The infuriating Voynich Manuscript (A.K.A. “Beinecke MS 408”, or “the VMs”) contains about 240 pages of curious drawings, incomprehensible diagrams and undecipherable handwriting from five centuries ago. Whether a work of cipher genius or loopy madness, it is hard to deny it is one of those rare cases where the truth is many times stranger than fiction.
Its last four hundred years of history can be squeezed into eight bullet points (though there’s much more detail here if you’re interested):-
- Circa 1600-1610, it was (very probably) owned by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II
- Circa 1610-1620, it was (very probably) owned by Rudolf II’s “Imperial Distiller” Jacobus z Tepenecz
- Circa 1630-1645, it was owned by (otherwise unknown) German Bohemian alchemist Georg Baresch
- Circa 1645-1665, it was owned by Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland, who gave it to Athanasius Kircher
- For the next few centuries, it was (almost certainly) owned by Jesuits & moved around Europe
- In 1912, it was bought (probably for peanuts) by dodgy antiquarian book dealer Wilfrid Voynich
- He bequeathed it to his wife Ethel, who bequeathed it to Anne Nill, who sold it to H. P. Kraus in 1961
- In 1969, Kraus donated it to Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
However, before 1600 things quickly get murky, to the point that the list of “very probably true” things we can say about the Voynich Manuscript’s early art history is embarrassingly short:-
- Radiocarbon tests carried out in 2009 date itsvellum to between 1404 and 1438 with 95% certainty, though as yet there is no cast-iron proof that the text and drawings were added straight away
- The clear, upright handwriting is most often described as being reminiscent of either Carolingian minuscule (800-1200) or its Italian Quattrocento revival form, the “humanist hand” (circa 1400-1500) – the radiocarbon dating points to the latter
- Several of its drawings have parallel hatching (similar to Leonardo da Vinci’s); so it was probably made after 1410 if from Germany, after 1440 if from Florence, or after 1450 if from elsewhere
- Two owners have added writing in [what appear to be] fifteenth century hands; so it was probably made before 1500
- Some marginalia (in the zodiac section) appear to be in Occitan, where the spelling most resembles that known to be from Toulon; so it is probable that the manuscript spent some time in South West France
- There is strong codicological evidence that the current page order and binding order differ from the original i.e. that both the folio (leaf) numbers and quire (group) numbers were added at a later date
- A small number of the manuscript’s plant drawings do seem to depict actual plants (f2v has a water lily, for example), though most do not
It should be pretty clear that we have two quite separate types of historical data here – pre-1500 (codicological) and post-1600 (archival) – with no obvious way of crossing the roughly century-long gap between them.
My opinion (which you can take or leave) is that if we put more palaeographic effort into reading the VMs’ marginalia, we would very probably improve on this unsatisfactory situation. For example, I believe that the top line of f116v says [something like] “por le bon simon s(int)…“, and that this was possibly even written by the original author. Furthermore, I suspect taht some of the ‘chicken scratch’ marginalia may be ink blots saying “Simon”, and that these were added in the middle of the 15th century, near the start of the VMs’ life. But who was this “Simon”?
Putting all the wobbly factuality to one side, this VMs account would be woefully incomplete if it failed to mention the sheer intellectual romance of such a mystery-filled mega-object, the tragi-comedy of all the mad theories surrounding it, let alone the blood-spattered trail of ruined reputations and wasted lives dripping behind this inscrutable “Sphinx”. For centuries, it has acted as a blank screen for numerous people to project their (often somewhat demented) historical / cryptological / novelistic fantasies onto, or if not that then an academic cliff to throw their hard-earned reputation over: yet recently there are signs that a few people are (at long last) starting to look at the VMs with (relatively) clear eyes. (Better late than never, I suppose!)
Arguably the biggest question to face up to is this: when people try to understand the VMs, why does it all go so wrong? I suspect that the confusion arises from the central paradox of the Voynich Manuscript – the way that its text resembles some unknown (perhaps lost, secret, or private) simple language while simultaneously exhibiting many of the properties you might expect to see of a complex ciphertext (i.e. an enciphered text). Any proposed explanation should therefore not only bridge the century-long historical gap, but also demonstrate why the VMs appears both ‘language-y’ and ‘cipher-y’ at the same time.
To illustrate this, here are some practical examples of the way Voynichese letters ‘dance’ to a tricky set of structural rules. Individual letter-shapes frequently occur…
- …as the first letter of a page (e.g. the ornate “gallows” letters, EVA “t”, “k”, “p”, “f”)
- …as the first letter of a paragraph (e.g. EVA “t”, “k”, “p”, “f”)
- …as the first letter of a line (e.g. EVA “s”)
- …as the last letter of a line (e.g. EVA “m” or “am”)
- …as the first letter of a word (e.g. EVA “qo”)
- …as the last letter of a word (e.g. EVA “y” or “dy”)
- …as separated pairs on the top line of a page (e.g. EVA “p” or “f”)
- …as a paired letter (e.g. EVA “ol”, “or”, “al”, “ar”)
- …unrepeated, except in EVA “ee” / “eee” / “ii” / “iii” sets.
…and so on. From a code-breaker’s point of view, this basically rules out Renaissance polyalphabetic ciphers, because they use multiple alphabets (or offsets into alphabets) to destroy the outward signs of internal structure – and what we see here has even more signs of internal structure than normal languages. Yet just to be confusing, some of the letter-shapes resemble shorthand both in their shape and their apparent positioning within words.
So… is ‘Voynichese’ a language, a shorthand, a cipher, or perhaps some carefully-orchestrated jumble of all three? Right now, nobody can say – but perhaps it is this ‘hard-to-pin-down-ness’ that has managed to keep the Voynich’s mystery alive for all this time. Once you can appreciate that Voynichese is almost the opposite of chaotic – that its absence of randomness is possibly its most remarkable aspect – but yet none of the many visible patterns seem to help us decrypt it, you’ll perhaps begin your own journey into its mystery. Enjoy!
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Nick,
Do you recall who gave the opinion that the script was like “Carolingian minuscule or its Quattrocento revival”?
Diane: Barbara Barrett argued for this most forcefully, but many others have pointed out the same thing many times.
OK – thanks – I’ll see if I can find a citation.
It’s very kind of you to answer these questions on posts four years old (and still solid gold). I should name you as technical advisor, I think.
D
Witchcraft?.
A “how to” instruction book. A form of ciphered communication in times of persecution. Fixation on herbs, the female body and astronomy.
Nick – all the facts (and deafening absence of evidence) considered, it is time that the solitary second-hand allegation that Rudolf had ever owned the book really ought to be dropped.
The known provenance of ms Beinecke 408 begins with Tepenec and passes through Baresch-and-Marci to Kircher.
That’s it.
I’ve just enquired of Rene Zandbergen, as the person most likely to be au fait with the latest information, if we had any more evidence for that reported assertion by Mnishovsky thanfor the other two – vis. Bacon’s authorship and the 600 ducats.
Rene seemed to find the question distressing, but from his responses, I gather than the answer is the same for all three of those assertions.
They are things which Marci says Mnishovsky alleged.
No proof of, or supporting evidence for, *any* of the three has ever been found.
The Baconian authorship has generally been discarded, I think it’s fair to say.
Rene Z. himself has argued in various ways to minimise the “600 ducats” – no record of any such amount has ever turned up in any relevant account, just as the manuscript has never been found in any Habsburg inventory.
So – logically – all three are equally unsupported ideas which if maintained may serve only to misdirect research.
I’ll post the same on my blog.
I have solved the mystery of Voynich manuscript.
The cipher code’s are with me.
Amit: why are you so sure that your decryption is the correct decryption?
It is relatively easy to devise a plausible decryption for a few words of the Voynich, extraordinarily hard to sustain one for a whole page, excruciatingly hard to do the same for the entire manuscript.
First of all let me thank you for your wonderful blog. I am no code-breaker and never had the “brains” to even try once to decypher any text or manuscript whatosever. I’ve “landed” into your world because of McCormick notes (Which I think if they’re actually encrypted code messages it wasn’t wrote by him) but it’s not because of those weird notes I am about to comment but about the absolutely remarkable and everestian top cypher called The Voynich Manuscript. I already read dozens of texts and material about it and I still don’t understand how contemporary people still say (even if they say he was not the one) that friar Roger Bacon wrote the manuscript. For God sake’s, the University of Arizona technicians already examined it in 2009 thru RadioCarbon and dated it with 95% probability to the 15th century. Roger Bacon died in 1294… that’s the 13th Century!
Joao: it’s only a few centuries, too small a period to get really upset over… the Voynich theories involving aliens and time travel are the ones that you really have to watch out for. 🙂
Well Nick, those theories I can handle it very well… if I start to read ufos or something similar, I just click that useful X bottom on my upper right corner of my webbrowser. eheheh
Joao: if I did that for every rubbish Voynich theory I see on the Internet, I’d probably wear my browser’s [X] button out. 😉
@Nick: Lol. Well Nick, there is an absolute certainty about the images: They were drawn on the manuscript before the enigmatic writtings. Although, many say the drawings about the flowers doesn’t resemble anything seen in our world, we can suppose the creator of them was very childish while illustrating them. The illustrations are so bad delineated that the author could be picturing a poppy, but the thing seems to go awfully wrong.
Nick can you point out the best non-fiction book about the Voynich? I don’t know if this is correct, but your book at Amazon UK is being sold for a staggering $1,177.83????? (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0955316006/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new). A mistake? What do you think about Gerry Kenedy’s book about it? Thanks
Joao: ah, that is because you are looking at the Amazon US site (.com), whereas I sell it new for £9.95 on the Amazon UK site (.co.uk). Sorry, but that’s just the way that Amazon Marketplace works.
Of course, when I stop selling it, the price will shoot up to silly levels… but for now it’s still affordable. 🙂
PS: if you order direct from Compelling Press instead, I’ll sign your copy & add your name anagrammed at the front: http://www.compellingpress.com/voynich/
@Nick: Thank you for the info. About the high price, it was a typo in the UK ackronym. I meant US. Ok, I am in doubt about buying or your book or Gerry Kenedy’s. I made a bit of research and you two seem to hold the best info about the Manuscript even if both of you go in different directions. Maybe I buy both. You publisher is based in the UK? I usually use Amazon UK because the delivery to Portugal is much cheaper rather than acquire something from the US. Have you read “The Voynich Manuscript: The Unsolved Riddle of an Extraordinary Book Which has Defied Interpretation for Centuries” by gerry Kennedy? If so, it’s any good? Thanks again.
Joao: Kennedy & Churchill’s book is readable and a good all-round reference, but Curse contains fairly cutting-edge research – I’d advise getting both, they are completely different beasts.
Incidentally, the postage to Portugal is lower from Compelling Press than from Amazon Marketplace – I should have increased the postage charge last year but never got round to. Buy it before I change my mind! 😉
Nick: Thanks for wasting your time replying to my questions. Unfortunately you make business with PayPal, an e-commerce payment company I had a grave issue back in 2005. If I am to buy your book will be thru Amazon UK regardless of shipment costs. No autograph for me I guess. 🙁 Anyway, I went to René Zandbergen’s website as you had pointed and after reading some pages I feel I am becoming more and more addicted to know about this, as you say correctly, infuriating manuscript. For me the major key before talking about cyphers or cryptos is the ultimate question: What the purpose of the manuscript? Why coding it? Secret remedies using botanics? If it was written in subsequent years by other persons, there surely have to be some sort of keys to allow the coding to continue. As everybody says… an altogether baffling, enigmatic and perplexing mystery.
Joao: I’ll have a word with Compelling Press’s shipping department (i.e. me) and will see what I can do about adding a dedication. 😉
My Voynich “old-timer” perspective is that anything to do with motives or reasons are best left for discussion over a beer or two. Though fun, such talk is only ever a distraction from the gritty business of working out what actually happened. 🙂
Hi I dont know Latin, but just take a look at the Trotula and compare it with the VMS? I think it must be that, if text relates to drawings… There should be enough keys to start. You can see for example a white lily. They were mixed with honey. So the word honey must be on that page. Etc. Also the Viola Tricolor is clearly visible. What was it used for? Skin, cold, cough, high bloodpressure, indigestion etc. So you can expect these words to be present in some language. Please check trotula connection, I am not smart enough!
Just wanted to post an update. Last night I finished a page on Elizabeth, Mary, their as yet unborn children, john, and jesus, and zachariah. Note: Zachariah, Mary, and John were mentioned by name. Elizabeth and Jesus were derived because of the story. Oh, Herod and his tax was also mentioned by name. Fairly similar to the biblical version, except it named a place of refuge, which I have likely identified.
In addition, I figured out how to read one of the pages that has a column of letters separate from the text. I am super excited about this find and have just begun translation of the page.
Also, I want to let people know, thus far, all the stories seem to be historic, and so far, even the myths have provided data which makes them seem more historic than mythological. Also, although some of the stories I have shared are religious, not all stories I have translated are. Further, not all religious stories are christian. Thus far at least one page is muslim, and at least one more may also be (the translated page is about a famous imam). Further, ancient myths are also present. And finally, there are likely pre christian jewish stories in the book. Currently, one page I have partially completed may reference a fairly famous Jewish king. Only because that page is not complete, I hesitate to state for certain the page is about the Jewish king i believe it references. I shall update on that later.
Hi Nick
Long time since we talked last. Hope you are well. Did you see the report of the analysis by Marcelo Montemurro?
Simon in the margins? Remember Dee saying he say in Prague a book with strange symbols. Well….
http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/a11.htm
Could Simon Baccalaureus Pragensis have written it already in Prague and this had been passed to Baresch?
http://ambushprinting.com/voynich-book/
Just got my reproduction Voynich manuscript at the link above. great for researching the manuscript. it handmade and got the full foldout and everything.
Wow, I really want that reproduction book (I’m a graphic designer and love things like that).
Unfortunately I can’t afford it, but I can afford Nicks book, so I shall be buying one from your website soon. Sounds like a good read, I’m interested in reading more about the manuscript.
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I think, author of the ”voynich manuscript” knew the prime numbers
hakan: errrm… why?
Because, a prime number has no positive divisors. And he (she) also did so.
hakan: ok, but what in the Voynich Manuscript are you looking at that displays things with no positive divisors?
Mr. Pelling, i am working on. I believe, i have found a small clue. But i need more positive evidence. Whichever is most convenient to work in the first alphabet? Currier, EVA, Bennett or even? This is a big problem. Sorry, My English is not enough. Hopefully you can understand what I mean. Thank you.
hakan: I’m most comfortable in EVA, as are most of my Voynich world readers. 🙂
OK, many thanks
Emergency! Brain error! This is a full dependency. What to expect in the final stages of Voynich Dependency Disease?
hakan: apparently there are some online support groups for the untreatably Voyniched. 🙂
This is a challenge to human intelligence.
Anyone previously been formed relationships with prime numbers? But, this relationship does not work
Hi, anyone translate to first line of folio 17v with EVA? Many thanks.
Hi everyone, i just looked at the manuscript in PDF .Find some interesting things .At page 94(book page) is a plant ,actually is coloured so ,that when you scroll up and down fast ,is generated a optic ilussion.Check this out ,and give a feed back please .Sorry for my english:( not really good
Taking a better look on the drawings today ,saw some pics with plants am root drawings ,and actually i think it`s explains there how you can Combine some plants and make new species of plants and trees .And again later in the drawings ,i supose that there are some calender with the right time to plant them .Is just a Theorie ,please give me some Feedback
29 Feb. 1420. Is it meaningful ?
why, i can not sent a message?
Being a member of the SCA, the first thing I noticed was the archer wearing a chaperon and houppelande or waffenfrock (sp). I agree with the carbon dating and disagree with anyone who says the vm was illustrated before the 14th century. Unless the illustrator time travelled to 15th c europe.
From the Bible in English:
Lucifer is Satan
firSt cLue is ana
Read/Listen “The Heavens Open”, available on youtube
She has talked to me from two different wombs/moms (reincarnated) in last couple years, the little girl Anna who dons the shoes with no soles, but yes she has a SOUL.
It’s some kind of inside joke between her and the CREATOR I think I’m just starting to understand.
All the kids now wear the new suits that have shoes without soles.
And I don’t mean the author of the book Anne has talked to me, but the little girl who is a very old soul. No reason to be afraid of any spirits or even demons just tell them to go away out loud & they will. They have to if you tell them.
Also
M can be nn or w
t can be f
p can be b or d
etc etc etc
We are all eternal and have had multiple incarnations.
Once you can learn to forgive everybody else it becomes easy to forgive yourself!
Hi Nick.
I have a question that keeps going round my head and you or Rene Zandberger or any other scholar may know for sure.
Two years ago or so I was reading “Fuentes para Paleografía Latina” written by Professor Juan Jose Marcos Garcia guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/palefuen.html
I asked him if he had heard about the Voynich MS but he had not. And he also said he recognized a humanist hand behind the MS. However, when I read his work on Paleographic Latin Fonts again (just few days ago)and I saw something related to the humanist handwriting. This new style did really start being used at the end of the fourteenth century and/or at the beginning of the fifteenth cent. But what is really interesting here is its use. What was it used for? According to Prof. Marcos Garcia, this humanist style was kept just for exquisite bibliophiles (sic). Therefore manuscripts in humanist handwriting were only transcriptions from classic works. Neither doctors nor lawyers would have used humanist writing if they were to publish their findings. The Gothic was still being used by that time. I mean humanist writing did not re-place the Gothic from its birth, a Caroline revival.
So If the VMS is in humanist handwriting, does this not mean that the document was made on purpose for someone? A bibliophile? If so, for whom?
As I often say, it is just an idea, not a theory.
