In Part 1, I collected together a whole load of evidence relating to Q20’s bifolio order that previous analyses had proposed. I thought I’d add a post suggesting other analyses that haven’t yet been done. Who knows, maybe someone will give one or more of these a go?
Vellum thickness
The class of gadget you would use for measuring the thickness of vellum is a non-contact thickness gauge (these are like double-sided laser/LED measuring devices). But why would that be interesting?
The reason is that this offers a low-cost (and non-destructive) way to match up different bifolios’ vellum edges, particularly their long edges. As I understand it, a single sheet of vellum would typically have been large enough to be cut into four bifolios (a very common gathering size): and so there is strong reason to suspect that the vellum sheets that made up the Voynich Manuscript would have been used to form individual quires. (Though very probably not the quires that we see now.)
My hunch is that mapping the Voynich Manuscript’s bifolios’ vellum thicknesses would help give us a little more information about how the original set of gatherings were manufactured and assembled (before their order was later scrambled, probably several times). I believe that this could cast light on Herbal-A pages, Herbal-B pages, Q13 pages and Q20 pages.
Sure, it would take a little bit of planning and a fair bit of subtle reasoning afterwards, but in terms of resources, it would cost relatively little. So why not try?
DNA comparison
This idea – of sampling the DNA of all the different bifolios, and then cross-referencing them – was something I described here back in April 2022. It still strikes me as an attack well worth attempting.
I should note that Michelle Lewis commented (pointing to a voynich.ninja discussion) that she thought that what I was suggesting was a little ahead of the technology – maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. There is certainly a Bovine Genome Database online (the first Hereford cow DNA was sequenced in 2009, says Wikipedia), so there may already be researchers out there who have suitable ’23AndMoo’ skills needed to, ummm, give us a steer. (Did you see what I did there?)
Lisa Fagin Davis too left a comment expressing (what I think came across as) an even more negative opinion of the idea, which was she thought that it would (basically) give no useful information. For what it’s worth, my opinion of her opinion was that there seems to be convincing evidence that the Voynich Manuscript’s support (i.e. its vellum) was prepared (and indeed cut down) in idiosyncratic (or at least unusual) ways, which would seem to point to very much the opposite of the scenarios she invoked to argue against the idea. Still, maybe she’ll come round to the idea in a decade or so.
Revisiting Julian Bunn’s page distance metric
In Part 1, I mentioned Julian Bunn’s Voynich page distance metric webpage: but on reflection, I don’t think I really highlighted how promising this kind of study could be when applied to bifolio reordering.
For example, we can see from his folio clusters map that f106v and f106r are not really that similar to each other, which suggests a change of topic / section / chapter somewhere in mid-f106. In fact, if we look at f106’s two sides, we can see what seems like a change of ‘tempo’ in the last two paragraphs of f106r, as well as a mysterious unstarred paragraph on f106v (paragraph 8, “tshod qokchy…”).
But while these high-level statistics suggest content anomalies, I don’t believe we have yet found a way to determine which specific low-level features drive those high-level statistics. In the case of f106r/v, can we identify the exact paragraph where the dictionary contents typical of f106r ‘flip over’ to the dictionary contents typical of f106v? If this difference is something we can measure, it should be something we can audit, right?
Incidentally, Julian effectively defines his metric as (Number of unique words that appear in both Page X and Page Y) / (Number of unique words in (Page X union Page Y)). I like this because it doesn’t “over-reward” high-frequency words such as qokedy (etc). However, perhaps a really good (and visually simple) tool would be something that allowed you to compare two pages by automatically drawing lines between matching unique words (while also excluding high-frequency words). I suspect that this might help you visually see where content blocks start and end.
Regardless, the other follow-on question here is simply: what recto page originally followed f106v? It of course has to be a recto page: and the ‘nearest’ recto page would seem to be f104r (and by quite some margin). This suggests that in the original nesting order, f106 may well have been followed by f104.
Here again, I think it would be helpful to visualise how the ‘dictionary intersections’ between the two pages work in practice.
Nick, I have to agree with those who don’t think vellum-thickness will necessarily help. It isn’t as if by the early 15thC you have the situation in earlier centuries when manuscripts made by a monastery used its own cows and the same people prepared the vellum or parchment.
