my vote for the most imaginative, far out plant interpretation so far! Cheers, Tom
For bd (mainly). The version of Caddell that just came out indicates: 1) the bombing of Monte Cassino by the US Army Air Corps was not a legitimate target as the Germans were not using it as an Artillery observation post. 2) The German unit did not use it until the bombing had levelled the abbey and the rubble made good defensive positions. Whether the undamaged abbey was being considered as a forward spotting post is just conjectural. 3) Two German lieutenants, one RC and the other protestant, leaned on the abbot to evacuate the library. That library was extensive and included many secular works including an original of Dioscorides herbal, works of Virgil, Tacitus etc. Along with the 100K titles was the total art collection of the state gallery in Naples with Leonardos, Tintorettos, etc. The hard working officers won over the abbot, built crates and shipped both the art and the library to destinations North of Roma that were under Papal control using 100 German trucks normally returning empty to their supply depot in Spoleto. . [Could that Jesuit college or the Villa Madragone have been destinations?] Anyway the library survived intact but much of the artwork was conveyed to Herman Goering as a birthday gift. It was, later recovered (5 crates at that time) by the Monuments Men trom salt caves in Salzburg as you allude to. I thank you BD for your mentioning the Armenian cemetary at Montecassino. I will be trying to get my head around the role of Armenian troops in the attack on Montecassino. Caddell refers to them in the context of an army, not like defending monks. Any monks ware long gone but the Abbey did house many refugees from around Italy. Some of these questions may be answered, I hope, in Caddell’s book. Cheers, Tom .
ps. Monte Cassino was eventually taken by Polish troops in attack from the rear. Revisionist WW2 history downplays the importance of the whole Italian campaign and certainly the slow slog by US General Mark Clark to get to Roma with the dubious need to take out that abbey. The Italian campaign was sparked by Winston Churchill and was his usual scheme of opening a second front (like Gallipoli was in WW1). He hated the whole idea of the Normandy invasion
Tom, I respect your opinion on the topics. I do not want to intrude, but on my blog I present a whole range of interpretations of individual pages of the manuscript. As for me, this is not a herbarium but a compendium of knowledge about the history of man. OK, you say that the 38R is not a parachute canopies, it’s me then I will say something else. At higher zoom in folio 32V outline plant root author of the manuscript inserted them a silhouette of Hitler. All individual herbs folio in part arranged in the history. On my blog I came to the folio 47V – current events in Ukraine, soon I put the next one. Cheers.
Oh dear, Nick! Please bear with us (at least two of us?) in this latest trilogious discussion. My spell-checker went crazy with my invented word. You know what word!
bdid1dr 😉
ThomS, the cemetery I spoke of was for Polish vets. My apologies for adding confusion to this (Nick’s) latest blog entry.
bd
Gregory, Let us in on other impending disasters/developments that you see coming in the pages of the VM! Hope that Ukraine tips the right way for Western interests! Maybe the VM can become the “Bible of Doomsday Preppers”? Any stock market tips could also be useful to the readership.. Cheers Tom
For BD. I think Nick was alluding to some Castle or other (“Monte Castro” as I recall) in that Brussels Book release, not to any military account of Monte Cassino. I did know of various cemetaries on the grounds of Monte Cassino: German, Italian, UK (one of the largest anywhere and included Commonwealth troops) and the Polish. If Armenians did fight there, it would not be unlikely at all, that they would have at least a monument.
ThomS, do you already know that the bombing runs over Monte Cassino and surrounding area was done by our United States Negro squadron ? Was it not Mussolini who was in power at that time?
Well, Nick, did your parents (and/or your Gran) tell you their side of the story (history)? Mine had little to say about any of it. It was only when I was in my twenties when I asked my mother about the strange metal rod that had been inserted through my nostril and positioned near my uvula (I was ten years old at that time). It turns out that I was receiving Co-60 radiation to shrink the scar tissue of previous surgeries of cleft soft-palate repairs. Co-60 was a by-product of the development of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If Diane O’D should be lurking, she probably would have something to say about Alice Springs/Northern Territory Japanese bombing raids. One last tidbit about the development of the bomb. I read somewhere (?) that US scientists visited Australia to purchase some of the raw material needed for the development of the “A-bomb”. Do any of you have more info on those perilous times? Somewhere else I’ve read that one of the men disappeared. Could there possibly be any connection between the disappearance of that man — and the body found on (Somerton?) beach?
Probably a real stretch. But have we not encountered ‘stretchier’ accounts?
😉
Gregory, I haven’t looked at 38r yet. But, if we can get around your ‘parachute’ discussion, we might find f-38v is a palm leaf. The first line of that folio translates to the Latin “to be a light for”. In my own notes, I have cross-refenced attalea (amaripa) elaeis oleifera, guine-esu. So, we have oil palm, banana/plantain palm, coconut palm, betel nut palm……anything but ‘parachute’ palm. 😉
Oops! Date palm! Of which there is much discussion in re the introduction of the date palm to the North and South American continents. Take your pick….
😉
Bdid1dr, very good to me converse with you but this probably nothing will come of it – you’re not referring to my arguments. Ok, another thing folio 50R – or at higher zoom you can see there outline of his head? Maybe it’s just me it seems?