Thanks. 🙂
Carmen: the issue of Voynichese’s palaeographic hand isn’t quite as clear-cut as is often thought. Humanist handwriting was itself a revival of an earlier hand – Carolingian minuscule (IIRC), from several centuries earlier – and before the vellum radiocarbon dating this was sometimes held up as being evidence consistent with a much earlier date for the Voynich Manuscript. This implies:-
* The VMs might be an intentional humanist hand (i.e. it’s deliberately supposed to look like that)
* The VMs might be an unintentional humanist hand (i.e. the scribe had been trained to write with a humanist hand, and that’s just how it came out)
* The VMs might be intended to resemble a much older (Carolingian minuscule) document
It is easy to adduce evidence to support all three positions… but much harder to eliminate any of them. What do you think?
I don’t have an answer for that question. The more I read the less I know. And sorry to say I have more questions than suggestions. But If someone asks me what my hypothesis is, well, I think the answer is there, in front of us and the author must be laughing at our blindness. We are too near the picture to see the whole portrait.
Now what I think about the three main points you have mentioned :
* The VMs might be an intentional humanist hand (i.e. it’s deliberately supposed to look like that)
1.- Why was the scribe going to use a completely new style, not even used by Dante, Petrarch or G. Boccaccio? These three humanist writers were aware of this revival. They loathed the baroque Gothic style and defended (as a part of this coming back to the classic world ) a renewal inside culture.
And what’s more, they died before the Voynich was written. Do you see what I mean? If these three authors did not even use it, why was the scribe going to use it? Did he think he was a genius? 🙂
* The VMs might be an unintentional humanist hand (i.e. the scribe had been trained to write with a humanist hand, and that’s just how it came out)
Unintentional… hhmm… I guess there is much more intention than what we really think of. The VMs is intentional on every page and behind most ducti there is an intentional mind writing an intentional text.=-O
* The VMs might be intended to resemble a much older (Carolingian minuscule) document.
(Carolingian, and not Caroline as I said. Sorry, my native language fault).
That’s a very interesting idea because it agrees with the use of humanist handwriting at that time. He may want to resemble an expert scholar, what does he do then? He designs a very complicated manuscript in humanist writing devised to…whatever. If using the humanist style was seen as an exclusive fashion for wise men, he might have made of the manuscript his way of gaining popularity.
En fin…(sighing in Spanish)
Words, words, words… as Hamlet would say.
Thanks for reading. Gracias.
You may find my note about abomasum in f116v to be of interest.
http://athenaea.net/index.php?id=53
Thank you for your continuous VM research and popularization effort. Regards!
Anton: interesting! Though I have to say that I’m far less confident than you are that we can read those three letters reliably from the scan – there seems to be a fold in the vellum running through, and the first letter looks (to my eye) closer to an interrupted ‘P’ character than to an ‘L’. But it’s definitely something that should be examined closer – it might be that Rene Zandbergen has access to better scans of that section from the Austrian documentary, I’ll ask him, see what he says. 🙂
Hello,
I have already submitted my research to Beinecke’s library.
My name is Sukhwant Singh and for the past 2 months I have extensively researched in depth on MS-408 better known as the Voynich manuscript.
I hope, my explanation will lead to resolving the Voynich manuscript once and for all.
The origins of the VM ( Voynich Manuscript ) lies in 6000 miles east from its current location. The place is in North Eastern Sindh region which is a part of Pakistan right now. The explanation in the VM is copied from an even older original book written in “Brahmi” language about ( 300-400 B.C ). The knowledge and editions of the books were passed through generations of merchants( Known as Mahajan’s with Vedic knowledge ) in ancient Indus valley civilization which also gave the name “Sindhustan”, the Sindh region in particular which was divided into India and Pakistan in 1947.
The book is divided into 4 parts as mentioned by the author( details below ) written in early 15th century as that’s the time period when Khojki was more prominent.
The book was taken by the “Holy” man from town to town and based on the knowledge he had( He was the go to guy and first person to approach in case of issues, either injury or some depression, bad dreams, marriage and business, Hex etc. ) , and the facts he collected from the inhabitants/customer. This man would then recommend to-do things. The book also deals with what kind of women she is based on the type of hair she has, what type of clothes she wears, what to expect from the second wife of the husband etc. What to do if someone has Hex on you and how to figure it out and recommendations for getting rid of the Hex.
The book is not written for others to read and is usually passed within the family from Father to Son or someone more capable whom the Mahajan has taught and guided himself.
Some background…..
When the Arab conquered the Sindh region in about early 700 ADs and moved more towards the east they started eliminating learned Sindhi scholars and Holy men, who enjoyed rich merchant heritage and were established in the region. With passage of time, “Urdu” language was forced in the region and subsequently became an official language and in current times known as Sindhi language (Descendent language of Landa script) which is currently written in Urdu script.
In early 15th century Khojki language was used by many to write prayer hyms and guidance songs. The extended use of this script and the underlining Landa script also indicate that the author didn’t revise his book into the periods urdu language but made it’s knowledge more hidden by superimposing Khwaja Khoji Vowel marks on top of Brahmi languages ( K, Ki, Ku, Kuu, Kay, Kaay, Ku, Kho, KHU, KHUU Gutturals ( Guttural).
Brahmi language is considered as the main language based on which current northern India languages are based on. It itself is part of Indo-European set of language whose base is Sanskrit in general. This timeline spans 1000’s of years from the period of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.
This VM manuscript is a very important book and will be another key to bind “Roma” people in Europe with their Sindh region ancestry. Most likely this book was taken along with the movement of Sindh’s migrant population 100’s of years ago( as slaves by Arab rulers ) and was preserved in good condition because the knowledge it would provide and likely the person owning it wanted to one day use it to establish the same respect the merchants of the Sindh region held. “Roma” migration from Sindh region resulted in scores of people being moved as slaves into Turkey and then current Europe.
There has been plenty of scientific tests conducted on the origins of Roma people. The book landed from a Roma person into the hands of Italian rulers as the poor Roma people faced many atrocities in Europe and many times were eliminated by the countries in which they tried to make their settlements.
The main issue to decipher the VM had to do with the place where it ended first and then later in America. Considering the “Nasal” phonetic words particular to “Landa” language (Ancestor language of Khudabadi, Mahajani, Gurmukhi, Khojki, Sindhi languages) are not spoken in Europe and for that matter in America.
English does not have these sounds at all. So for that matter it becomes next to impossible to decipher it and all the false theories it has generated, including its origins.
In America, it being predominantly English speaking world it adds to the problem where from ages researchers started emphasizing that the VM is some sort of miniscule Roman language or some false code system( It is not ).
That miscategorization has hindered the deciphering of the language for such a long time.
I have deciphered the alphabet to what I think it is( As I originally belong to Punjab region and I am aware of the cursive writings from the region as well as phonetics ).
The alphabet contains 4 different character set from languages spoken in same way but written in different form. There was no consistency of a set language in the region.
The merchants/judicial holy Sindhu men started using 3,4 languages mix in order to hide the contents( depending on the knowledge of the person and area he travelled ). This was done to protect business knowhow and maintain superiority at that time. The languages used by the merchants of North western Multan and Sindh were “Multani” and “Landa/Khudabadi/Mahajani” apart from other regional dialects and written words. It was what the Sindhu Mahajan’s( Merchants ) used to do. This kind of book and knowledge was in demand as people relied on auspicious moon cycles and it was part of daily life and it is still in many parts of the world.
Day and night are divided into 15 “Mahurats” or auspicious times, Year is divided in 12 months based on astrological signs ( Not January February etc.. ) The day and night each were divided into 8 parts each based on Sanskrit astrology ( pages 67v and 69v clearly depicts the division of 8 parts segments around the sun and moon )
The times, days, years were not depicted as in Roman date forms, nor did they had the same timeline of 24 hours. This book is thus written with calculating moon cycles and the positions of 9 planets and the Vedic astrological knowledge is gathered from the original Brahmi book ( 300-400 BC or even earlier ).
Some details of which are recorded in India’s archeological preservations.
The characters are also intermingled from dialects in the region but they sound and mean the same example
CH, TA, JJH, K, KH are written in mixed scripts, which makes it difficult.
The Brahmi scipts usage from which the MS 408 book was copied adds to more complexity, but the words used are common short 2-3 characters found in recent Devanagari language. This book probably had 1-2 readers( at that time, Mahajan himself and probably his son or someone else he took along on his business in various towns There were other people who had similar books but probably not as detailed as this one. Holy men were killed by Arab rulers and their books were burned so that Arab rule could be established in force and almost everyone follow one language, which was Urdu ( like Persian script ). This book most likely was hidden by the author and usually people like him belonged to higher castes who had good people connections as they were respected for their knowledge and guidance. The so called lower caste people were made slave labor and soldiers to fight in wars. It is likely that this book’s author was killed and as this book was hidden was later picked by someone else and taken along as an important document to be used later. The problem occurred to decipher it at that time too, so the Roma person kept for generations hidden in the belongings until it ended in front of some Italian king’s subject.
The languages used in MS 408 are ( Yes, there are multiple languages, but their pronunciations are almost same ).
Landa, Khojki and Brahmi are used throughout the book.
1. Landa ( Which later became Sindhi, Khudabadi, Khojki )
2. Brahmi ( 300- 400 B.C ) Which gives a reason to believe that MS-408 is copied from an original book
3. Multani
4. Mahajani
5. Khojki
6. Gurmukhi which is also a descendent of Landa script ( Words which cuts at the end and sounds individual standing separately ). Gurmukhi usage is very minimal, which tells that the book was written prior to the era in which the Gurmukhi was main stream in Punjab region around 1430 AD.
The last page 116V is written by someone else other than the original writer as it contains characters from Sarada and JaunSari scripts from mountainous region of Southwestern Kashmir as those few lines are similar to later on what became Kashmiri Dialect and scripted language.
First paragraph from 1r goes like this.
“Many 100’s of years desire tradition and as requested by the cultivator from his pouring knowledge in under increasing guidance
To accomplish it this promise of the interrogation of field subjects and about those manner for eating about their power learning from oneself condition about
under ongoing sufferings about stuck in those conditions which has already affected them learning from them in self-help either called for taking care during taking care or
When called by the messenger one about trees provided information in parts and about desire….”
you tube 17x7epchEQY
One old blank pages may have been written in the modern era? Vellum pages are old, ok, but ink may be new ? E. L. Voynich was a writer. It is a suspected case. Perhaps the key in her books. The Gadfly?
If this book is real, the author took into account the possibility that the cipher never be solved? The disappearance of truth. Who takes this risk?
Dear Hakan
Though I don’t have my copy of the ‘Nabatean Agriculture’ by me, as I recall them, Ibn Wahshiyya’s introductory remarks are very like the text you offer for folio 1r’s first paragraph.
Links between MS Beinecke 408 and that book, or Nabateans more generally, has been suggested by various people over the years.
Perhaps you might find it useful to obtain a copy of that work.
What everyone hopes for, I think, is a consistent and comprehensible parallel text. Good luck.
Nick, here’s something interesting.
It’s well known that there aren’t many repeated sequences of three or more words in the VM. On the other hand there are quite a few repeated two-word sequences.
The following plots show all word pairs and triplets that occur more than once in the text:
http://www.voynichese.com/sample/word-pairs.png
http://www.voynichese.com/sample/word-triplets.png
What i find surprising is not the apparently high number of recurring word pairs, but the comparatively low recurrence of word triplets. As a matter of probability alone, it would be justified to see more triplets in some of the folios.
Do you have any thoughts on this? I’ve not performed a comparative analysis with other languages yet, but this seems off.
A lot of Voynich investigator says those are ”The Pleiades (süreyya) for stars at page f68r3. I think they might be anything else
Hello Nick!
I need your help. You closely follow everything said about VM. Someone has already made statistics EVA letter “f”? I once saw a list of all the words (I think) the manuscript made by someone, unfortunately I do not remember by whom. Help me, please.
Best regards
Ruby
Ruby: what do you want to find out? There are quite a few interesting websites that let you search for Voynichese word-patterns, most recently (and arguably most prettily) http://www.voynichese.com/
If you create a new query there and click on EVA f, it will graphically show you where all the 499 instances of it are (click on the “exact match” icon to see the 8 places where “f” is a complete word), etc.
I watched the first 20 botanical pages and I saw that the words with “f” are always at the first line of a paragraph, rarely repeat. Someone has already offered an explanation? Thank you for your link, I hope it will go faster.
Best regards
Ruby
Has anyone tried producing a data transcript of the text replacing each char for a digital symbol and number?
It looks to me to be an alchemist cook book or remedies with Astrological charts. A cross between Latin.French and Cyrillic. But That is just from a glancing view. The drawings certainly look French to me in style. They remind me of an early Tarot deck I once saw.
If you had more experience in linguistics, Medieval Studies and ancient writing systems, you could see, like me, that the Voynich Manuscript and the Rohonc Codex are asemic writing hoaxes, like BS MS 73525. The key to all of them are the statistics on the signs and their sequences. Natural languages and asemic speech and writing work in certain ways which is perceptible to computers as well as trained linguists. And then the illustrations are give-aways, if you know medieval studies. It’s not surprising that so many people take these two seriously because linguistics is very poorly understood outside of its Academic discipline. The popular concept that Voynich’s symbols are a code is out of touch with what we have from antiquity regarding the creation of texts, encoded or otherwise.
I have a BA in Linguistics and am an independent scholar of the linguistics of logographic writing systems, though I study other topics as well.
I still hope to use a font I invented to approximate all the symbols in the codex. Or maybe just a few pages or so. There also needs to be an online machine-readable version of the Voynich. But that would just take a month or two worth of solid work hours, and is not very promising in my eyes.
There is currently no machine-readable free online Indus Valley Corpus, and it is much smaller than the Voynich corpus.
machine transcriptions of the Voynich are available if you look.
From what I have read of the VM it makes me think of a (possibly apprentice) physician’s almanac. In the middle ages I believe astronomy played an important roll in medicine, with there being a ‘right time’ to perform particular procedures.
To hakan; There was a Lunar Eclipse on February 20, 1420.
John, you really should try to meet Mr.Santacoloma. You’d get on like twin brothers, I expect.
Hi Rick. Thanks for your answer. it is interesting, but I interest 29 febr. 1420 not 20 febr. if it was 29 febr 1420, It would be meaningfulI for me. Thanks…
I just found out about the Voynich Manuscript yesterday, and as a mystery buff, downloaded the pdf version, I quickly glanced through it and found from page 69 onwards with the little lady circles were in fact a resemblance of the Zodiac symbols, I also recognise grafting when I see it, any ways like I said I have only glanced through it and one weekend I will sit down and glance through it properly have fun ppl
The precision of the writing in circles is really accurate, at least I couldn’t duplicate it. I just looked up who invented the compass and found that Galileo happened to invent a modern one in 1597 (?)
I forgot to say Miriam Green was the source on Ask.
Of the month name forms which seem to be shown (this list shows my best guesses) in the Voynich Manuscript, the following are what seem to be the closest examples of matches from continental Europe and Britain I have yet found, mostly from Books of Hours calendars of the Fifteenth Century (and before)(dates & locations of authorship/construction are approximate – furnished by present owners)(Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan entries show dates) and are in italics:
Mars – many examples in different Books of Hours – (Mars) – workshop of Rohan Master (Paris) 1415-1420; workshop of Baucicaut Master (Paris) 1483-1515; (Mars) – Book of Hours of Carlos V, workshop of Jean Poyer(?)(Paris) 1483-1515); (Mars) – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300. The name Mars is still used today.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Mars) -1393, 1395, circa 1500
Abril/Aberil/Avril/Averil(?) (not sure of spelling of this one) – (Abril) – many early Catalan or Spanish examples – still used today. (Apuril) –Book of Hours, Use of Orleans, unknown author, circa 1490; (Apuril) – Book of Hours, use of Rouen, unknown painter (France) 1475 – 1500; (Auril/Avril) – common forms during the Fifteenth Century.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Aperil) – circa 1425; (Aueril) – circa 1400
May – many French examples, some with a mark over the y, some without – just a few are: – (May) – Rohan Master (Paris) circa 1415 -1425; workshop of Bedford Master (Paris) 1440-1450; follower of Eggerton Master (Paris) 1405-1420; Book of Hours of Carlos V, workshop of Jean Poyer(?) (Paris) 1483-1515; shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (May) – circa 1325, 1375, 1385 – 1425?, 1393, circa 1400, circa 1500
Jong/Joing/Yong/Yoing (?) – (Jong/Joing?) – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300; (Juing) – was a common French form in the Fifteenth Century).
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Juny) – circa 1400?, 1420; (Iuny) – 1400 – 1440?, 1440; (Ione) – 1400 -1540?; also (Jone) – no quotation. The MED also gives Old French month names (Juing), (Joing) and (Jon). None of these are very close matches.
Jollet (??)(very hard to read – not sure of what it says) – (Jullet) – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300; (Jullet) – Book of hours, use of Rouen, Master François (France) 1475 -1500; (Jullet) – Book of Hours, use of Paris, unknown painter, (France – Tours?) circa 1500; (Juillet) – Rohan Master (Paris) 1420 -1425 – this form rather common. No actual use of Jollet spelling found yet. Might the VMS word read (Julius) –which is a common Latin and OF form found in many books of hours (– doubtful)?
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Juille) & (Julius) – no quotation for either. MED give OF forms Julie and Julius.
Augst – Book of Hours in Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University, unknown author (Flanders & Amiens (?)) 1450-1460.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Augst) – circa 1393.