Even by the end of the fourteenth century what you see is a parchminers’ network of production and supply which extends widely, and supplemented by a sea-trade not only in paper but also in skins. People could specify that they were to be supplied with so-many quires already finished (rubbed smooth) and cut to quire-size. Spanish animals might be used to supply an Italian university and so on, though in that case, admittedly, the trade was typically in sheepskins.
By the early fifteenth century, monastic production was almost a (pardon the pun) dead letter.
What is really interesting is that when standard sizes were introduced for paper, they closely followed standardised dimensions for membrane quires.
One question would be, how many measurement points would you have to create from an intersection edge? There would have to be a lot so that one could already speak of a barcode in the sequence. The same barcode would correspond to the same cut.
Variable. When the skins are stretched and dried, something like internal tension is created. Would this tension also dissipate evenly through the cut? And what about the humidity to which the edges have been exposed in the time up to now?
But now I assume that it was cut before the inscription. How should it help me now with the order of the lettering?
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Peter M.: my expectation is that it would take a little experimentation to work out which measurements to make (and how many), this is new stuff. 🙂
Nick: I have been thinking about the carbon dating and have been wondering if in the future carbon dating could be done with significantly smaller samples than when the Voynich was dated and at a lower cost. If so then it would seem not unreasonable to date every folio or at least significantly more than 4. Rene has tended to say, in the past, that it wouldn’t make any difference. I have become sceptical of that. I am inclined towards the view that the whole manuscript was written over a relative short time period, say a few years, however if it wasn’t then the carbon dating might pick this up. I also think the aggregation of the different distribution curves could well produce a somewhat different probability distribution, without doing it one simply doesn’t know.
Nick,
As I see it your problem would be to convince the Beinecke to run those tests.
If it were, say, an eleventh-century Cistercian ms, the chances would be good that single skin resulted in a single group of bifolios and in theory the library might agree on that basis. But for the fifteenth century, considering the second- rate vellum, the overall appearance of some sort of pocket-reference, changes of colour between one bifolio and another, changes of scribal hands and so on, it’s not impossible every bifolio in a Voynich quire could be from a different skin from every other, made into quires of whatever size only by the parchminer, or by the stationer, or by the person(s) commissioning or undertaking the work.
Even so, the Beinecke might agree, your hopes fulfilled and my doubts dispelled.
@Nick
Before you go into basic research there.
I had another quick look at the cut edges. It doesn’t look like they were cut with a ruler and sharp knife.
That means there should be a negative to the cut edge.
Print out a few pages in the right size. Cut the edges according to the original and compare.
It would be a kind of puzzle.
Nick,
From memory calcium carbonate was detected in a sample from the VM parchment (McCrone report) and it can be expected that all the pages of the VM were similarly dressed with powdered limestone or something similar (this seems to be part of the standard method of preparing parchment presumably because the calcium carbonate would react and remove acidic substances that might otherwise degrade the parchment. Acidic substances such as those generated by iron gall inks and acidic substances diffusing from the parchment; cellular fluids etc. A quick and easy way to check if the pages were cut from the same prepared hide is to look at the blank areas of the parchment (where there is no possible interference from ink or pigments) with physical methods that could discriminate between different batches of limestone that were used to prepare the hide. The easiest and simplest methods would be a) portable XRF (hand held) to establish the trace element content signature of the limestone. b) hand held Near infra-red FTIR c) hand held UV-Vis spectroscope. From personal experience with these three instruments I know that limestones and other forms of calcium carbonate often show marked differences when examined with these instruments. Yes, there are many other far more sophisticated methods that could be used but these would involve specialist equipment and specialist operators. The Beinecke people might not like the idea of becoming hostage to another group of specialists and might be receptive to work that they can do themselves. Given the apparent reluctance of the Beinecke library to do tests on the VM I think these simple methods with their general applicability to all other parchment manuscripts could generate a mountain of new research and new papers. What’s not for Beinecke to like?
If I were the Beinecke I would jump at the opportunity to establish new methods to investigate parchment manuscripts.
I also think that examining the pages of the VM under ultraviolet light (both long and short wave) may show differences in fluorescence because limestone and other forms of calcium carbonate such as are used to prepare parchment are generally fluorescent and can fluoresce with different colours depending on the trace elements content. Fluorescence can discriminate between limestones from different sources or even different batches from the same source. No special equipment needed and the method should be quick and easy. In fact, you found some multi-spectral scans of the VM that showed strong fluorescence at about 930 nm from memory. You pointed out that this wavelength would be ideal for measuring the differences in the penetration of the pen strokes on the velum by raking illumination and this could differentiate between original writing and writing done at a later date when the velum had aged (hardened).