Folio 33R – if you can see there outline two heads? 33R – according to me it is a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. 40R – Muslim Shahada. Folio 42 – glasses of General Jaruzelski. 44V – the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 one year. Trying to understand how encryption Manuskrypru should consider that this is a kind of rebus – a puzzle consisting of guessing the meaning of stacked drawings, signs, symbols. The decisive role played by the continuum of time and logical sequence of staging history. On my blog I explain exactly my my interpretation of the first folio to 48R.
This is not in any way herbarium, much less a cookbook or set of rules to cure diseases. Cheers.
For bd et al., Mussolini was no longer el Duce when Monte Cassino was bombed. He was removed from power shortly after the invasion of Italy from Sicily.
256 heavy bombers of the USAAF were used to level MonteCassino, mainly B-17s B-25s and B-26s. The high altitude bombing was not precision at all and bombs dropped on some friendly troops and even the command center of Mark Clark. Some bombers might have been flown by blacks but a lot were not.
More to the point. The artwork was packed into 120 crates and was evidently the entire collection of the National Museum of Naples. 15 crates (not 5 as I wrote) did not make it to their destinations of Dominican holdings in the area of Roma but ended in the hands of Goring, who was patron of the German defenders. The library according to Caddick-Adams (I erred in the author of the book which finally arrived) amounted to 40K titles not 100K although I have read the latter elsewhere but that might have included some artwork. One hundred truck loads were transported and more specifically to Dominican abbeys, convents, libraries etc and often had monks, sisters along for the ride both to safeguard themselves and their cargoes. Most of the American generals, involved including Clark, did not want to bomb the abbey,, but they were overruled by a higher up. In summaary, it was the artwork, being stored in a part of the Monte Cassino complex that was the main focus of the two German lieutenants, Becker and Schlegel, who provided safe passage for them. The crates were built by refugees who were paid in cigarettes and food.
The ten armies mentioned in the book subtitle included UK and many commonwealth armies: (Canada, New Zealand, Indian, South African, Gurkha, Punjabi), Polish and American. No mention of Armenians at all and I rear my book review had a typo. No Armenian subjects or likely officers names in the index so I fear this was a red herring. This book would now have relevance only if it can be shown that somehow the venues involved in the VM were related to the library of Monte Cassino. That library was world famous and got high praises from Chas. Dickens. Cheers, Tom
Oooh-ee, ThomS, some very interesting “other side of the story”. Thanx for the clarification of the war zones and activities. An explanation for the little mention of Armenian participation the the wartime activities MAY be explained by the earlier (1920’s-30’s) uneasy and difficult times being endured between Turks/Greeks/Armenians and Cypriots. Even with the worldwide turmoil between WWI and WWII, music was still being developed, written, and played in some venues: Rebetika One piece of long-enduring music (and dance) is titled “Misirlou”. Greek, Armenian, and Turk musicians, today, all claim to be the origin of that beautiful ‘song and dance’. Y’get it; my song and dance?
🙂
Dear all, To cut to the chase. Armenians WERE involved in the fighting for the abbey of Montecassino (abbey is called that; location is Monte Cassino) BUT were allied WITH the Germans through queer fortunes of war. They had been fighting with the Germans on the Eastern Front (operation Barbarossa) but when the Italian fasciti callapsed, Hitler moved them to the Italian front, along with Belorussians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Tartars and others into a defense of Montecassino and other fighting in Italy. This is just an FYI, little else. Troops of 26 countires got swept into this campaign. Hard to make sense of some of the motivation; just following orders seem to have been the main thing, not any defense of a beloved abbey with any personal associations as I naively thought at one time. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, In my post of 6-23, I indicated that the library and art of Montecassino went to Dominican holdings near Roma. Caddich-Adams is not very specific about actually where they did go, but likely they went to BENEDICTINE libraries, convents, abbeys and NOT Dominican although there could be some ambiguity here, because of the declining fortunes of the Benedictines. Villa Mandragone was Jesuit but built ca. 1573. One interesting detail is that Galileo had it in his telescopic sights when he focussed on it from the Janiculum hill in Roma some 20km distant. Add to that fact that Pope Gregory XIIi in 1582 was at the villa when he and astronomer Clavius formulated the new calendar that subtracted 10 days from October (to make the vernal equinox line up with reality) and one sees the importance of this Papal retreat. Because of the Protestant reformation, Benedictines were having a tough time of it in Europe and authorities indicate they allowed their various abbeys and convents a lot of autonomy. So some did fold on their own. The Jesuits were counter reformation and maybe they took over some previous Benedictine holdings? Villa Mandragone as most Voynichers know, had its own library that passed into the holdings of the Vatican. Anyway, I think it could be an open question as to exactly where the holdings of the Montecassino library did end up? They did offer sanctuary to many Italian refugees during WW2 but no evidence that they received any of the Montecassino library. I was likely wrong though about Dominicans having received any books. Cheers, Tom
ps. It should be recalled that Montecassino was in ancient Beneventum that became the Duchy or Principality of Beneventan and eventually a Venetian holding. So that library would have been (outside of Dalmatia) the most important repository of manuscripts and books in Beneventan script.
Nick & ThomS, Mention of ‘outside’ of Dalmatia: So, how did/does Dalmatia rank in the importance of manuscript holdings and/or developments and/or storage? Does this have anything to do with the Guelf factions?
Nick, does our rather ‘tiddly’ commentary fit the atmosphere of your recent pub meet with ReneZ & friends?
;-^
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