Septeb- – (w/line over 2nd e and dash (?) at the end) – (Septeb’) – w/line over 2nd e and squiggle or apostrophe above the b – Maastricht Book of Hours, unknown painter (Liege?) 1300 – 1325; (Septemb’) – w/apostrophe at end – Case Book of Hours, Kelvin Smith Library Case Western Reserve University, unknown author (Flanders & Amiens) 1450-1460; (Septebre) – w/line over 2nd e – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300, (Septebre) – w/line over second e – Book of Hours, Eggerton Master & others (Paris) 1405 -1410; (Septebrie) – w/line over 2nd e – Murthly Book of Hours, unknown author (Paris) 1280; (Septebre) – w/line over 2nd e – Book of Hours of Carlos V, workshop of Jean Poyer (?)(Paris) 1483-1515; (Septembre) – Petit Heures of Jean de France, Duc du Berry (Jean Le Noir from 1372, Jacquemart de Hesdin 1385-1390, Limbourg brothers (Herman, Jean Paul) 1412-1416; (Septembre) -– Rohan Master (Paris) circa 1415 -1425; (Septebre) – w/line over 2nd e – Book of Hours, use of Rouen, Master François (France) 1475 -1500; (Septebre) – w/line over second e – Heures de Notre Dame, use of Troyes & Sens, unknown painter, (France) circa1470.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Septembre) – circa 1121, circa 1126, circa 1300, circa 1300 – 1325, circa 1393, circa 1398, circa 1400, 1460, circa 1500; (Septenbre) – circa 1400; (Septembr) – circa 1465 – 1466? MED also gives OE and OF forms of (Septembre) and (Septenbre).
Octebre (w/line over 1st e) – (Octembre) – Petit Heures of Jean de France, Duc du Berry, 5 painters – Jean Le Noir from 1372, Jacquemart de Hesdin 1385-1390 and Limbourg brothers (Herman, Jean Paul) 1412-1416; (Octembre) – Book of Hours, Eggerton Master & others (Paris) 1405 -1410; (Octembre) – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – none found close to VMS word except (Octobre) which isn’t too close.
Nouebre/Noueb(r)us(?)(not clearly written) w/line over 1st e – (Nouebre) – w/line over first e – Book of Hours, Eggerton Master,& others (Paris) 1405 -1410; (Nouebre) – w/line over 1st e – Book of Hours, use of Rouen, Master François (France) 1475 -1500; (Nouebre) – w/line over 1st e – Heures de Notre Dame, use of Troyes & Sens, unknown painter, (France) circa1470. (Nouembre) – workshop of Bedford Master (Paris) 1440-1450; unknown author (Paris) 1415-1420; Petit Heures of Jean de France, Duc du Berry (Jean Le Noir from 1372, Jacquemart de Hesdin 1385-1390, Limbourg brothers (Herman, Jean Paul) 1412-1416; Book of Hours of Carlos V, workshop of Jean Poyer(?)(Paris) 1483-1515; (Nouembre) – – Rohan Master (Paris) circa 1415 -1425; (Nouembre) – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300; (Noueb’) – w/line over 1st e and squiggle or apostrophe above the b – Maastricht Book of Hours, unknown painter (Liege?) 1300 – 1325’
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Novembre) – commonly found.
Decembre(??) (not clearly written, at all)– (Decembre) – Rohan Master (Paris) circa 1415 -1425; (Decembre) -follower of Eggerton Master (Paris) 1410; Petit Heures of Jean de France, Duc du Berry (5 people – Jean Le Noir from 1372, Jacquemart de Hesdin 1385-1390, Limbourg brothers (Herman, Jean Paul) 1412-1416; (Decembre) – Book of Hours of Carlos V, unknown author (Paris) 1483-1515; (Decembre) – Book of Hours of Carlos V, workshop of Jean Poyer(?)(Paris) 1483-1515; (Decembre) – shown on a ring of the Geared Astrolabe in the Science Museum, London, probably made in Picardy around 1300; (Decemb’) – w/line over 2nd e and squiggle or apostrophe above the b – Maastricht Book of Hours, unknown painter (Liege?) 1300 – 1325; Decebre) – w/line over 2nd e – Book of Hours, use of Rouen, Master François (France) 1475 -1500; (Decembre) – w/line over second e – Heures de Notre Dame, use of Troyes & Sens, unknown painter, (France) circa1470.
Middle English Dictionary, U of Michigan – (Decembre) – commonly found.
*Note – The various Books of Hours calendar pages can be found on the internet & a really nice image of the Geared Astrolabe can be seen at:
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/galileopalazzostrozzi/object/AnonymousFrenchGearedAstrolabeZoom.html
Also, I think the drawings with nebuly (wavy and bulbed) lines found on many pages of the VMS match in pattern with ones found on several pages found in the Harley MS 4431, Cité des Dames, written by Christine de Pizan (or Pisan) (b. Venice 1364 – d. Paris c. 1430) and decorated by the Master of the Cité des Dames, active in Paris in the period 1400-1415 and the Bedford Master (perhaps “Haincelin of Hagenau” in Alsace) who was recorded in Paris between 1403 and 1424. Christine de Pizan lived most of her life in Paris. Of the pair of painters, the Master of the Cité des Dames seems to be the one who used the distinctive pattern in other works. I wonder if it is a datable or regionally identifiable pattern/motif used by other artists of the time? I could find no other Book of Hours artists who seem to have used it.
I added the corresponding possibly matching Middle English month names shown in the University of Michigan’s wonderful online Middle English Dictionary. I will add more as I find or receive them.
You may use any of this in any way you wish. I’d like to hear about any pertinent items others may discover.
Don, just btw, the term ‘nebuly’ – cloud-like, is only used in heraldry. The same meaning, exactly, is in the term which came to be used in European art history books, though they adopted the German version: ‘wolkenband’, in much the same way they adopted the Italian ‘chiaroscuro’ – just to denote a technique. In fact the motif comes into western art very early, and from the east where it remained conventional. Another nice example is in the Rohan hours, but there are literally thousands of examples and at least a dozen distinct varieties of the “cloud-band” line, even just in the Latin works. It doesn’t date our manuscript’s use of the wiggly line, unfortunately. For that we have to go rather deeper. What you have done – and very well – is show how popular the motif was in French manuscript art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Very true.
Cheers.
Don’t know what’s meant by nebuly above, but if you mean the pattern representing heavens, I wrote a post on that a week ago: http://athenaea.net/index.php?id=59
Anton,
The pattern was inherited by the fifteenth-century artists who used it, and they use it to mean the same as it always had: the limit of the human domain. As a rule it means that between the heavens of men, and that of the divine, but not invariably. I’ve treated it before in my blogs, but the main point is that it isn’t a peculiarly fifteenth-century motif, and most certainly not one either native to Europe or exclusive to it. It’s very well known in the history of art.
Diane:
Thanks for the explanation! I replied to your comment in my blog.
The example of a nebuly line can be seen in Wikipedia under lines of division as part of heraldry.
The possible origination of it’s discussion dates from Ellie Velinska’s comparison of VMs f68v3 with the Oresme illustration know as BNF Francais 565. Her description of the inner sphere, “surrounded by stars on blue background in a space with air/clouds pattern on the edge.”
With my prior investigations into heraldry, I saw this as a boundary as a nebuly line. And it would seem that the specific use of a nebuly line in both illustrations is a significant factor in the comparison Even though a wavy line or some other substitution could have been used in its place, that would, in my opinion, significantly weaken the comparison.
So, besides f68v3, the VMs shows the clear use of regular nebuly lines repeatedly in the illustrations of Quire 13: f75r, f75v, f79r, f79v, f80v and f82r. And also relating to certain plant leaves in f35v, f41v and f50r. And in the Rosettes. The question then becomes which medival artists show a preference for the use of nebuly lines. Who drew BNF Francais 565 and when, exactly? Christine de Pizan in Harley 4431 used some rather similar nebuly lines, but in Bodmer 49 has used wavy lines in comparative illustrations. Other artists present divine manifestation in other ways.
The present inquiry, which Don and I support, is to gather data and follow the nebuly line as far as possible.
Anton,
Thank you.
Carmen: it’s a widely repeated ‘Internet fact’ that the Voynich Manuscript is in humanist handwriting, but the reality is much subtler and harder to parse, let alone to digest. 🙁
As I understand it, the right way to phrase it is something like this: that the formation of Voynichese letters is consistent with their having been written by a scribe trained to write in a formal humanist hand. As such, its set of letter shapes is not itself the kind of beautiful humanist font that was (not long after) immortalised in Italic print shapes: but, rather, the internal structure of its letter formation is consistent with the internal structure of humanist handwriting of that generation.
If you accept this as a starting point, then the logical follow-on inference is that the Voynich Manuscript was almost certainly written by a professional scribe on behalf of someone else. And because humanist writing was primarily an urban, high-culture affair, it is also probable that the Voynich Manuscript was made in a city with an affluent urban elite, because that is where the overwhelming majority of formal humanist writing was done. It is also likely, I think, that the Voynich Manuscript’s scribe(s) was/were young (and hence affordable for this kind of work), rather than older and expensive.
However, I’m sorry to say that this still doesn’t tell us much about why the document was made, or for what purpose.
Nick, this comment on the handwriting is fascinating. Is there a formal report somewhere?
Diane: it’s a summary of a larger post I’ve been writing for a while, but which is proving somewhat tricky to rein in. 😮
You know, speaking of editing and such. I’ve always thought that if one had the time etc., it would be marvellous to have a published anthology in 3 vols (vol 2 re pictorial text; vol 3 for written part and cipher efforts; the first couldn’t make a volume yet – it would be the one on materials.)
Then I could read that article by Barbara Barrett, and a few from Cryptologia which are now of historic interest, though not enough to be worth my taking out a subscription so far.
Diane: I think Vol 4 (the decryption) would be the one most people would want to spend any actual money on. 😉
😀
you know, about the script. I think it has been artificially “humanised” – made to fit into one narrow band, as the best humanist round bookhand did, but I reckon it didn’t look like that originally. In fact, I would like to see what happened if the “gamma” looking one were sat up on the line, and the vertical “8” dropped a bit. That sort of thing.
My problem is that I cannot easily find a machine readable Voynich text with original Voynich characters. I would like to scan its pages with my eyes as well as search for strings, if only I could have it in, say, a zoomable black and white MSWord document. It’s a pity that the transcribed texts cannot convey to me what I expect to see, nor can the high resolution photographic images of the pages of the manuscript. So, why do we not go back to basics and try figuring out the meaning of the script as it is written? Why should we try learning Russian using various transcriptions instead of the authentic Cyrillic alphabet of that language?
Thomas: you can just download all the scans from the Beinecke website.
With the Voynich Manuscript, a good way to go back to basics is to try to write the letters yourself, trying hard to match the specific directional flow of each stroke in the original. Using a fountain pen with a narrow italic nib should give you a reasonable sense of the difficulty involved in writing Voynichese fast and reliably with a quill. Or you can teach yourself to use a quill and make your own ink, if you want to be properly authentic. 😉
Diane: I’m really not so sure. I have little doubt that what we see is not so much “Voynichese 1.0” as “Voynichese 6.1 SP2”. Even something as simple as the “4”-shape stands apart from the rest of the letters: while the gallows family seem to have its own physical logic, also quite apart from the rest of the Voynich alphabet. And so forth. 🙂
Yes, the gallows clearly suggest sequential logic: two “legs” + two “ears” (t), two legs + one ear (k), two ears + one leg (p), one ear + one leg (f). As if the script inventor was in need of four additional characters and designed them thus.
Anton: you could add the ar/or/al/ol family, and the aiv/aiiv/aiiiv/air/aiir/aiiir family, and the dual-use 9- / -9 shape… and before long you’ve got yourself pretty much an entire alphabet. 🙂
‘gamma’ lifted up the line (stave?) becomes a ‘d’.
Nick: the scans are not machine readable unless one OCR-s them with suitable program. Is there somewhere such an OCR? What I have in mind is viewing, machine searching or manipulating by highlighting, ordering, replacing etc. the content of, the Voynich script in a clean, black and white true Voynich font document format. I know that such font versions exist and are available.
I accept the historical need for the early transcriptions of the Voynich script into various symbols other than Voynich characters. But I don’t see why we should use such transcriptions in our computer age. I am unskilled in creating the proposed form. The people who are skilled in this apparently did not make it available so far. The Voynich researchers tend to use a funnily encoded Voynich script of kokedy-okedy-dot-dot form. This is even funnier when we think about weather the original Voynich is an encoded text or natural language. Well, amusingly, the okedy-kokedy version of it is certainly an encoded version. But why? Why encoding something before decoding it straight from its plain form?
I see laziness, as an answer. There is no easily or readily available proper SI symbol for microfarad or ohm on most PC-s, which is why people started arbitrarily corrupt these to UF or R, even in academic fields.
One disadvantage of the Latin character transcriptions for the Voynich script is that reading them, they straightaway bias the mind. The mind need not be made to make unnecessary loopy rounds in its workings. A music learner who is told to beat the steady rhythm with his foot in order to adjust his playing to that rhythm, is precisely doing just this loopy thing. First, his mind tells his foot to beat, and then his foot tells his mind that it has beaten OK, and only then the mind tells him to play? What nonsense. The mind should tell straight to him to play in rhythm, omitting the totally unnecessary foot thing.
If there was a Voynich with proper Voynich characters in electronic format, and a reasonably sophisticated at that, then wonderful new opportunities could open. Here, in sophistication I mean adjustable text blocks that mirror the original to the best possible degree. Or, moveable text blocks for matching, comparison, or merging for trying to gain insight in every inventive or fanciful manner. Even with variations for individual characters could be incorporated, to visualise vertical rivers of spaces. Another possibility is to create an equally spaced set of the proper Voynich characters, to view and scan vertical patterns in hope of any new and meaningful revelation.
My ideas may come across as odd or naive but we may be surprised if one day somebody, even an autistic person, notices something significant this way.
Thomas: you seem to have misunderstood the history, purpose and scope of the various EVA interlinear transcriptions. They are essentially stroke transcriptions, that are designed to copy what is on the page in a reasonably consistent manner such that it can be transformed by the theorizing researcher into the specific glyph transcription they are testing. So, you might reasonably transform the EVA ‘ch’ into a single token, or even EVA ‘ckh’ into a single token: the important thing is that EVA does not tell you which glyph transcription is right (because it doesn’t know).
Having said that, EVA does have a few shortcomings, but that’s another story entirely. =:-o
Nick: You are right. I know little of these details. I only know that a finite number of Voynich characters had been identified, which comprise the Voynich alphabet. These are now in the available electronic fonts.
I did not know of the nuances or the implied ambiguities. Still, these could be handled with suitable markings or differentiation on my planned format.
My simple plan is to have an electronic Voynich Manuscript at my hand, and seemingly I will have to work for it. Either I will have to type it for myself, copying from the scans or transforming the transcripts back to Voynich-looking text. No one will shell for me the sacks of peanuts that I need to gorge on for my fancy. 🙂
Thomas: there is also Glen Claston’s glyph-based Voynich transcription, which may be more useful for you than EVA, but which suffers from a quite different set of problems.
Nick: thank you for this helpful guidance. I will definitely try it.
Just yesterday I came across this term, “glyph-based Voynich”, on the Google, and tried to see one. Several download came up on Torrent, which I heard is a grey legal area, or dodgy. My terminal is also outdated and limited browser-wise, so I managed to see nothing of those files so far.
Incidentally, I realise I have made a mistake in my previous note, in misspelling “whether”. I typed “weather”. Allegedly, there is no mistake committed by the scribe or scribes in the Voynich Manuscript. But how do we know? The weather could be important in a discourse of plant life, and the word could be confusable with other similar ones in other languages, too. 😀
I am wondering about how likely it is that the herbal pages contain descriptive elements. I am not familiar with the general herbals of the era. If it is expected that there are plant descriptions on the pages, then, in my view, words for leaf, stem, root etc could be found.
Also, say, a leaf with six round lobes may be described with the appropriate words. For a page like that, I just intuitively feel that it may be worth wile to search on it for a word that may mean six, having the number six in various ancient languages at our disposal.
On similar lines, as pregnancy is a possible assumed subject of some parts of the MS, this word’s ancient forms could be tried to fit some recurring ones in the relevant parts.
Arabic, Latin, etc words and forms similar to these could be tried for both herbal and “pregnancy” chapters.
Thomas: feel free to try what you like, I ain’t the Voynich thought police. (I know, I’ve already had them knocking on my door a few times).
The problem you’ll find is that Voynichese isn’t language-y enough for proper linguists to be interested in, and it’s also too language-y for proper cryptanalysts to be interested in. Meanwhile, the herbals aren’t herbal enough for proper herbal historians to be interested in, while… I think I’ve made my point. 🙂
As for cryptanalysts. Sorry for the amateurish question, but is there any possibility of the VMS “words” being just references to some “vocabulary”? “Page X, column Y, line Z”, like in “The Valley of Fear”, you know.
Nick: Then it looks like these proper experts in their fields leave the whole thing to us, proper cranks.
By the way, please don’t think I am not looking at this book in other manner than trying to read its presumedly just medium language-y text. I try deciphering its encoded content as well. And of course I try seeing machinery and bees in the depicted images, too. 😉
I wondered about the astrology diagrams or the others where seemingly perfect concentric circles are shown.
Is it conceivable that the artist drew them freehand, or did he use a pair of compasses, or maybe circular templates? If compasses were used, what early kinds of it are known? Were those always similar to today’s instruments with a sharp point to dig lightly into the sheet? Or did the usage of sharp pinpoint enter at some known time in the history of the development of the drawing compasses?
If microscopic examination revealed pin holes or pits in the vellum in the centres of the drawn circles, then even this tiny information may help a little in the determining of the time of these drawings’ creation.