Multi-spectral scanning of the pages of the VM might also show up differences in the blank areas (unwritten and unpainted) that might show which pages were cut from the same prepared hide.
Nick, I think you might be able to convince the Beinecke that these tests are worth doing because they would have general utility in the investigation of all parchment manuscripts, and not just specific to the VM.
Byron: sorry for my slow response, your comment put forward so many good ideas that I’ve been trying to look at them all. =:-o
As I understand it, limestone was typically used twice in the manufacture of vellum: (1) for the liming (where the skins are washed and then soaked in lime), and then (2) for the pouncing (the skins were often bashed about with chalk to prepare the surface for writing). So I would agree that there seems a pretty high chance that the specific combination of limestones used will leave some kind of physical ‘fingerprint’, though how well / reliably that will present itself will almost certainly be a matter for physical experiment.
It certainly seems true that even though FTIR has previously been used in manuscript studies, what I’d be hoping to use it for in the Voynich Manuscript (i.e. partially reassembling bifolios into their component skins, etc) seems to be quite different from what it’s used for in the literature. So this does indeed look like new ground!
In my opinion, this is definitely a good route forward, thank you so much for suggesting it! I’ll propose it to the Beinecke curators, we’ll see what they say.
Incidentally, do prospectors / geologists use these gadgets for comparing / tracking limestone signatures?
PS: here are some papers that came up during my search:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/glance-to-the-fragmenta-membranea-manuscript-collection-through-ftir-and-radiocarbon-analyses/AF2B4D6A81FF60F9C8BB4500D3C99B43
Kasso, T, Oinonen, M, Mizohata, K, Tahkokallio, J, Heikkilä, T. 2021. Volumes of worth—delimiting the sample size for radiocarbon dating of parchment. Radiocarbon. doi:10.1017/RDC.2021.128.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/volumes-of-worthdelimiting-the-sample-size-for-radiocarbon-dating-of-parchment/80C744E2276C021188B5906C82FF1E29#
Doherty, S, Alexander, MM, Vnouček, J, Newton, J, Collins, MJ. 2021. Measuring the impact of parchment production on skin collagen stable isotope (δ13C and δ15N) values. STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research 7:1:1–12. doi: 10.1080/20548923.2020.1868132.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20548923.2020.1868132
Nick, near infra-red (NIR) Fourier Transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopes are used by both geologists and prospectors and I have one myself. As for fluorescence testing, this was an old technique that seems to have fallen out of use by geologists but it is still used by prospectors and mineralogists. There are some mineralogists who specifically collect fluorescent minerals and you can see the different fluorescent colours of various limestone and calcite samples on their web sites such as https://geology.com/articles/fluorescent-minerals/ There you can see that twenty one of the mineral specimens contain calcite and these fluoresce with different colours depending on the trace elements that they contain. “Most minerals fluoresce a single color. Other minerals have multiple colors of fluorescence. Calcite has been known to fluoresce red, blue, white, pink, green, and orange. Some minerals are known to exhibit multiple colors of fluorescence in a single specimen. These can be banded minerals that exhibit several stages of growth from parent solutions with changing compositions. Many minerals fluoresce one color under shortwave UV light and another color under longwave UV light.” This supports what I said regarding different batches of limestone fluorescing with different colour and also confirms that a single specimen of limestone/marble can contain parts that fluoresce with different colours. In addition I expect that the various acidic organic compounds still present in the parchment will diffuse into the limestone/marble and chemically react to form compounds with distinct UV/Vis/NIR spectra and that the amount of these reactants will vary across a single hide so variations in the spectra should allow the pages cut from a single hide to be re-assembled like a jigsaw. I expect that parchment would still contain fatty acids after preparation and these would eventually diffuse to the surface of the parchment and react with the limestone to form calcium salts of fatty acids (and other compounds). These compounds have distinct UV/Vis/NIR spectra and so should be easy to map on a manuscript. I expect that the acidic substances (fatty acids etc) in the parchment will vary in concentration over the parchment so it should be possible to re-assemble folios cut from a single skin.