The circular zodiac figures gave me the idea that they may depict a single lady or nymph in every day in a month. If pregnancy or the female cycle is implied, then signs could be searched for these. I am just picking up codicology in my amateurish way! 😉
If we could place these discs into a phenakistoscope and rotate them, we may see a gradually growing belly!
Seriously, I cursorily looked for this and for possible depiction of menstrual discharge, but did not note anything.
It is only an idea and I thought I put it here into the think tank.
It looks like Patrick Feaster already considered this sort of animation in his writing, “Primeval Animations and the Voynich Manuscript”
.
More of my musings…
Why not each of the persons in the zodiac pages have a star? I have noticed one without. Why some stars are filled with colour while others are not? Why some stars have no outline at all and only drawn with a fill colour? Why it is that the fill colour is red in at least one case and not yellow? Why some stars have one dot in the middle, some more than one, and some none? Why some stars have strings and others not?
The left roundel on f69v has twentyeight, while the middle one has nine divisions, whereas other roundels elsewhere usually have four, eight or sixteen. The numbers twentyeight and nine may allude to the female cycle and the nine months of pregnancy. Moreover, the central image is sort of organic or human cell-y, like zygote…?
Thomas:
The notion of cell was not yet known in that time.
Anton: It is probably true that the notion of cell was not widely known in that time. But we cannot know for sure what knowledge was held secretly or kept unpublished by advanced individuals. This however is not an argument on my part that the depiction is that of a cell.
We tend to use this reasoning that this or that discovery or advancement was not known at the time, therefore we must discount its possibility. For example the statement, “No such advanced encryption methods as of today’s were known in that time”. How do we know? Does not the VMS itself appear to be a very strong and thus just such an advanced encryption?
Nick, gentlemen:
In addition to the DOC ID I referenced several weeks/months ago, you might like to see another document which was released from the National Security Agency (30 April 1959) as declassified by Paul S. Wiilard (Colonel) AGC, Adjutant General: “REF ID:A58472
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/friedmanDocuments/Publications/FOLDER_226/41760669079979.pdf
You’ll know you’re on the ‘right’ page if an Aztec pictograph appears with alternating Nahuatl words and italicized English translation.
The header for this item reads: Umol-huum tah-ciyal
William Frederick jetel Elizebeth Smith Friedman
This document is the last proof that the so-called “Voynich” manuscript is written in Nahuatl — and that the same Nahuatl language-speaking scribes translated Fray Sahagun’s Spanish/Latin discussions of botanical interest, the balnealogical section, the dialogues of the various circles/diagrams, and the earliest mention of the European invaders who enslaved much of the native populations of the country we now call Mexico.
I recently found my quetzquemetl (some 50 years old, now) on a discussion page I can no longer recall. I’ll be 72 y/o next week.
beady-eyed wonder
Dear Nick (or to whoever else may help),
I read in a paper about the VMs that you had a good quality photo of the rosette map (f86v) posted on your website. Now, i’m not sure if you still have this photograph or if you’ve taken it down or if you’ve just never posted it, but if you do have such a photograph or if anyone else knows where I can get one, I would greatly appreciate it. It would be great to have a hard copy of this page, and I don’t really want to spend $300 on the whole manuscript from ambush printing.
Cheers,
Jerenie
As a ps on my last comment, I’d like to add that I’m very interested in getting into applied linguistics and cryptology. I was just wondering if you can help at all with that and give me advice (what are good schools, are there jobs, etc.) Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Jerenie
Jerenie: you can download excellent quality images of the Voynich Manuscript from the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s website:-
http://beinecke1.library.yale.edu/download/Voynich-New/
Everything is there, including the nine-rosette page. 🙂
To hakan; I made an error back on 19 August, 2014 when I replied to your query about 29 February, 1420. There was indeed a Partial Lunar Eclipse on 29 February, 1420. It start at 13:16 UT (OLD STYLE) Time. The Partial Lunar Eclipse lasted for one hour and thirty minutes.
Thomas,
about your comment of July 2, 2015 11:46 am
If we accept for the moment that Don of Tallahassee has rightly zoned in on the region of France from which the month-names have come, and that each of the star-holders are holding stars or even mini cornucopii of heavenly goods as stars, then why not test the possibility that the red-dot stars mark red-letter days on one of the many regional calendars – those from 13th-15thC Picardy perhaps?
So if I look at the VM the way they say u should its a jumbled mess but if u look at it upside down I at least see a bunch of numbers manly 6 and 8 anyone else?
Misty: the Voynich alphabet is similar to many cipher alphabets of the early-to-mid-fifteenth century, which used a number of shapes before they became used as number shapes. ‘9’, for example, was used as a shorthand sign at the end of words to mean “-um” or “-us” before it was used as a digit. 🙂
Dear Nick and colleagues,
I am pleased to let you know that finally we managed to launch the Voynich discussion forum, which initiative was brought forward by Gert somewhere in comments here back in summer.
We aimed to make it not only a discussion tool (which a message board naturally is), but also a research- and task-oriented one. We expect it to be a place for quality and fruitful discussions, enriched by the functionality of a modern message board engine and some custom tools and features that we already have in place.
The forum is located at http://voynich.ninja
Please be welcome to participate!
Anton Alipov: it all seems very admirable and straightforward. If only solving the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript were as simple!
Nick, et al. I have been out of the loop for a bit as I closed up a lab (that smallpox scare hit me hard as I worked with frog toxins but hey, skated free of the FBI!). My daughter Helen, an art conservator has put forward to me in private conversations over the years that the gallows glyphs are pilcrows. Pilcrows for those of you not conversant with these, amount to start/stop symbols in renaissance manuscripts. Our paragraph symbol is the most commonly used one at this time but others existed. Anyway, no real role for those gallows has been widely accepted and I adopt my daughter’s idea that the four gallows serve the function of pilcrows. The pilcrow was adopted from the French in 1440 (Wiki). It had nothing to do with a printer’s mark as some assumed. The two most common, in fact dominant ones are the two that have two ascenders and one loop (I will refer to this as 1) and the one with two ascenders as 2. Glyphs 1 and 2 abound in the herbal section but vary according to whether the loose or tight scribe is at work. Often 2>1 for the loose scribe and 1>2 for the tighter. Doing simple stats on the occurrence of repeats, one sees a pattern emerge. Often (>>50%) one gallows is followed by another of the same: not random at all. I have noted that some “rubbish” text like “898989” (etetet in Armenian) does not appear between the same gallows. I am going to toss a cat among the pigeons and guess that this will prove true of other Voynich gibberish. This leads me to postulate that only the text between the same gallows will be meaningful; the rest are nulls. Well that is a lot of nulls and I think others have proposed that a template or grill has to be placed on the text to get at the reality of the Voynich. The idea above may indicate that the grill is already in place and it is provided by the gallows which are being used in the manner of pilcrows, start and stop instructions. Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al. Expatiating on the above, I would make the following points:
1) Until recently, I bought into the idea Nick has expressed above, that the gallows
glyphs are consonants and had some in common with Nick’s assignments,
assignments based mainly on appearance. Now on closer examination, I doubt
that any of the gallows represent any letter, consonants or not. Using the simple nomenclature above where 1=double ascenders, one loop; 2=double ascenders, two loops; 1’=single ascender, single loop and 2’=single ascender, two loops, it can be observed by inspection, that the looser scribe on 29v uses gallows glyph 1 a total of 13 times while 2 is used 30 times. Neither 1′ or 2′ appears at all.
If one provides a statistical answer to the pilcrowesque question, “how often is 1
followed by 1, and 2 by 2 ?”, we get 5 and 19, respectively by inspection, or 38% and 63%. The theoretical, if no scribal preference is in effect would be 13/30 or
43% for 1. Examination of 29v, one of the herbal pages line by line gives a range of
one glyph (line 6) to 7 glyphs (line 4, where we see 5 examples of 2 vs two of 1. Three repeats of 2 are seen. I think on an explication of 29v or any other herbal page will reveal that the gallows glyphs are not letters but markers of some kind.
Note also that no examples of a gallows glyph followed immediately by any other gallows glyph is not seen, or anyway, I have not seen any. This could be a linguistic characteristic or it could support the view that the gallows are markers of some kind, like a pilcrow. My daughter has told me that looking at a renaissance ms, one will see it peppered with pilcrows and they might just set off an “amen” in some plain song text. In discussing the VM, I have used the word “pilcrow” in what must be an approximation. One line, 4, for example, what is one to make of five glyphs of type 2 following one another? Still no clue yet on what many of the letter glyphs represent although I think 8, 9 and the ampersand like glyph stand for e, t, and f. “eaf” is all over the place and I think is a truncated form of “leaf”. All for now. I will also discuss soon an example of the tight scribe’s work, page 33v,, where 1 appears 25 times (19 repeats) and 2 appears 13 times (3 repeats). All for now from “Somewhere Land”. Cheers, Tom
Nick, Do you recall a few years back, someone (julian rings a bell?) had an optical character recognition software/hardware package that he used to scan the ENTIRE VM? I have lost my copy of the results but as I recall it went no further than just detecting gallows, since his main interest (as I recall, don’t hold my hand over a candle on this!) was in looking at possible differences among the herbals, bathing, astronomy and horascope sections. If you agree that the gallows could use a new examination, could this person be approached? Perhaps the four gallows can be distinguished? Maybe this has already come to pass in my absence from Voyniching? If so, could you direct me to the citation among your blog entries?
Ultimately I would like to see connectivity between like gallows but if the gallows
are identified as 1,2,1′, and 2′ then I am a happy camper. I can fill in the connectivity myself. If you disagree and think I am passing over more than just “markers” I will understand and just plug along on this myself. I think my idea of “pilcrowesque” markers throws out about a third of the text and one wonders about the wasted scribal effort here? But then again, on the herbs, how much info do we really need. Some bone setting, puncture wound healing, fever reducing, laxative properties, etc. and that will be it. Cheers, Tom
Nick and Rick Roberts, If a partial lunar eclipse is mentioned in the VM, (Ricks post of Nov 10, 2015), could this not be useful in locating the venue of the VM? Maybe this is already known to Rick? Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., First off, I really hope I am wrong, wrong, wrong in postulating that the
gallows glyphs are not consonants or even letters. We needed those in our decrypt attempts!
The tight scribe produced folio 33v with its 11 lines. Gallows glyph 1 occurs 31 times; 2 occurs 13 times. 1′ occurs once; 2′ is not used. The glyphs range from twice (line 11) to seven times (line 5). The number of repeats for 1 is 19 times; with 4 times for 2. A total of 23 repeats out of a total of 45 gallows glyphs.
If the gallows are “markers” and not letters, then “Houston, we have a problem!”
There remained at one time in my digging into the Pilcrow issue, that the pair of identical glyphs might be included in the text. Does not seem likely at the moment, mainly because of the jamming together of gallows in, for example, lines 2, 3,,4, 5. 7, and 8 but few in lines 1, 6, 9, 10 and 11. When a gallows is superimposed on a two conjoined letter glyphs, and another glyph identical but without imposition on a letter pair, I have taken the letter that follows the leading glyph and incorporated it into the line of “valid” text.
Now why did the scribes add this additional level of complexity to our decrypt stuggles (if I should prove to be correct). I think the gallows are meant to distract
the casual reader and look somewhat like Urdu or Hindi glyphs. None are identical that I have found but they do resemble writing of the far East. Just smoke and mirrors here, BUT they do put one into the mindset of the scribes. Note
that the scribes seem to have liberty in picking their favorite gallows. I have one example of an herbal page where the numbers of 1 and 2 are essentially the same. Will continue on this melancholy task but I fear it is going to complicate life for VM decrypters. A bit like VP Harry Truman’s reaction to becoming president after the death of FDR. “A haystack just fell on me!”. Cheers, Tom
Nick, Incidentally, I did look at the possibility that the prs of the same gallows glyphs might be used to indicate punctuation, like prs of commas, parentheses, semis etc., but the occurrence of gallows with only one character in between made this a difficult idea to support and I gave up on this. It is worth reiterating that nowhere in the VM, do we find any example of punctuation or even diacritical marks. I am ignoring the little curlicue (B’s lingo) above the joined c’s. I think it is a phonetic language (the tipped question mark like glyph, I think is the Armenian glyph for “ch” so that “8a?” is “each”. We still have a mountain to climb! Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., If the gallow glyphs are out of play, then consonants will have to be located in the non-gallows glyphs. I think the “h” is incorporated in the tipped “?” which in Armenian is the phenome “ch”. I think the reverse “S” which is made in two
strokes using a “c” underlaying a reverse “C” could be an “st”. But this is the end of
guesswork at the moment. Cheers, Tom
Thomas: indeed, my working hypothesis about the gallows is that they somehow function as consonants – however, I don’t currently see any way at all that they can be mapped one-to-one with a single consonant each, in the kind of way that simple language mappings for Voynichese necessarily require. Rene Zandbergen makes precisely the same point about single-leg gallows, so (for once) it’s not just me. 😉
You mentioned the pilcrow here before: but even though I can see the resemblance between the way modern pilcrows are rendered and at least one of the four gallows characters, I’m far from convinced that pilcrows circa 1400-1450 looked like that at all.
Incidentally, one online source on pilcrows asserts that very early printed books often left space at the start of paragraphs for pilcrows to be added by hand after printing, but that people usually never got round to adding them in: which is supposedly why we leave indented spaces at the start of paragraphs – fossilized lacunae where hand-decorated pilcrows once (briefly) used to go. Which would, if true, seem to make the pilcrow the most unprinted printing character in history, for what it’s worth. 🙂
Nick, Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I still think that the gallows are some kind of markers and not consonants or any other letter. I am aware of their involvement in printing (also the pointing finger) and was surprised that the French evidently used the pilcrow for handwritten ms to indicate parargraphing. The double ascender, single loop sort of looks like the classic paragraph indicator but is written backward. Occasionally the double ascenders get closer, and more closely resemble the original pilcrow even more.
I wondered if text separated by the same gallows would extend across the paragraphing we see in the VM or the paragraphing (like word lengths) might be just deception. It does appear that the same gallows in the last line of what we might call a paragraph is NOT followed by the same
gallows in the first line of the next “paragraph”. Exceptions exist but are rare.
Following is the gallows analysis in f20r, the tighter scribe. Note that he uses gallows 2 way more than 1 so I either have misidentified this scribe as “tight” or the observation the the tighter scribe preferred 1 to 2 (my post of 2-6) is incorrect.
Folio 20r has a total of 38 gallows in three paragraphs with only 6 examples of 1; 26 examples of 2; one only of 1′ and five of 2′. There are 19 repeats of 2, i.e. 2 is followed by another 2, 19 times. No repeats at all of 1 or 1′ and just one repeat of 2′. The occurrence of gallows ranges from 0 (line 8) to 5 (line 9).
The positive side, the the pilcrow idea (if correct) and that only text between the same gallows is valid, is that the VM might be European after all. I think the gallows are there to resemble some of the far East languages (even Brahmic as Sinh alleges above) but the text that counts is mainly Latin. I still think though that Eastern ideas are in the VM drawings, mainly the blue/brown(red) [females, closer to the earth are referred to in brown or red, the male dreamers are sky blue] coloration for plant blossoms and leaf or petal shapes and directionality that whisper yin/yang to me. The concept of yin/yang is at the heart of far Eastern folk medicine. The classical Chinese Materia Medica is built around yin/yang.
“I will continue along the present line if it takes me all summer” (quote from US civil war general, US Grant). Cheers, Tom
Nick, To resolve any doubts about which scribe did f20v, I have analyzed a pretty
obvious example of the tight scribe’s work, f34r and found a real surprise. The top section of 10 lines had 18 examples of gallows 1, 24 of glyph 2, and two each of 1′ and 2′. Eight repeats are seen with glyph 1; eleven repeats are seen with glyph 2; one repeat with 2′ and none with glyph 1′.
Now the surprise is seen with the bottom section of six lines, done I am certain by the scribe with the same tight writing style as appeared in the top lines. Here we find 22 examples of 1, Eight of glyph 2, one of glyph 1′ and none of glyph 2′. There are 17 repeats of glyph 1 but none with the other two glyphs.
So we have 2>1, (but not by much) in the top section (maybe in fact a paragraph?) but 1>>2 in the bottom section. Furthermore ALL the pilcrowesque markers in the bottom section are seen only with glyph 1.
I really find it hard to imagine a distribution of consonants, if the gallows are indeed letters, that would fit the pattern we observe with f34r. Baffled even more than ever. It appears a totally arbitrary decision of a single scribe as to whether to concentrate on 1 or 2. Just a coin toss. Cheers, Tom
Oh my! When the cat’s away, the mice will play. Helllllooo Thomas! Lately, I’ve had to leave y-all to yourselves. I’ve been translating B-408 contents one folio or sets of folios as they become intelligible to me. My favorite is the single mulberry fruit which, so far, everyone wants to call it a pineapple. The discussion which accompanies that fruit is about food (mulberry leaves) until she spins herself into a silk cocoon. She is not allowed to eat her way out of the cocoon (after having transformed into silkworm moth). If she were not prevented from eating through the silk cocoon, the silk thread would be unusable for making silk cloth. (Sericine is the word to look for in that folio.)
Still be de eyed
bdid1dr
Hi B, I was out of the loop, mainly closing up a lab under extremis conditions (that small pox scare which expanded into any toxic chemicals and caught me in the net). Anyway back to Voyniching and picking away at the gallows glyphs. Oddnesses galore there. BTW, you have occasionally mentioned vision problems. I was diagnosed with a dry eye (just one) and have tinkered around with about 8 over the counter drops. Rohto (a Japanese company markets drops for severe dryness and two a day work fine for me). In addition I bought for little money a visor magnifier (Optivisor DA7 model, 2.5 magification, focal length ca. 7 inches) that makes peering at Voynichese tolerable. Up close one notices a lot of scribal corrections and reinking, often of those mysterious gallows glyphs. Thanks for the insights on making silk. Cheers, Tom
Nick et al., I looked for an extreme case of gallows preference by the tight scribe and for the moment, f23r will serve as an example. We see 31 examples of glyph 1 (25 repeats); nine examples of glyph 2 (double-legged, double looped) (2 repeats); five of glyph 1′ (2 repeats) and two of glyph 2′ (1 repeat). It is seen that solely the double legged-single loop gallows (1) appears in lines 7-11 and occurs a total of 18 times with 17 repeats. I cannot imagine any circumstance where one consonant only is used eighteen times to the exclusion of the other three in ca. 40% of the text, but that is what we see! I will take a look at what glyph PRECEDES OR FOLLOWS that glyph to examine the possibility that the gallows glyphs are operators of some kind and might change the preceding or following glyph in some way? I kind of doubt this survey will go anywhere but deeper into the weeds!
I will also try and find an extreme case of the looser writing scribe. Cheers, Tom
Thomas: you’re really not too far away from what I conclude – which is that even though the gallows largely seem to function as if they are consonants, you can’t ever get close to tying them down to any single consonant… they’re far too slippery. “qokedy qokedy dal qokedy qokedy” etc! 🙂
Nick, Fine that we’re on the same page so far as those gallows go. At the moment, they pose a really annoying puzzlement. An example of a folio done by the looser scribe is provided by f49r. Here in 21 well-spaced and separated lines and maybe two paragraphs (breaking at line 11 to 12), we have 10 gallows of type 1, 22 of type 2 and five of type 2′ and none of type 1′. The double legged single loop glyph has only 4 repeats while the gallows of type 2 has 13 repeats. There are three lines (3, 10 and 15) that have no gallows at all, even though complete lines so far as the drawing permits. Lines 16-18 have one, one and two of type 2 gallows. Line 19 has three of type 1 only. Lines 20 and 21 have only one each of type 2 gallows. Just a game of darts so far as I can tell at this moment. The tentative conclusion so far though is that each scribe has his own preference so far as the number of gallows he picks and which style predominates. On inspection, it does seem the looser scribe prefers glyph 2 and the tighter scribe, type 1 but this assumption needs a more rigorous testing. Using the scribal gallows glyph preferences would be a tedious way of distinguishing the scribes but I think it could be done.
Generally inspection suffices. Cheers, Tom
ps. I think it might be worthwhile to try and locate a language that might have close facsimiles of the gallows glyphs when written in cursive. This might be where the smoke and mirrors originates. I lean to the idea that they are markers, or bullets as my daughter prefers when multiple pilcrows are seen in medieval manuscripts. Sometimes there are multiple glyphs per line and they might even be in different colors. If they do not serve the purpose of bullets, then maybe they have no textual function at all but are just for deception?
Thomas: if they’re nulls, they’re highly structured nulls, which isn’t normally how nulls are used (i.e. nulls normally disrupt the patterns in text, rather than add to them).
Nick, I guess I mentioned nulls in passing in a fit of exasperation. My best guess is that they serve some function akin to pilcrows and that text outside the markers might be null, but not the gallows themselves. I agree totally that what makes it difficult to discard them totally is that the single-legged double-looped gallows glyph often starts an herbal folio and may have an embedded macron by virtue of extending the upper part of the glyph over an entire “word”. Scribal flourishes abound also on that first glyph. So your point about the gallows being structured, as for example starting a paragraph or sentence is one I would agree with. The single-legged gallows are comparatively rare; sometimes one type is not present at all. Sometimes they appear to be re-inked or inserted into text as an afterthought and are really skinny.
I’ll search for an even better example of an herbal folio by the looser scribe. Until then, in my opinion, the gallows mystery deepens. I have not gone into that bathing, astronomy or horoscope sections yet. I prefer staying with the herbals for the time being as we have on each folio, drawn and tinted images, that may assist us. Cheers, Tom
Nick, I decided for grins to do a gallows glyph analysis of f49v, i.e. the flip side of f49r which was done above; same loose scribe. A total of 26 lines with 70 gallows glyphs, The lines tend to have just a few gallows per line although lines 1,3, 14, 15, 16 and 25 have four or more; most are 1-3 gallows. None are devoid. There are 39 cases of the double legged single loop gallows (type 1) and 28 double legged double loop gallows (type 2). The single legged glyphs are one only of type 1′ and two of type 2′. There are 21 repeats for type 1; 11 repeats for type 2; no repeats for either of the single ascender glyphs. The repeats for 1 are 54% or if corrected for dilution by 2, amount to 21/39×39/28 or ca. 70%. There seems a definite tendency to repeat a gallows glyph. Now in this case the loose enscriber of the flip side of f49r uses type 1 20% more than type 2, reversing his use of 2 more than 1 on f49r. Looks again like a coin toss and the gallows glyphs cannot directly be used for consonants. Same scribe, doing recto and verso sides of a folio with greatly differing ratios of the two simplest gallows glyphs, type 1 and 2.
The top five numbers running down the left side of f49v are entered by the same hand as numbered the folios, but I think this point has been made before. The numeral 1 appears to be a palimpsest. Some of the other column running down the left side, like 0 (or o?), the dot, 9, might be Eastern arabic numerals. Cheers, Tom
Nick et al., As promised (threatened?) here are the recto and verso sides of f39, written by the scribe with the tight style: f39r: The double-legged single loop gallows glyph (type 1) occurs 43 times with 30 repeats; the gallows glyph with two ascenders, two loops (type 2) occurs 10 times with 2 repeats; The single ascender, single loop glyph of type 1′ is used 7 times with 1 repeat; Type 2′ occurs 5 times with no repeats.
For the verso side, f39v, we see type 1 gallows glyph used 51 times with 36 repeats’ gallows 2 is used 8 times with no repeats; glyph type 1′, six times with no repeats and gallows 2′ appears 4 times with no repeats.
So of of a total of 65 gallows used on f39r, we see 43 appearances of glyph 1; with 70% being followed by another glyph of the same type; With f39v, we see a total of 69 gallows with 51 of type 1 having 38 repeats or, again, this glyph is followed by another of type 1, 70% of the time.
I find this rather extraordinary. The repeats seem not to be random at all but follow a pretty strict plan. But what is this plan telling us? The tightly writing scribe is way more consistent in gallows usage than the looser enscriber. Type 1, just type 1, hugely predominates.
By the way, as an aside relative to the plant shown on f49v above, note the inserts on the plant with blue and brown arcs on several of the leaves. I think this indicates the plant leaves are used for eye problems affecting both brown and blue eyed folks. I did some brief research on blue-eyed Armenians and they do exist. All for the moment. Cheers, Tom
Nick, You have been patient in accepting my posts on the gallows glyphs. This one will be the last on frequency analysis of these four unusual glyphs. I have looked again at recto and verso sides of a folio clearly done by the tighter writing scribe, in particular, folio 40. For 40r the following pertain: A total of 55 gallows that break down to: 47 of the double legged single loop glyphs (type 1) with 41 of these following another of the same kind for a repeat frequency of 77%. There are only 4 of the double legged, double loop gallows with no repeats; two each of the single legged glyph with one repeat for 1′, none for 2′. What seems to me worth commenting upon is that 8 of the gallows have been partially or totally reinked. Some other glyphs are also reinked but they tend to be in the vicinity of the gallows. It seems that the scribe may want these to “stick out” either to deceive or remind?
The verso of 40, i.e. f40v shows a total of 61 gallows with the following gallows frequencies: One sees 42 occurrences of the double-legged single loop gallows (type 1) with 28 repeats or 67% of the type 1 glyph followed by another of the same type; Ten glyphs of type 2 (no repeats), five of type 1′ (no repeats) and four of type 2′ with one repeat. There seem to be roughly 7 gallows that have been reinked.
Again there is a huge propensity of the tighter writing scribe to choose the double-legged single loop gallows for some purpose. I think it would be hard to argue that these glyphs function somehow directly as consonants, when one type is so predominant among this scribe or another appears much more commonly used by the looser writing scribe.
Next I will turn my attention to the appearance in the VM of total nonsense repeating text and check reinking by both scribes in greater detail.
Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, et al., I have looked at those single-legged gallows. The mystery of their function deepens. I have concentrated on the herbal section and find: four folios (f15r (loose scribe); f29v (loose scribe); f38r (tight writer) and f56v (tight scribe) that have no single-stemmed gallows at all. In the vast majority of the herbal folios, there is a huge preponderance for the single-stemmed gallows 1′ and 2′ to appear in the first line of text with 2′ comprising most of the glyphs. In some cases ALL the single stemmed gallows appear in the first line (e.g f14r; f27v; f46v; f48r), often supplying the first glyph. Sort of like a pilcrow. The single stemmed double looped gallows (i.e. 2′ ) greatly predominates over 1′. At the moment, I cannot even guess at the function of these two gallows glyphs; I doubt they can be letters. I will prepare a proper statistical study (for those who care about this sort of thing!) and report in good time.
Some additional oddnesses: In a couple of folios (f55r, see line 8 for two instances) and f94r (line 7), an unusual glyph appears that looks like an inverted v underneath an attached overbar. This appears. interestingly, in Tibetan “Square” scripts (used at one time by Chinese Buddhists but longer used) where it serves as the vowel “o”. Am digging a bit more into Bengali and Uyghur Mongolian scripts as some tend to resemble the gallows.
Possibly pertinent to far Eastern glyphs, one is reminded of Marco Polo’s trip to China. He was under the sod at the time the VM was likely composed, dying in 1299. He had an interest in Chinese herbs but I find no evidence that he ever compiled any herbal. He did suggest using turmeric as a substitute for saffron in dying cloth, in fact he refers to it as “Indian saffron” Related to this are several herbs that I think I have a pretty good ID for herbs found mainly in China. Will report on these anon.
Some punctillios: At several places in the VM herbal, we find “898989” which I thought originally was just static but if one accepts an Armenian derivation for 89 as “et”, the expression “etetet” curiously is still used in modern Hungarian often in place of “etc”. The expression “etc” or “&c” is more recent than one might guess according to “dictionary.com” originating in 1375-1425. It does appear that “&” does appear in the VM but unfortunately the Armenian glyph for “f” closely resembles it in cursive. Even Michael Stone, the world’s expert on Armenian paleography, I think, mistakenly considered it represented in his mighty tome (personal email).
Nick, I’m sure you have doubled the number of Voynichers by your talk today! We need all the help you can generate. Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, et al., I propose the following ID for the herb on folio 20v. In my identifications of herbs or plants, I shall use mainly the “Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica” (MM) by Jing-Nuan Wu, Oxford, 2005. I believe the herb shown is found on page 148 and is Flos Buddleiae (Buddleia officinalis Maxim (family Loganiaceae)). The buds and flowers are dried and eaten for complaints involving the eye such as cataracts, dry eyes, corneal abrasions, redness, and light sensitivity. Note what appears to be sunglasses on each bloom. Smoked glasses were known in the 1300s in China by judges who wished to hide their eyes from the accused. Italians made and sold them in the 1400s. The thistle-like blooms are faithfully reproduced in f20v but the leaves are a rough approximation only. The fine illustration in MM 149 shows ovoid leaves non-alternating but the VM shows lanceolate opposite leaves. The leaves and roots were not used in eye complaints. I think this depiction in the VM stresses by some pretty overt clues, the use of the herb. I have several more IDs from MM and will unload them one by one. Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, et al., Following up on my post of 2-22-16, I have copied and pasted a portion of Andrew West’s blog site on those curious square Tibetan/Mongolian/Chinese glyphs created by a liguistic genius around the end of the 13thC: “The Phags-pa script is a Brahmic script based on Tibetan that was used for writing Mongolian, Chinese and other languages during the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). Although it is no longer used for Mongolian and Chinese, it is still used to a limited extent as a decorative script for writing Tibetan. Unlike other Brahmic scripts, Phags-pa was written vertically from left to right after the manner of the Uighur-derived Mongolian script.
The script was devised by the Tibetan lama Blo-gros rGyal-mtshan བློ་གྲོས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ (lodoi ǰaltsan ᠯᠣᠳᠣᠢ ᠵᠠᠯᠼᠠᠨ in Mongolian), better known by the title ‘Phags-pa Lama (འཕགས་པ་བླ་མ་) “Reverend Lama” (transliterated as Bāsībā 八思巴, 巴思八 or 拔思巴 in Chinese), at the behest of Kublai Khan in about 1269 for use as the “national script” of the Mongol empire. The script was originally simply called “Mongolian new letters” 蒙古新字 in Chinese, and is still known by this name in Tibetan (hor-yig gsar-pa ཧོར་ཡིག་གསར་པ་), but is now referred to as dörbelǰin üsüg ᠳᠥᠷᠪᠡᠯᠵᠢᠨ ᠦᠰᠦᠭ “square script” in Mongolian and as bāsībā zì 八思巴字 “Phags-pa letters” in Chinese. In English the script is sometimes referred to as the “Mongolian Quadratic Script”, but is more commonly called ‘Phags-pa (or variants such as ḥP’ags-pa, hPhags-pa, vPhags-pa, Phags-pa etc.). On this site the script is referred to as Phags-pa for conformity with the Unicode name for the script.”
The blog (Babelstone) of West has a very useful entry of Nov. of 2007 showing a table of the 43 glyphs with an observation that many appear in the frescoes of Giotto (finished ca. 1305) in the Arena chapel of Padua and also in Assisi. Giotto in the Arena chapel had 40 coworkers over a period of 3 yrs but it has been noted by West and others that some square Tibetan glyphs appear in the hems of garments worn by the Wise Men, Mary and others, along with Arabic. There is some speculation that Giotto or a coworker may have seen official passes given to Marco Polo in his travels through Mongolia where Phags-pa was still being used in official documents. See Wiki on “Mongol Elements in Western Medieval Art” that covers the period 13-15C. Some of West’s blog amounts to a polemic with Lawrence Bergreen (writer of “Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu”) over his referring to Phags-pa as a “constructed language”. West argues that it amounts to a cipher used to replace some Mongolian glyphs. By the time the linguist inventor died, the invented script began to fade from use.
Now one wonders what appears to be a vowel (“o”) from Phags-pa shows up in the VM. I have only noted a few in the herbal section and have not searched the VM for any other Phags-pa glyphs. One might argue that we may have another traveler to the Far East “In the Steps of Marco Polo”?? Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., A tentative ID for the herb shown on f30v is found on page 592 of the Chinese Mareria Medica, where it is identified at Rhizoma Smilacis Glabrae (in English, glabrous greenbrier rhizome). Only the dark brown lumpy rhizome is used, mainly for joint disorders or “mobility of joints”. I think the embedded clue in the VM are in those little berries that are uncolored (not used) and are 20 in number, five on each side of the upper two twigs and five on each of the lower two twigs. Each has a single spot and I think these are the nails of fingers (upper twigs) and toes (lower twigs). The leaves are colored and only roughly the shape of the plant leaves of page 593 of MM, where they are green lancelate shaped and alternate (not brownish ovoid as depicted in f30v). The rhizome can be used throughout the year and maybe this is implied in the brownish atumnal (?) leaves?
Why are not the herbal drawings of f30v and the VM in general, a more accurate
depiction of reality. One possibility is that they were done by non-experts and for non-experts, where only the parts that count were emphasized and clues as to use were provided? So non-herbalists were keepers of the VM herbal part? Maybe just purveyors of herbal extracts or sliced rhizomes as a business venture? Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., Another VM herb ID, that, I think, is close to certain and that is the one on f11v. I seem to recall other Voynichers putting forward turmeric (aka tumeric) for this herb. It is officially Rhizoma curcumae longa. Only the rhizome is used and is an ingredient in curries throughout the far East and in place of saffron for imparting a flavor and color to food in general, particularly rice and mustard, I has been used also for dying cloth. I think the embedded clue for the use (see MM231) is to relieve arm pain, among other bodily aches and pains. Note the little elbow-like hook on come of the other rootlets of the rhizome. Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, Thomas, Diane,
I am begging you (and your followers) to take a good look (and compare) the figure eight/figure-nine combination is SAYING aes geus. The smaller figure nine is “X’: It is used throughout the botanical section of the so-called “Voynich Manuscript”.
I give up!
May you eventually arrive at a valid translation of the so-called Voynich. I have translated some thirty folios of the so-called Voynich manuscript. Since no one seems to be interested in my translations (any more than they are willing to compare the “Voynich’ manuscript with the Florentine Codex).
If what you are discussing as ‘gallows’ happens to be the elaborate figure “P”, you are discussing PRE-LIM-I-NAR-Y or PRE-FER-A-TOR-Y or new PAR-A-GRAPH…..PER-TI-NENT
PAL-ACE ——-BE-lief —BE-tl (better). Endless combinations, of which you will not find PH-O-NE-TI-CAL — but rather PH-o-n-tl-tl
Apparently, the history/translation of B-408 (so-called “Voynich ) willNEVER catch up with Fray Sahagun’s final draft: The So-Called “Florentine Codex” .
Ciao!
Nick, et al., Some miscellaneous ideas on the gallows glyphs. They are too idiosyncratic, too random (like the bulk being in the first line of text) that I find it hard to accept that they serve as consonants or any letter at all. My latest idea is that they serve as markers but of a special sort. They amount, not to simple nulls, but as a null placeholder. They hide a blank that, sort of like a cross-wood puzzle square,, has to be filled in, with a letter, likely a consonant but not the same one as designated by a certain gallows type, So in short an individual glyph of one kind of gallows might represent several or even many consonants. Random consonants that have to be worked out by trial and error.