I have used and experimented with various spectroscopic techniques for most of my life, including multi and hyper spectral methods. At a young age I was also introduced into the application of raking illumination and I used it extensively years ago when I was recording weathered tombstone inscriptions. I digress to a humorous story. Fifty years ago, late at night I was in a graveyard taking raking illumination photos when a police car screeched to a halt nearby. I bolted with the police in hot pursuit.
Nick, regarding your proposal to use raking illumination to detect differences in the age of inking on a parchment I have a simple and relatively cheap way whereby anyone could do this. I hope that the following will meet the eye of someone who will be inspired to investigate your idea of using raking illumination. I had intended to buy a manuscript and do this investigation myself, but I am up to my ears in other hyperspectral and IR FTIR investigations. And manuscripts are not cheap.
Early digital cameras often did not have what is called a “hot mirror” on the imaging sensor and so were sensitive to both ultraviolet light and to near infra-red light out to about 1,300 nm. That is why the earlier digital cameras often gave strange colours and blurry halos. It is possible to remove the “hot mirror” from later digital cameras but in a few cases, but usually the “hot mirrors” are epoxied onto the sensor (I tried but epoxied mirrors can not be removed. The guys who “remove” the mirrors simply replace the original sensor with a sensor without the “hot mirror”. I presume they get them from the sensor manufacturer). There are web sites that give instructions on how to remove “hot mirrors” and there are specialists who will “remove” a “hot mirror” for a fee. I have both an old digital camera where I was successful in removing the hot mirror, and a Nikon D5 where I had a specialist remove the “hot mirror”. In the case of the VM a digital camera with the “hot mirror” remove could be used with a 930nm bandpass optical filter to measure the depression caused by the pen strokes. Such a filter can be bought from sites such as Edmundoptics.com. Information regarding removal of “hot mirrors” can be found by G—gling “camera remove hot mirror”. The camera can also be used to take some pretty cool infra-red photos. G—gle “infrared photography” to see some pretty cool IR photos. At a pinch you can take IR photos with a normal digital camera (the hot mirrors are not 100% perfect) but long exposure times are needed (x10 to x100) by using a piece of exposed photographic film, or a filter sold to observe partial solar eclipses, to filter out the visible light.
Byron,
On application of those techniques to medieval manuscripts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm-dlRIaRbo
lecture and demonstrations from about 4:50
I’ve been interested in this idea of carefully measuring bifolia thickness and have proposed it to the curatorial and conservation staff at the Beinecke, although they continue to be anxious about wear-and-tear and overhandling (that’s their job, so we can’t really blame them). A non-contact gauge would certainly address at least some of those concerns. It’s possible that that’s something they would allow me to do if I could demonstrate 1) the potential implications of the methodology, and 2) that it is truly non-contact. I agree that a series of very precise measurements MIGHT help establish which bifolia were originally part of the same skin, although I’m not 100% convinced that knowing that much would REALLY help establish the original sequence of bifolias within quires. For reasoning why, see this blogpost about a different Beinecke manuscript: https://manuscriptroadtrip.wordpress.com/2021/02/04/reverse-engineering-the-codex/. In that manuscript, I have found clear evidence of two bifolia that were once part of the same skin but that were used in different quires.
As for DNA, the problem there is that we don’t have nearly enough known samples for comparison, so having DNA profiles of bifolia wouldn’t tell us anything we don’t already know. Someday, when there exists a database of DNA profiles for hundreds of thousands of pieces of parchment of known date/place of origin, then such a comparison MIGHT give us real results. Until then, I just don’t see how it would be useful.
Dear Ms. Lisa Davis F.
I saw a video of the voynich conference today. And so I would like to ask how it is possible that this:
video time 44:48. ( o.t.c.o. o.t.c.c.q )
You read = ctho cthey.
You will never solve such a manuscript. When you can’t read handwritten letters correctly.
I will advise you. And I’ll help. I really like helping everyone.
Get google translate. And write the word = father there.
the translator will translate it for you = father.
(the word = o.t.c.o. is a Czech word) as well as other words in MS 408.)
Otherwise, the meaning of those words in the sentence. It’s this one. Father’s father. Eliška writes about her grandfather there.
father was = John II. von Rosenberg.
grandfather = Oldrich II. von Rosenberg.
Otherwise, as I already wrote to you. So handwriting is beyond your abilities. It is written entirely in the Czech language.
Dear Ms. Lisa Davis F.