A simple stat on gallows glyphs and being the first glyph of a lead paragraph. In 121 herbal folios, I find only 47% are of the single stemmed type; none are double stemmed. Here they may serve as pilcrows of a sort. I will sort out lead glyphs of additional paragraphs where more than one paragraph appears on an herbal folio, but will have to examine this more carefully as it is sometimes difficult to tell the paragraph breaks. More on that anon.
A plant ID: I think the herb on f2v is not a water lily as many maintain but is a specimen of the Manchurian wild ginger (see MM 113). The whole dried plant is used (one leaf has been harvested as will be noted), The root has been pruned drastically as all those little face-like root residues indicate. The MM indicates wild ginger is used for commonplace runny noses and coughs. The wild ginger has a single blossom as this depiction indicates but it originates from the rootlet and is brown or red and has three petals and is not white with four petals. There are some 85 species of Asarum and this may be one of them or is incorrectly recalled by the herbalist.
More Phags-pa glyphs are found on the inner circles of f57v, in particular the inverted “v” with an overbar (several examples), a “T” with a short ascender that is perpendicular to this stroke and a “7” . Some others appear to be distortions of Phags-pa glyphs or perhaps come from some other source?
I have ordered a copy of the voyages of Marco Polo to check whether this includes
a Mongolian travel pass that might have influenced Giotto, Lorenzetti and others in introducing Phags-pa glyphs into their art work. Cheers, Tom,
Thomas: as far as the gallows being a consonant placeholder of some sort, that was one of the specific cipher avenues I explored in “Curse” back in 2006. I have some more recent ideas that might help explain the strikethrough gallows (e.g. ckh etc) and that might also tighten the range of consonants in play there, but that will have to wait for a more detailed post… 🙂
Nick, Sorry I missed that post of yours. At that time I assumed, I think as did many (like Bax), that the gallows stood for “constant, immutable” consonants. On closer study of the gallows glyphs, prompted by my daughter’s suggestion of their function as pilcrows, I noted that the two scribes, “tight” and “loose”, differed in their choice of the gallows and their frequency of occurrence and this seemed difficult to rationalize in terms of the gallows representing the same consonant (or any glyph) between the two scribes.
The gallows as a null replacement for variable consonants would certainly be an easy code maker. Copying an unencoded (presumed) original text (that regrettably no longer exists or was deliberately destroyed) would be an easy job. The scribe while copying and encountering a consonant would replace some with a gallows glyph in a random manner. I think some consonants do appear in the VM such as 9 (equals “t”, in Armenian) and “s” , for example. The variability of the choice of gallows between the two scribes argues that the plaintext being copied was likely not coded and their own idiosyncratic choices were made in their copy work. In short, coding for consonants would be arbitrary and variable. I am glad that we seem to have arrived at the same point on this subject.
I plan to return to herbal identifications with the aid of a work, I consider of likely importance, the Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. Interestingly, I picked up a likely unused copy with dust jacket (>500 pages alternating text based on yin-yang ideas with really very fine fully colored prints for $50 at abebooks. com (American book exchange but actually operating out of Canada). Abebooks also sold me a copy of the English translation of Marco Polo’s voyage (Penguin books) for $2.32 and free shipping from the UK. Cannot be any kind of moneymaker! Another remaindered book? Cheers, Tom
Thomas: it was actually a chapter of my book rather than a post. 🙂 But the mountain to climb is more about the mechanism behind the gallows. That is, if the cipher system is in any way reversible, then the gallows character must somehow tell the decipherer to bring in a letter from elsewhere… but where exactly is that elsewhere?
I give up on you all : I’m so sorry, Thomas, you are taking the well-worn path to a dead end as far as TRANSLATING the Spanish and Nahauatl texts which appear in the so-called “Voynich” manuscript. The “Voynich” manuscript was Fray Sahagun’s diary — until he landed on the shores of Mexico. He immediately began instructing students at the School in Tl-a[tl-o-co: Two of his students were Juan Badiano and Martin De la Cruz. Both of whom went on to write their own manuscripts.
You will find full translation (online) of every word in the so-called “Voynich” manuscript ; by using “Adobe Reader” when reading Fray Sahagun’s beautiful “FlorentineCodex” – General History of the Things of New Spain” . Especiallly
helpful is ” Book Eleven – Earthly Things. “
ps: Please forgive my ‘iffy’ punctuation — I am so upset that ‘everyone’ can still not ‘decode’ a document which was NOT a coded document. The so-called “Voynich Manuscript” was Fray Sahagun’s diary (begun in Spain) which also recorded his interviews with various village elders, as well as his efforts to teach his Nahuatl students how to write in their language as well as Sahagun’s Spanish.
Currently, we call the “Voynich Manuscript B-408.
bd
BTW: Apparently the Boenicke’Benicke Library is still undergoing renovations and improvements. If any of you happen to get queasy at great heights, remember you are viewing the new improvements from the ground floor……
Dear “B” et al., I find Stephen Bax’s “Voynichese” much handier in viewing the entire VM than the Yale site. My only quibble with Bax is that he tends to cut off the roots/rhizomes of the herbal depictions, that I think are often key to the use of the plant.
You are looking westward for help in deciphering the VM, I am looking eastward. You have a mountain to climb to convince Voynichers that this thing came from any part of the New World. I remain skeptical. Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., A herbal ID for 18v. I think it is Panax notoginseng (Burk), (Family Areliacecae) that has a rhizome rather than the root of the common Ginseng plant. It is depicted in MM on page 462/3. It is found in China and Japan and used for stanching bleeding. The more common Ginseng plant has 5 leaves but the herbalist who drew the plant on 18v was correct in indicating seven leaves although many appear to be lobes. The rhizome is indicated in the literature as being in three parts ; f 18v looks sort of like three with many nodules and rootlets as the natural plant (see Wiki). Cheers, Tom
Nick, Oops, I meant six leaves. Some varieties have seven but I think six is meant by the VM herbalist. Sorry for the error. Cheers, Tom
Dear “B”, The grand work of Fray Bernadino Sahagun in 3 volumes and 2400pp was not started until 1545 and finished in 1590. Two thousand copies existed at one time. It was written in two columns with Nahuati on the right and Spanish on the left. I find the 6 ethnobotanical drawings included in the Wiki piece, of a completely different style (no roots or rhizomes for example; a workman included in one) to believe it compares at all to the VM herbal section.
Are we to think that the precious velum of the VM sat unused for approximately one hundred years before pen was put to it?
I think it is you who have a mountain to climb before convincing me that the VM came mainly out of the Aztec culture of Mexico, I may be embarked on a path leading to a dead end in thinking that the VM embodies plants and some glyphs of the Far East and maybe it is just an n+1 hypothesis BUT the time line of Marco Polo’s voyage fits the VM better than does the magnum opus of Sahugun. I do remain open,however, to argument. Cheers and Best wishes, Tom
Dear “B” and others, Sorry I missed “B”s post of March 3rd.
I would respond that many older languages (Hebrew is an example), that used an alphabet, employed letters for numbers. India, incidentally, is responsible for western numbers. We do not use Arabic numbers, although a few do resemble Indian numbering. The Indian numbering system, used the concept of “0” which was not introduced into Europe until the Italian mathematician Fibonacci came along in the 1400s. For awhile, the vowel “o” was used until a special digit for zero was created. Anyway I have picked Armenian since the eighth and ninth glyphs when Romanized are “e” for 8 and “t” for 9.
So the many occurrences in the VM of “89” are simply “et” and can mean “and” or parts of a word like “set”. I was working backward while analyzing the VM and assumed that the frequent occurrence of “89” was some kind of conjunction like “and”. I think, in short, that eight and nine represent single letters and not syllables as you propose.
Armenian also fit the bill for being a strictly phonetic language that used no diacritical marks and had some VM “look alike” glyphs such as the tipped “2” (Armenian for “ch”), the backward “S”, the “4” and the ampersand-like glyph for “f”
Cheers, Tom
B. I spent a bit of time with my E-copy of “An Aztec Herbal: The Classic Codex of 1555”, Dover Books, Wm. Gates. It does have 185 water colors (finished in 1933) and the majority have rootballs surrounding the roots but some show the roots clearly. The E-book is b/w unfortunately. The herbs are laid out by medical complaints, some of which we might consider beyond herbal help, like being hit by lightning or a tornado. Pretty much all of human maladies are covered by some herbal preparation. The Aztec drawings are stylistic only, just blobs of greenery and what seems to count is environment. An interesting one has a man’s body half-obscured by plant to indicate it is one half the size of another species. The watercolor artist was Marie Therese Vuillemin, niece of Cardinal Eugene Tisserant keeper of the Vatican Library. They were done at the request of Gates. Some sort of look akin to the depictions of the VM herbals but were done 500 yrs later.
If my ID of Panax notoginseng holds up, it will be the first depiction of the herb in any European herbal until a German herbal of the 17th C. This is despite the fact that Marco Polo brought back a substantial amount (the weight of a Venetian goat) from the mountains of Manchuria. Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, et al., I have examined in some detail the herbal pages for leading glyphs of the paragraphs when the folios have paragraphing. I find no major tendency of using the same lead paragraph glyph(s) as for the folio itself. I realize I made a major mistake in my post of March 3rd, indicating that when the lead folio glyph is a single stemmed type (either one loop (1′) or two loops (2′) that NO double stemmed glyphs appear as lead glyphs. This is totally false and I apologize for this error. The lead glyphs, when not single stemmed and (with the exception of f38v) are ALL double stemmed and mainly of the double stemmed, double looped type (27 of 122 herbal folios) with the remainder being double stemmed, single looped type (19 of 122 folios).
Turning to lead glyphs for the various paragraphs found in the herbal folios. I find that 79 (65%) of the 122 folios have one or more paragraphs. Of these 42 (35%) are of the double stemmed, double loop type; 13 (11%) are of the double stemmed, single loop type; 32 (26%) are of the single stemmed, double loop type; and only 6 (5%) are single stemmed single loopers. Another 5% are just “Voynichese”. Conclusion of this little exercise is that the gallows definitely serve as lead glyphs in the manner of pilcrows for the VM herbal section.
Incidentally, another odd glyph of the inverted “v” with overbar occurs on f55r (two examples in this folio). All three folios of the VM herbal section having this glyph are done by the “tighter” scribe. Close by in the VM (f57v) are other examples of this glyph and others such as an inverted “y” with overbar (4 examples), tipped “Ts”, a recumbent “7” an “X thickened at one end as well as some that are still cryptic to me. I think some of these are glyphs exist in a constructed language most commonly called Hangul, that was used in the southern Chinese province of Jilin and adjoining Korea. A problem arises is that this created language was not completed until 1444/1445 and has begun to fade from current use, being replaced by Chinese ideograms. Hangul was created to bring illiterates along more quickly to literacy as the ideograms were designed to be constructed logically from combinations of from two to six simple glyphs such as appear in the VM in those inner circles of f57v. The timeline for Hangul is a problem in view of the VM vellum dating being just too late to be reasonably considered. It is possible that some time elapsed between the completion of the vellum book and the VM being written? Another idea that I am investigating is whether some of those “square” Tibetan glyphs might have been used and reported back by travelers such as the Polos. Always darkest before dawn. Cheers, Tom
Nick, I seem to recall from years back, a submitted cipher that had a lot of angular glyphs, like the corners of a square, a triangle etc. that I think were a submission in Hangul? Do you or anyone else recall this?
Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., Well my brand new copy of Marco Polo’s travels arrived in today’s mail; however instead of being the complete voyages, it was merely a chapter “Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls” Penguin classics, 2015. translated by Nigel Cliff. As my son remarked, “more of a day trip!” Anyway I read a bit about his travels through India and found a few pages (26-28) that got my attention. These deal with obtaining diamonds. The heavy monsoon rains wash diamonds off the mountain sides and into deep snake infested ravines. The locals toss fresh meat into the ravines to which the diamonds stick and “white eagles” that normally feed on snakes, take the fresh meat back to their nests, eat same and leave the diamonds in their feces. The enterprising locals climb up to the nests and retrieve the stones, some of which they are allowed to keep. The bulk go to the king and his cronies. I am inclined to think that the weirdnesses of f86v3 might depict this. Rain, birds and their nests, lurking men and maybe showers of diamonds. Awaiting the full annotated Travels in two volumes (Dover). I cannot say that I did not get my money’s worth on this tiny paperback but I expected a better description of this book from Penguin. Cheers, Tom
Nick, Here’s a totally unhappy thought. The clues to what consonants/vowels are coded by the gallows glyphs lie in “hidden writing” seen in leaves and roots in the herbal section (at least) but have been re-tinted, re-crayoned, re-goached to the point where they are no longer visible! Techniques for reading palimpsests have been improved and were recently applied to an ancient Mt. Sinai codex thought to be beyond comprehension.
Perhaps this hidden writing since it would leave impressions on the VM vellum could be applied in this quest?Perhaps in the case of any hidden writing (since it would leave impressions on the VM vellum) such techniques could be applied in this quest?In terms of what we don’t know about the VM. it seems to me a key question that has not been answered with certainty is when the vellum of the VM was written upon? I think most assume it was shortly after the vellum was prepared. This makes a pretty logical assumption but it may not stand up to rigorous scrutiny? When I argued with “B” that it likely was written on before the mid 16C. I may have employed faulty logic? Have we ANY evidence for when the VM was actually created? Cheers, Tom
Nick et al., A reference to the work on palimpsests found in the library of the monastery of St. Catherines (in a valley below Mt. Sinai) is to be found in the March/April 2016 issue of Archaeology. We find in an article by Eric A. Powell, pp 38-43 that their collection of 3300 titles (second only to the Vatican library) is being digitized and the underlying originals of the palimpsests (ca. 130) are being read using a multipectral (largely UV) technique. Some of the originals are in dead languages (like Caucasian Albanian and, Christian Palestinian Aramaic). See also the site: sinaipalimpsests.org.
Turning to Marco Polo: We find in his discussion on the city of Kinsay (modern Hangchow in central China} the following interesting entry on baths: “You must know also that the city of Kinsay has some 3000 baths, the water of which is supplied by springs. They are hot baths, and the people take great delight in them, frequenting them several times a month, for they are very cleanly in their persons. They are the finest and largest baths in the world; large enough for 1oo persons to bathe together.” Cheers, Tom
i can solv this mistries book .
dawit: yuo r teh solvr
Nick, Some loose ends. Has anyone proposed an explanation for the odd roundel for Novermbre of f73r? I doubt it is European. I think it comes from the Hindu tradition where it represents a man-eating alligator. The constellation on which this is based is Draco (the eighth largest constellation) which lies between Ursa major and minor near the pole star, so it is visible anywhere north of the equator. The gator of f73r is crunching down on a luckless child but is I think drawn by hearsay since the legs are too long. The Hindu word is “shi shu mara”. It could possibly be Persian for a serpent (Azhdeha) which is another interpretation of Draco. Originally Draco meant Dragon in Greek. Marco Polo actually never set foot in India but sailed near it and knew a lot of its mercantile and religious history. Like most of the lands he visits or passes by, he kisses off the inhabitants as “idolators”.
On the origin of Hangul: (see Wiki for its origin”. Some of the characters were influenced by Phags-pa but the origin is more complex than just incorporating them. This is for linguists to continue hashing out. For Voynichers it means for all practical purposes that some Hangul-like glyphs were likely available to the VM compositors. Such as those seen in f57v. Note of f86v3 that the light pen scratching includes the inverted v with an overbar but the glyph is on its side. Two Armenian ampersand like “fs” are also seen, one large, one smaller.
I withdraw my idea that the gallows glyphs can be decoded by hidden letters in the herbal plants. The simple reason being that other parts of the VM, such as the horoscope section abound with gallows glyphs. I then tried with one herbal folio, taking the gallows and the following letter thinking that since many of the following ones are vowels (all those “c c” combos, “o” ) that maybe the consonant just ahead of those is what has to be put in play. Problem here is that a gallows is sometimes followed by “a” so unless we look on the alphabet as a loop, where this could code for “z”, I think this idea hits a brick wall. Likewise if the character preceding the gallows be taken as the code, this becomes even more difficult as most are either “9” [“t” in Armenian] or “o”; Just too many to be useful. The clue as to the use of the gallows must be embedded somehow within the environment of the gallows.
To sum up this unfocused post: If someone else has posted an explanation for the depiction of the “Novembre” roundel, I missed it and would be grateful for your point of view. This is something that Diane O. D. (sorry I missed wishing you a Happy St. Patrick’s day-Mar 17 in the US of A.) has tackled? I seem to recall some discussion on that scratching seen on f86v3 where you and she presented opposing views? I would just add that it could both be pen trials AND Voynichese. I don’t see that one rules out the other. Cheers, Tom
ps. OK, dawit, the floor is yours. Go for it!
Would anyone like to give some feedback on my Voynich script sign list posted at Quora under the blog ‘Fun With Jiroft Script’? I arrived at the sound values by comparing Voynich script with Linear B and Byblos script, both syllabary writing systems. The language encoded has many cognates or borrowings from Greek, French, German and Italian, but the grammar and basic words are Italo-Celtic, possibly Venetic.
Common words and phrases that have come up are a-me (friend), bi-ra (bring, beer), bi-ra-de (bread), biwe (life), bo-a (bag), bo-ka (taste), bo-ku (plenty) bo-li (bowl, bull), bomo (produce), bo-ra (food), bou (cattle), bou-ku (veal), bou-ra (butter), de-li (pleasant), de-a me (my goddess), de-ra (clamor), fo-ra (plants), fo-ra-ka (pork), ii (deictic particle), ka (and, also), ka-bo (cabbage). ka-ku (chickpeas), ka-ra (dear one), mo (I, me), mo-ra (great), ra (give) ra-ma (cream), we (good), we-ra (rain).
The text of the herbal section appears to be children’s primer-like, repetitive, full of internal rhymes and simple concepts about food, cooking, gardening and edible plants.
Nick, et al., Marco Polo’s chapter on India, “Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls”, has the following interesting passage regarding Brahmins, “They have very healthy teeth thanks to a herb they chew with their meals.” I find this little teaser abridgment of his Travels, very entertaining although it does rely on a lot of “hand waving” as page turners. I think the herb referred to by Polo could be Radix Achyranehis Bidentatae (family Amaranthaceae) where according to Materia Medica (p39), the root is chewed for toothache. It is depicted in the VM by the looser writing scribe on f47v where the root stem is shown with two teeth protruding and flowers that indicate its use by males (blue petals on flowers (yang)) and females (red cnters (yin)). The leaves are ovoid and opposite as also indicated in the MM.
In my opinion, from what I have read (and inferred from embedded clues as to use), I doubt the herbs shown in the VM are potherbs but are for various medical complaints.
Turning again to those mysterious gallows glyphs: If they serve as “placeholders” for an intended letter, why do the two VM compositors use FOUR, when one would seem to fit the need? In increasing complexity we have the two single stemmed ones (1′, 2′) and two double stemmed (1, 2) or the order would be: 1′, 2′,1, 2. If an alphabet were used, abjada or abugida, might not the four gallows be used to select an even number of glyphs divisible by 4? Coincidentally arabic with a 28 glyph “alphabet” would fit. Some are single characters, some are graphemes. So, in short, a specific gallows would indicate the following glyphs are from part A of whatever letter set is being used; a different gallows could indicate part B, or e.g. the next seven glyphs are in play. etc? I think some arabic does appear in the VM and soon I will repeat my guess as to what “rot” actually represented.
A quick response to Suzanne: I think most Voynichers have ruled out a language for the VM based on syllables. If you prepare a convincing case for “Jiroft” symbols taken from an ancient dead language (>3K yrs old) and being used in the VM as syllables, better linguists than me, may well take this up again. That is my “feedback”. Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., To reiterate on the reason for FOUR gallows as placeholders: The simplest one, I would consider to be the single-stemmed-single looped gallows (1′) , that I propose draws a consonant from the FIRST quarter of some alphabet; the slightly more complex single-stemmed glyph (2′),, draws a consonant from the SECOND quarter of the same alphabet (likely); the double-stemmed single looper (1) picks a gallows from the THIRD quarter and the double-stemmed double looped gallows (2) from the last quarter of the alphabet. The exact consonant choices are trickier: Depending upon the alphabet, e.g. Latin or Armenian (39 glyphs or 40 if 9 is counted although it would be redundant for “t”) (this ignores 8 which is a vowel). This is tonight’s little Eureka. Next approach is to go to Frequency tables for glyphs for various common languages and make some tentative assignments. Would the VM scribes had a feel for the commonness of consonants in whatever language(s) they were working with? Maybe? Cheers, Tom
Nick et al., One last commentary on the gallows glyphs and the possibility that the four form some kind of a ordered sequence that would amount to a consonant “filter”. If one takes English as an example and subtracts the six vowels, one is left with 20 letters that would give four groups of five each. I propose that group A would include letters b-g with the two greatest letter frequencies of d=4.3 and c=2.8; this sequence is represented by the single stemmed, single loop gallows (1′). The next group (B) of five letters, h-m, would include frequencies of h=6.1 and l=4.0 and might be covered by the single stemmed, double looped gallows glyph (2′); the next group (C) of five would cover letters n-s, with the three letters of greatest frequency being n=6.8, s=6.3 and r-6.0. This group would be covered under the double-stemmed single looped gallows (1). The final group (D) would encompass letters t-z, with the two characters of greatest frequency in texts of t=9.1 and w=2.4. It would be covered under the double-stemmed double looped gallows (type 2). What if anything can we squeeze out of this proposition?
I have looked at examples of folios from the VM herbal section and find for the tighter writing scribe that seven of the eight examples I picked, have gallows 1>>2; one folio (f34r) has 1=2. The five examples I picked of the looser writing scribe have the opposite but not as extreme with the occurrence of 2 slightly greater than 1 for three cases and use of 2 roughly twice that of 1 (f20v; f21v). There are two interesting pages where on one folio, the tighter writing scribe adopts the gallows ratio of the looser writer (f20r, f20v) and the looser writer on f18r adopts the gallows pattern of the tighter scribe (f18r). It seems a consult occurred between the two scribes that the gallows patterns should be the same for the page?!. For 1>2, one can propose as an example that gallows 1=n; 2=w for the tighter scribe and in the case of 2>1, for the looser writer, we have 2=t; 1=r. This is total guesswork but might stimulate some decrypt attempts? The single stemmed gallows occur infrequently (typically ca. 5 times in an herbal folio for either scribe or either 1′ or 2′,
Why pick English? This language has well worked out letter frequencies and is fairly close to Latin. I plan to examine Latin in more detail but the same general idea of the four gallows glyphs each taking on a discrete block of letters in a consecutive manner. The take home on this exercise is that the two scribes differ in their gallows preferences UNLESS they are involved in each composing a folio on the same page, where for some reason, uniformity is desired. The hefty two volumes of Marco Polo’s voyages with way more many pages devoted to commentary by modern authors, arrived in today’s mail. This epic work gives new meaning to “fussnotes”! Cheers, Tom
Good day!
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nicholas.
Dear all, “On the road with Messer Mark, aka Marco Polo” [incidentally Marco is at variance with common English usage in that one should not refer to oneself with the honorific “Mr.”; let others refer to you that way]. He writes in book 1, page 108 (in the Dover book), as the area around Hormuz (now southern Iraq) as being so “intolerably hot that it would kill everybody, were it not that ….they plunge into water up to the neck and so abide…” A foot note (these can be useful but abide also, many pages of footnotes per page of text). One indicates that the locals stand it until March with everyone leaving by April. The VM “zodiac” has 30 tubs in Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20); 30 tubs in Aries (March 21 to April 19) and 5 in Taurus (April 20-May 20). Note the counting of days probably starts from the inner circle and goes outward. This seems to fit with real honest to God tubs and not some kind of symbolic dating device. The portions of Marco’s text that I have deleted deal with hot winds from deserts to the south.
I think Nicolai, above, is likely correct since even the “gallows glyphs” appear to be encoded. I think they represent consonants that vary according to the whims of the scribe and differ between the two scribes.
Back to Marco’s strange and unusual voyage where he seems to do things the hard way. It just might be however, one of the keys to understanding the VM. Incidentally, most scholars agree that it was written originally in French while Marco was cooling his heels in a Genoese prison, having been greeted on his triumphal return to Venice by being clapped into irons and transported to Pisa for two years imprisonment. Well, likely we would not have the adventures of Marco Polo in manuscript form had this not happened and had he not had a prison companion who was a writer of note. Cheers, Tom
Dear Tom,
Do I understand your argument correctly. You seem to be saying that if the manuscript were a record of Marco Polo’s travels, and if the figures in the ‘bathy-‘ section were meant for images of Omani people cooling off, then the figures set around in their tiers in the calendar would also represent people of Oman cooling off, and thus that the ‘barils’ represented tubs of a sort made and used in Oman in Marco Polo’s day. Have I understood the line of argument correctly? And have we any images of personal bathing tubs as made in fourteenth-century Oman?
I might add that I have no objection at all to the idea of the manuscript relating in some way to 13thC Oman, and have already written on the relevance of that region and time – though in relation to matters such as the Genoese presence, the maritime culture, the region’s history and so on.
Diane, At the moment, I am of the opinion that the compositors of the VM were merely aware of Marco Polo’s voyages and for reasons not yet clear, incorporated some of his observations into their corpus. I slowly adopted this position by determining that some of the strange glyphs in the circles of f57v likely came from the square Tibetan script (Phags-pa) used briefly for official documents and that overlapped Marco Polo’s visit to Manchuria and Northern China. Some glyphs were also picked up by another short-lived script used in Southern China and Korea called Hangul and a few of these also appear on f57v. Since some art historians speculate that the “oriental decorations” in clothing borders used by Giotto in Padua and Assisi and Lorenzetti and others (a topic dealt with in an entry in “Wiki” on Mongol elements in Western medieval Art in the 13-15th C.) and might have been influenced by the travel pass (in Phags-pa) issued to Polo by Kublai Khan, I began searching that work for a description in his own words. Later drawings appear in the Dover ed. of the Voyages but I have yet to find a description of the pass in the text.
Let me say that reading the Voyages in the Dover ed. is taxing to a fare thee well. Not a page goes by without extensive footnoting that can go on for three or four pages. Much is useful but it does create detours. I have noted some factoids above in Nick’s blog site, where Polo comments about something that I perceive as relevant to the VM, such as: that roundel for “Novembre” that appears to have a crock-like beast and was used in Hindu India; the baths you noted, and lately those tubs used to cool off in southern Iraq. At the moment, I think the inclusions of these indirectly in the VM were included to add an air of mystery to the whole thing. It is possible (since more than 100 yrs elapsed between Polo’s voyages and the alleged composition and copying of the VM plaintext), that the VM draws on observations of other travelers and perhaps even some first hand experience but that is totally speculative. Incidentally, the nymphs populating the zodiac, I doubt are bathers but rather each represents a day, sort of mother-earth like. The star on a leash is a representation of the sun. I think many have commented on this before.
I think what drew me “East of Suez” was the “yin/yang” symbiology in the VM herbal section and the likelihood that many of the herbs are found in India or China and are not likely English potherbs.
If I have ignored various posts of yours on Genoese excursions into Asia, I apologize. I have been out of the loop for about two years, because of clearing out a laboratory and winding up a life’s work as an organic chemist. I suspect you might have an idea, maybe the same as Polo’s, on that November roundel? That was so out of the European tradition, that I speculated years ago on its origin likely in the middle East, maybe a Nhang river monster from the Euphrates? Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, et al. I put forward a different interpretation of the strange writing on the stem of that plant of f4r, discussed briefly by Nick in “Curse” on page 98. You have, from an understandable Eurocentric predilection, interpreted the three glyphs as running from bottom to top and spelling “TOA” when viewed from the right. If viewed from the LEFT, however, I think the case can be made that these glyphs are Arabic and the glyphs are from bottom to top, “d”, “m” and “h” as represented by the upside down “T”, the lower case “o” with a dot on the lower left side and the tipped “s” like glyph with a dish like accent mark. Problem here is that these do not match with a close examination of the Arabic letters where the inverted “T” should have the downward arm longer than the upper arm, the dot is on the wrong side of the “o” and the complex glyph opens to the upfolio side. These do not match the “initial, medial and final positions in Arabic and certainly not the “stand alone” forms. I propose a radical operation and that is the three glyphs be lifted from the bottom edge and FLIPPED so that the sequence is reversed. This makes the downward cross arm of the “T” shorter, puts the dot on the “o” on its other side and runs the complex end glyph in the other direction. Everything fits except the center “o” is initial and should probably be medial. The inverted “T” fits for “final d” and the complex glyph for “an initial h”. It was not clear even from the helpful enlargement in Nick’s ‘Curse” whether the inverted T has a little dot atop the long arm but that would just be a phonetic “dh” rather than “d”. The operation is essentially looking at this as a mirror image but still reading from bottom to top. So, in biblical terms, “the last shall be first!”
I have hesitated to put this forward but I will throw it out for argument’s sake. I still am not sure what the significance of these three Arabic letters are but I suspect it has something to do with the date at which those letters were put down, since Arabic used letters to represent numbers.
If this exercise is correct, then it gives one an additional headache as if we needed that! Are there other parts of the VM hidden writing. or God forbid, the text itself that are in mirror image form. It is true that engravers worked with mirrors routinely as the end product of their craft was a mirror image of the original. But scribes? Dunno about that. Cheers, Tom
Thomas: it’s possible that the genesis of these three letter-like things was as you suggest. But it would be a small rock to build a cathedral upon, all the same. 😐
Nick, No cathedral. Just an observation, if true, that the scribes were familiar with Arabic or even writing from an area where Arabic was used. I think there may be a few more examples and I’ll try and provide these anon. Still it doesn’t bring us much closer to a decrypt of the VM, just another excursion into the weeds. Cheers, Tom
Thomas:
I’m afraid it’s not Arabic. I’m pretty sure it’s just ‘rot’, a German-language instruction to an illuminator to paint that bit red. There’s another instance in the left-hand part of the root on f7r, where it’s written horizontally, and another probable one elsewhere.
This has been discussed previously here:
http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/02/27/letters-hidden-in-voynich-plants
and is on Rene’s site too.
I’ve worked with mediaeval Arabic script pretty much every day for the past twenty-odd years, hence I’m pretty confident on that point at least (although that in itself doesn’t mean I’m necessarily right, of course).
To answer your other question, yes – there is plenty of hidden writing in the VMs. Most is written in Latin script, but there is a bit of Voynichese in there too. Have a look for Reuben Ogburn’s site on the Wayback Machine if you’re interested, although his list is far from complete.
Diane has claimed to see what she considers some kind of Semitic micro-writing and has discussed this at her blog and elsewhere. My personal view is that this is unintentional and just ‘chatter’ – a consequence of how the paint has been applied and dried – but do by all means read what she thinks and form your own conclusions.
Thomas
I’ve mentioned what I see as allusions to Mongol practice and Giotto etc.
If you’re interested, one of posts is “Chronological strata, Avignon 1300s” – others on the topic are linked there, with some references which might not be in the wiki article.
It is kind of SirHubert to mention that line of micrography. The specialist doesn’t wish to be named – for obvious reasons – but would be considered one of the world’s top three in studies of Semitic and Aramaic scripts (palaeography and epigraphy). That person gave their opinion that that the letters were writing, and a semitic script, and read them off, while at the same time saying that the scribe was ‘drawing’ rather than writing them, and that the paint was too thick to be quite sure of finer distinctions such as whether e.g. vav or zayin were intended by one letter. Unless they form the cipher key, though, I don’t suppose it is of any great moment.
Diane: did this specialist actually manage to read anything specific, or suggest which particular Semitic script he/she thought was involved?
Sir Hubert, To deal with your point concerning the writing on the stem of f4v, I was aware of that argument, whoever first proposed it. It has one huge advantage and that is it does provide an explanation for those three glyphs that neither of the provisional interpretations of mine nor Nick’s does My main problem is that red plant stems are very unusual in the VM herbal section. In my slightly incomplete collection of home-printed VM herbal folios, I find only three (f13v, 35r and 38v) that have reddish plant stems and, in these, only traces remain. I assume that the “rot” would have been tinted over and then join the ranks of “hidden writing”? We know red is often used for leaves and blossom centers and have evidently been freshened up by retinting’; why not f4v? I like red personally as it fits into yin/yang ideology, red representing the female (yin) principle. I have relied on Nick’s fine enlargement (“Curse”, p 98) and found that little dot on “o” to be hard to explain without an amateur’s dive into Arabic. Then things sort of fell into place. Everything except an explanation for their occurrence. I certainly have no expertise in medieval Arabic or Arabic in general (in its many flavors). On this I defer to Sir Hubert. My queries to Sir Hubert before I go with his interpretation is 1) why German?; 2) why bottom to top? and 3) what’s with the “dot”? Is this a tip to orient the colorist? Finally that is a very strange lower case “t”. Curious in Maryland, Cheers, Tom
Sir Hubert, Regarding the left-hand rootlet of f7r. I can make out the “o” with no problem but, even with a hand lens I can detect only some fuzziness where the “r” and “t” might be. I take your word for it though that it too spells out the German “rot” for red but this, to me, raises a problem. Why are the roots now, at least, clearly brown? The pigment analysis of McCrone Assoc., Inc. indicates the red-brown pigment (they refer to it on f47r as red-ochre) used in the VM was based on the oxide (hematite) and sulfide of iron mainly. Why refer to this pigment as red when it is only “reddish”? Then every root we might now call brown and that has faded to a lighter brown, started life as more like red? I have a problem with that. Cheers, Tom
Something interesting:
Many people have tried the Voynich, but none have solved it. Could it be, perhaps, sort of glossolalia? Although admittedly that doesn’t make sense for even the glossolalia can be deciphered. One thing I wanted to know, however, was whether anyone had identified the components and region of the ink used, for ink was likely, during those times, unique, but corresponding to the country it was created in. Also, because you mentioned that more than one person was likely to have written in it, it is very likely that a sort of society could have written it, because the cipher is singular throughout the entire manuscript, but the ink may-or may not-be different, showing different people with different pens, ink, or quills.
Hi Tom,
I’m afraid that I’m not able to give full answers to your thoroughly sensible questions, but I hope this might help:
i) Why German? I presume the answer is because the instructions were designed for someone who either spoke German or understood it. That might be because the native tongue either of the person giving or receiving the instruction (or both) was German, or because German was the main vernacular language in that area (not necessarily the same thing). Or it might be that German abbreviations were routinely used for these things just as Italian abbreviations are used in sheet music (so a child learning the violin learns that ‘f’ means ‘loud’ without necessarily understanding it’s an abbreviation for ‘forte’). I honestly don’t know. But it *doesn’t* necessarily mean that the language, if any, of the VMs is German.
ii) Why bottom to top? No idea 🙂
iii) The dot, I think, is not connected to the rest of the writing, as far as I can tell. It’s just a dot.
iv) The letter ‘t’ is a standard fifteenth-century form as far as I know.