I saw a video of the voynich conference today. And so I would like to ask how it is possible that this:
video time 44:48. ( o.t.c.o. o.t.c.c.q )
You read = ctho cthey.
You will never solve such a manuscript. When you can’t read handwritten letters correctly.
I will advise you. And I’ll help. I really like helping everyone.
Get google translate. And write the word = otco
the translator will translate it for you = father.
(the word = o.t.c.o. is a Czech word) as well as other words in MS 408.)
Otherwise, the meaning of those words in the sentence. It’s this one. Father’s father. Eliška writes about her grandfather there.
father was = John II. von Rosenberg.
grandfather = Oldrich II. von Rosenberg.
Otherwise, as I already wrote to you. So handwriting is beyond your abilities. It is written entirely in the Czech language.
otco = father .
Gallows divided. 🙂 Eliška is testing how well you can think.
Here it is a capital letter M. But Eliška divided it into two parts.
t and t.. Are you asking why?
Because they are letters of the same numerical value.
( Jewish substitution number = 4 ) = D,M,T.
Eliška could write the word = o.M.c.o. (so it is written in many places in the manuscript). But here in this case she wrote a small letter = t. And the second letter = t. Into the next word. 🙂
o.M.c.o. or o.t.c.o = are the same words. They always express = father. (in the Czech language).
Thanks Diane,
that presentation by Prof. Beeby was extremely interesting. I was not aware of his work although I have a great interest in the application of all those techniques to studies in many diverse areas of interest to me. My interest in what I would call spectral methods dates back sixty years when, as a teenager, I found that limestone cave formation was both fluorescent and phosphorescent. And both varied with the particular sample so the suggestion was that this variation reflected variations in trace elements in the calcite. I wondered if this trace element signature could be used to investigate the geochemistry of the processes forming the speleothems and maybe even demonstrate changes is climate. This is where the idea of investigating the calcite/limestone used to prepare the VM parchment came from. https://nucc.caves.org.au/Vol5(2)_Mar1968.pdf
I later conducted some experiments but access to equipment was always the problem. In recent years I have been able to buy some equipment and I almost succumbed to buying a Raman microscope a couple of years ago.
I wonder if the Beinecke would loan the VM to Prof. Beeby and his team so they could do a thorough investigation?
Incidentally, Prof. Beeby’s team apparently were able to purchase the HeadWall hyperspectral instrument by means of funding from industrial launderers! https://analytik.co.uk/user-story-durham-university-using-the-unique-capability-of-hyperspectral-imaging-for-chemistry-projects/
“The Antenna Project is about improving the efficiency of the laundry process by using less water, lower temperature and sustainable materials. Being environmentally friendly helps to conserve the planet.”
How is that for a segue? For me this is truly uplifting stuff.
Nick,
ResearchGate.com hosts an interesting research paper “Trace elements in natural azurite pigments found in illuminated manuscript leaves investigated by synchrotron x-ray fluorescence and diffraction mapping. Springer. June 2017Applied Physics A 123(7):484 Louisa Smieska Ruth Mullett Laurent Ferri Arthur R Woll. ”
The azurite was found to contain barium, arsenic, zirconium, antimony and bismuth in addition to copper. The authors stated “Variations of the trace element concentrations in azurite are greater among different manuscript leaves than the variations within each individual leaf, suggesting the possibility that such impurities reflect distinct mineralogical/geologic sources.” This illustrates the point that I made previously that the trace element signatures of the natural minerals use in the VM would probably identify where each mineral was obtained and this information would identify where the text was written, and where the illustrations were painted. There is significant redundancy in this given that the several minerals and limestone are available.
In a similar vein researchers reported in 2016 that a painting by Giotto (Madonna and Child) contained Azurite mixed with the rare bismuth mineral Mixite. Berrie, Barbara H, Leona, Marco and McLaughlin, Richard. Heritage Science (2016). “Unusual pigments found in a painting by Giotto (c. 1266-1337) reveal diversity of materials used by medieval artists”. I mention this to demonstrate how the likely source of the azurite mixed with the rare mineral Mixite that Giotto used in this painting can be narrowed down using freely available information.
The mineral mix of Azurite and Mixite is geochemically likely to be quite rare and this is borne out by the limited number of locations where this mix has been found. The comprehensive mineralogical site Mindat.org lists just five locations where this mineral mix is found. Namely:
Punta Corna – Torre di Ovarda Mines, Lanzo Valleys, Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, Italy
Azurie Baryte and Mixite
Himmelfahrt Mine, Neubulach, Calw, Karlsruhe Region, Baden-Wurtemberg, Germany
Azurite and Mixite. Baryte not present.
Cap Garonne Mine, Le Pradet,Toulon, France
Azurite Baryte and Mixite
Le Legrie, Najac, Villefranch de rouergue, Aveyron, France
Azurite and possibly Mixite. No Baryte.
Zinnwald-Cínovec mining region, Ore Mountains, Eur. “Zinnwald-Cínovec mining region, Ore Mountains, Eur”A historic mining district which has been exploited since the Late Middle Ages. It is split across the borders between Saxony, Germany (Zinnwald) and Bohemia, Czech Republic (Cinovec). Azurite. Baryte and Mixite
The Zinnwald-Cinovec mining region “has been exploited since the Middle Ages” so it is a possible source of the Azurite used by Giotto.
The intent behind my posting the above is to get the attention of researchers who might be inspired to investigate the minerals (particularly the Azurite) used in the VM. These researchers have the equipment to investigate the VM and they likely have the horsepower to convince the Beinecke to give access to the VM.
The Mindat site often lists where samples of the minerals are held. This can be Institutions or private citizens. So, it would generally be fairly straightforward to obtain samples for testing. And these institutions and private collectors are likely to know the history of the mines and are likely to be more than happy to collaborate.
Nick, further to my suggestion of using an IR capable camera with a narrow band 930nm optical filter to measure the depth of indentation of the pen strokes on the VM parchment I noted that Ebay have a range of IR capable cameras (search “infrared converted camera”). The 930nm filters are available from Edmundsoptics or from China (Alibaba etc).
I suspect that a lot of parchments will exhibit some fluorescence in the infra-red as a consequence of the common use of powdered limestone to prepare the surface. If this is so, then it is just a matter of finding where the fluorescent emission bands are and getting an appropriate optical filter. The fluorescent emission bands can be found with a suitable spectroscope. In the case of the VM as you previously noted a wavelength of 930nm would be suitable.
Bryon,
Although we have to distinguish the date of a text’s composition from its inscription in a given ms, and distinguish too between various stages of evolution of drawings show them, the analysis of minerals used as pigments has – as you say – become a valuable tool.
In the case of the Vms, it is clear that some of heavier pigments are later additions (e.g. the original form for the calendar’s drawings did not cover the anthropoform figures in more than line-and-wash), but even so it would be helpful to know more about those heavier additions. Over the past fifteen years I’ve seen studies that traced pigments used in a Spanish
manuscript to mines in the region of Trebizond (Black Sea), and one in a Bohemian manuscript to Crete etc.etc.
I’ve been hoping to find a recent study synthesising such results to create a history of the trade and maybe a ready-reference for manuscript studies – but if one has been written yet, it has escaped my notice.
Nick,
I understand from a stud sheep breeder that DNA test kits for sheep are readily available and these kits are relatively cheap. As with many of the human DNA test kits these sheep DNA tests probably use saliva or other body fluid but I think the sheep test kit could be modified so as to use micro samples taken from parchment.
These sheep kits test for twenty characteristics but each characteristic is probably tested by dozens, perhaps hundreds, of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) to rate each characteristic. For example, in Australia an important genetic characteristic for merino sheep is the fineness (wool fibre diameter) and I expect that this is determined by dozens or more genes, and hundreds or more mutations (variants) in each gene. There are so many potential mutations that each sheep is likely to have a unique SNP finger-print.
I think a few tests, say duplicate tests on each folio and on several folios from the same manuscript, would show if this testing had merit in establishing if folios had been cut from the same hide.
Incidentally, this DNA testing should also be of interest to scholars interested in such things as the origin of sheep breeds. Hopefully this will meet the eye of somebody with knowledge of sheep DNA testing and/or ancient sheep breeds and they might be able to comment and give further guidance.
The DNA profiles would probably indicate the ancient sheep breed and so could give some information as to where the manuscript originated.
Google says in relation to DNA testing of sheep that “The GGP 50K Test is the standard test used by industry to genotype animals.” I note that the GGP 50K sheep test sells for US$25.
All that is required is for somebody skilled in the art of DNA sample preparation to devise a suitable method of taking suitable test samples. I doubt that this would be difficult.
PS The above relates to sheep but would apply equally to cow vellum.