Two further points, if you can bear it.
v) The reading ‘rot’ receives further confirmation from the existence of another colour indicator, ‘pur’, found in f32r (among others) and apparently an abbreviation for ‘purpur’.
vi) The whole question of when the VMs was coloured, in how many phases and by whom, is one I don’t pretend to understand. But I think there are good arguments for at least two phases, of which at least one took place *after* the folios had become disordered. Independently of that, I also think that there are *at least three* different types of colour indication used in the VMs. What is not at all clear to me is which (if any) of these colour indicators were added by people who actually understood what the illustrations were meant to represent, or whether some of them are later attempts to beautify an otherwise plain manuscript. That, I think, is why some of the colour indicators were not in fact followed. But it’s very confusing and I may be wide of the mark.
Finally, I simply don’t know whether ‘rot’ was a generic term for any red/red brown colour, or whether there was one term at this period for cinnabar-red and another for ochre. Beyond my knowledge, I’m afraid 🙂
I’m sorry not to have anything more definitive, but hope this is food for thought at least!
Sir Hubert, Thanks for the prompt response to some sort of elementary questions. I agree that the herbal section of the VM has been colored over and over and with different mediums: inks, watercolor, a gouache, and likely even crayon. I have a major problem in that the pigment analysis by McCrone Assoc.., Inc. was done on samples of later paint and may not always have represented the original coloration. I think on close examination, one can spot original coloration on nearly every folio. If you can spot “rot” in f7r, then, for you, I don’t need to dwell on this at all!
I have not found any reference to cinnabar being in the pigment samples analyzed by McCrone but that doesn’t mean it could not have been originally used. There are smaller amounts of a lead containing mineral used on that red-ochre sample of f42r taken for analysis, but I have no idea what these minor components, minerals containing lead, would have looked like on parchment. Maybe reddish? There was another pigment sample (f26r) taken that was lead oxide and iron oxide, where the later alone is called by them red-ochre. As I recall, the oxide (Fe2O3) referred to as hematite is more of a rust color without much red in it. The red in this case could be a mixture of lead oxides, known as “red lead”; a mixture with Pb3O4 likely predominating. I think that since all of the pigments in the VM are minerals, that fading of the original pigments would be minor. At least the McCrone analysis did not pick up any more modern azo or phthalocyanine dyes that are definitely not light fast.
Well I think most will agree that the plants depicted in the herbal are often strange departures from reality; some are fairly accurate, like mulberry and turmeric, but many are distorted by clues embedded for their medicinal use.
Cheers, Tom
SirHubert,
Yes.
Diane: that’s nice.
Diane: ah, I see! You’d lost me for a minute 🙂
Could it be that the plants are the symbols of what cipher to use?
Sir Hubert, I have stared at f32r with some effort and all the magnification available to me, but fail to see any hidden writing at all and certainly nothing resembling a “pur”. Incidentally what would “purpur” signify? Can you provide directions for spotting that writing?
That herb which has rootlets colored green which seems to me an unlikely natural occurrence, has them all facing to the right suggesting a “yang” (male) use for the plant or at least this part. , I presume on your charity that you will permit me to inject yin/yang philosophy into our exchange! I think the VM herbal section embodies it and furthermore suggests that the blue petals on the flowers are also for male use.
The leaves in two cases are fused together, an embedded clue that I think indicates the leaves are used for wound healing. This essentially, warts and all, is how I approach the oddities and weirdnesses of the VM herbal section. I will add a
proviso and that is it is not clear after hundreds of years of debate (yoga vs. traditional Chinese medicine) whether yang is to the right or left and yin, the reverse. I think the VM herbalists, since the blue in the flowers marks a yang use (no debate there), intends those green right-facing rootlets also to be of yang (male) use. Cheers, Tom
Diane: just to point out that the Latin readings of the letters on this folio are ‘pur’ or ‘por’, not ‘rot’. Which explains why the applied colour is blueish rather than red. If memory serves this confusion goes back some years, possibly to a typo on Ogburn’s site, which I can’t check from here.
It would be helpful, if you’re in a position to do this, if you could upload exactly what yo sent to your specialist. I’m slightly confused as to whether they were looking at the pur/por or the edge of the heavy painting in the left of the top petal, which was my recollection from your previous posts on this topic.
Diane has posted a fairly lengthy discussion at her own website (I’d not originally noticed this), which I mention for those interested rather than rehashing it here.
Diane, I apologize for being so tardy in responding to your offer to share your scholarship on Mongol influences in Western Art, I will just reiterate that this topic is interesting, but for the moment, peripheral to my main line of effort-trying to figure out a bit of what is going on in the VM. Until the code is cracked, I think we have to follow your focus of concentrating on the visual aspects of the VM; what can we glean from the way things appear–the styles of things, what content was considered important by the VM scribes. You are not alone here but have undoubtedly logged more hours in this area than anyone else. Incidentally I found a post (Nov 2007) on a blog site of Andrew West (Marco Polo and the Universal Script) that has some full colored images of the borders of clothing worn by the three Wise Men, Mary and a Roman soldier at the tomb, as displayed in the Giotto frescoes of the Arena chapel in Padua. Giotto worked on this after the return of Marco Polo and some have speculated that Polo’s manuscript might have included some of the Phags-pa (square Tibetan) script but I have yet to find it. The Dover ed I have has some foreign scripts in Messr Polo’s hand but not Phags-pa. Illustrations are provided but appeared in editions in the mid 19C. Giotto also had forty coworkers in the fresco work so one or more of these might have been aware of Phags-pa or learned of it by word of mouth, addenda to the original ms, (now lost) or other travelers. So far, for me, a dead end on tying Marco Polo to the Mongol influence on Western medieval art. If you know anything on the source, I hope you will share this in this blog site of Nick’s. Cheers, Tom
Tom: there are two on that page in fact. The easiest to find is in the lower right flower, just above the stalks with the topmost leaves. P and U are written vertically with R to the right of the P.
You really need something like Jason Davies’s Voynich Voyager, set on highest magnification, to see these things properly. If you’re looking at an inkjet printout or something, you’ll struggle.
Sir Hubert,
Thanks for the information about the ‘pur’ rather than ‘rot’. I thought the ‘pur’ a fairly recent revision of the original reading, but see I’ll have to check that.
Tom,
In one of my own posts I also mentioned the Arena chapel, but I was working from other sources, and in my post I mentioned the seminal essay on the subject of Phags-pa in Latin works of the time. The article is:
Hidemichi Tanaka, ‘The Mongolian script in Giotto’s paintings at the Scrovegni Chapel at Padova’, Akten des XXV. Internationalen Kongresses fur Kunstgeschichte Pt.6 (1986) pp.167-74.
The post in which I mentioned these things, was part of a longer discussion about my reasons for attributing one strand (and chronological stratum) to the ‘Mongol century’. That post is dated Feb.6th., 2015 (voynichimagery).
Personally, I see no reason to believe Marco Polo had any personal involvement. There were, as I’ve explained for my readers, literally hundreds of people who passed between the eastern and western sphere during the ‘Mongol century’ – not to mention those who had known and travelled those routes, or a considerable length of them, from before the days of Alexander.
For me, MS Beinecke 408 is an interesting problem in provenancing: that is, provenancing the content up until c.1427 when I think our present manuscript was manufactured (to use the most neutral term I can) and probably in the Veneto.
Usually, we can assign a manuscript to its proper period and culture, and describe the content of any imagery, within about a week. Regardless of any written matter. That the Vms remains problematic is due, not least, to the unusual nature and dynamic of public discourse about it, but I daresay that could change, one day.
Sir Hubert, I had f32r printed with an HP laser printer but spotting “pur” proved for my eyes and magnifiers, “mission impossible”. I will take your word that this coloring instruction is in there somewhere. Thanks for the coaching but I’m afraid I’ll have to admit defeat. I think, however, that this hidden writing amounts to a punctillio of sorts and maybe illustrates that a lot of the hidden writing in the VM are just coloration instructions? It does raise one question and that is how the color “purple” was achieved. I assume that “pur” means purple? Also, why it seems now to be a dark blue. McCrone analyzed only two samples, referred to as “blue” and found both to be azurite with minor amounts of cuprite (an oxide of copper). One of the VM samples studied, a flower like f32r, are the blooms of f26r, and here to my eye, the color does resemble purple. Maybe the gum used in coloration plays some role in the final color now observed.
Instructions on coloration does imply that the colorist was not working closely with the herb delineator and that the drawing and even original coloration were done as separate steps by different workers. The later re-coloration often seems totally haphazard and in many cases, little attempt is made to “keep within lines”.
Well, again thanks for following up on this query of mine. Cheers, Tom
Diane, Thanks for the information on Marco Polo, Phags pa and Giotto, etc. I think, along with you, that Marco Polo is a “red herring”. I do think that his voyages might have influenced portions of the VM and maybe topics selected by those scribes, like that “Novembre” roundel. But I think the occurrence of Phags pa and Hangul glyphs come to the circles of f57v from a source other than Polo. One Phags pa glyph (the inverted “v” with an overbar) appears at several places in the herbal text, but used by one scribe only.
As to the passes issued by Kublai Khan, the examples shown in the Dover ed. of his voyages came from a discovery in Siberia of all places. So your point of these being used by many, other than Polo is well taken. I will just return to reading about the voyages for pleasure as his prison companion-prominent author has even after n+1 translations, created a compelling read. Cheers, Tom
ps. There is so much footnoting and commentary in the Dover ed of Polo’s voyages, it amounts to a crash course in Medieval travel history. The Yule-Cordier edition that Dover has republished is about 75% footnotes. I have never before seen a work invested with such totally relevant commentary. Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, Sir Hubert, et al., Having invested a bit of time with the idea that the writing on the stem of the herb on f4r is arabic and could be involved in formulating a date, (being three digits). I make out the rearranged letters ( see my post of April 2) as “hmd” (reading from the bottom). Assigning the usual numbers to these that were used by Arabs to indicate some numbers, we have h=800; m=40; d=5 or 845. Adding to this the date of the first hajj (629
AD (totally un-PC not to use C.E. but blame Trump for that!), we come up with the date 1474 A.D.; not far from one of the permutations (1475) of Nick’s of the really tiny numbers at the center of the herb on f28v (“Curse” p173). Now I brace myself for a riposte from Sir Hubert who argued for those glyphs spelling the German word “rot” on f4r. He may well be correct but I have two problems still with that: the little dot by “o” is dismissed; the lower case German “t” is weird. Cheers, Tom
Thomas
If you look at Wallis’ Budge’s translation of Mar (or Bar) Sawma’s journey narrative, the paiza (spellings differ) was also illustrated there. Not all those we know came from Siberia, I believe.
and Tom
” I have never before seen a work invested with such totally relevant commentary”
really? 😀
Hi Tom,
I don’t really have much to add, I’m afraid.
The Hijra took place in 622m, not 629m. I believe you’re right that Arabic letters have associated numbers, although I myself have never come across a date written in this way. Is this more to do with numerology and gematria? By the 800s Hijri, the numerals we now associate with Arabic script were certainly in use for dates.
Otherwise, I can only repeat myself: please have a look at Reuben Ogburn’s site, and you really will need to look at an enlarged, on-screen image to find these things comfortably.
I can see how you might think there is a resemblance to Arabic, but can only – with all respect to the most courteous of posters here – beg to differ. I don’t have a problem with the letter shape of the ‘t’, and if the dot is close to the ‘o’ (which, incidentally, is wrongly written for an isolated Arabic ‘m’, there is no way to associate the two meaningfully.
But your comments on how the colour has been applied, and your questioning of the relationship between draughtsman and colourist are, in my opinion, absolutely spot on.
Diane, Yep! Tom
Sir Hubert, There is more wrong with my calculation based on the perceived Arabic glyphs seen in f4r than getting the start of the Arabic calendar (the Hajira) wrong. You are correct it is 622 CE; islamic calendar conversion tables for the resulting date of 845+622=1467 does not fit at all but should be 871 not 845, a discrepancy of some 26 yrs., a not inconsiderable error. Back to the drawing boards or maybe this whole operation is just fatally flawed and is just illusory. You are right in that the dotted “o” did not fit for a medial form, but rather an initial form. I noted that but plowed ahead thinking maybe the scribe was in error. Either original or rearranged we have the same problem with that glyph. The other two glyphs after rearrangement did fit. So Arabic is out and I guess we will have to accept “rot”. Thanks for letting me down easy! Cheers, Tom
I suspect the site of Reuben Ogburn may have been a page at GC’s voynichcentral, now lost. This is the one place I remember where an overview of many of these previously barely noticed “letters in plants” was presented, very shortly after the appearance of the first set of digital scans at the Beinecke. I don’t remember the name of the poster threre.
If anyone knows for certain it would be appreciated.
Hi Rene,
I’ve got a PDF of Ogburn’s pages, taken from the Wayback Machine a couple of years ago, if that’s of any help? It’s not the last word on the subject but is useful until anyone produces anything better.
Possibly something for the cipher foundation page, even?
I think the list of these things produced or hosted by Glen Claston was something else, although I’ve not seen it and am only going by something Brian Cham mentioned here.
Rene and SirHubert: as I recall, there used to be at least three collections of letters-in-Voynich-plants on the web (Sander Manche had one). I have an archive of all the voynichcentral.com files at home, and I’ll try to reconstitute a best-of-breed set as a Cipher Foundation page over the next few days, it’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. 🙂
There are also at least a couple of pages here covering this stuff:
http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/02/27/letters-hidden-in-voynich-plants
http://ciphermysteries.com/2011/11/10/letters-hidden-in-voynich-plants-yet-again
And a false alarm: http://ciphermysteries.com/2008/05/18/hidden-writing-on-f1v
Oh dear me ! Talk about a well-worn path — to nowhere. You can find any item in B-408 being illustrated and discussed (in two languages) in Fray Sahagun’s Florentine Codex. Especially the botanical items and their qualities and uses. I once again refer you to Book eleven, in particular.
bd
bd, I fail to see that we ( i.e.. all Voynichers except yourself), on any kind of well-worn path. It looks to me like a maze of paths, some occasionally intersecting, some not at all. But not on the same path at all. Don’t cry for us, Argentina! Cheers, Tom
Dear Nick, et al. One last shot at the glyphs on f4r. If I stick with 843 as a Hijiri date and simply plug it into one of the many tables or calendar converters, we obtain a Gregorian date of 1439-1440 AD. One of my many mistakes was not recognizing that the Islamic calendar is lunar and shorter (354-355 days) than a Christian year (then actually Julian although converted to Gregorian). These add up. The 843 date included the Hijrah of 622 AH (Anno Hijiri). The “o” with a dot is still wrong for a medial position BUT if a dot be also added to the other side, all is well. I could be wrong but why leave a tinting instruction (“rot”) sticking out like a sore thumb when the rest of that herb, including red areas is tinted? I plan to give this topic a rest for the moment but it does supply a purpose for those three letters. Cheers, Tom
BD:
I’m sorry if you think we’re wasting our time.
But if we end up being able to prove that the manuscript includes colour indicators added by a German speaker in the fifteenth century, that would be a major step forward.
It would, for example, mean that a sixteenth century figure – such as Sahagun – could not have written the Voynich Manuscript.
Forgive my genuine ignorance, but if one wanted to disprove the Nahuatl translation, wouldn’t it be simpler to test the translation rather than relying on theoretical disproof based on an interpretation of these letters? After all, do we know that Fray Sahagun knew no German, or that no German Jesuits were involved in the copying or production of his manuscripts? I’ve made it plain enough that while I see very well the conguencies of layout and so forth, and some stylistic similarities even in some of the botanical imagery in both, that overall I’d ascribe those similarities to the influence of the Europeans not the native peoples. Still, I would love to see someone who is able to do it write us an evaluation. I know that Beady isn’t the only person in the world who is convinced of a new world origin for the manuscript, and that this idea has been around for many years. Witness the otherwise inexplicable use of a rare south American gum in the rests which McCrone ran. Is there anyone able and willing to take the time to read and evaluate Beady’s claimed translation?
Dear Nick
I have been writing on my blog for a while about how I think the f89 foldout (both sides) contains numerous references to Greco-Roman myth. While writing up my most recent post, an overview of a number of stories referenced in the plants, I was surprised to find out that all of them appeared to have been taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I thought you might be interested, and would be very happy to know your opinion on this matter.
Here is a link to my post. Don’t mind the title – it’s mostly sensationalism. I’m not crazy 🙂
Koen
Diane: studying of these letters might be informative in all sorts of ways. I only mentioned Sahagun in an attempt to persuade BD that they might not be as pointless as she thinks 🙂
Diane, In your post of April 12, you indicate a rare South American gum showed up in the VM botanicals. Can you provide more information on that? Thanks in advance, Cheers, Tom
Nick, et al., Two more glyphs from that curious assortment on f57v of the VM might be found in the later Etruscan alphabet. I refer to the inverted “V” (“m” in Latin) and “8” (=f). Well that “8” poses a problem in that I think it is most often Armenian for the Latinized “e” as it often appears with a “9” where “89” may be equivalent to the Latin “et” or English “and”. So we might have two translations of the “8” glyph? Maybe both (or neither?) is valid. Etruscan is interesting in that the alphabet is understood but not the words that those letters make up so it cannot be considered “cracked”. It is related to a lot of Italic languages such as “Raetic” used in the Eastern part of the Alps and Euboean Greek used on the isle of Lemnos. Cheers, Tom
Tom, sorry I missed your previous question.
My point was that McCrone used a very peculiar control – mopa mopa gum. There is no obvious reason for choosing that over the sort of gums, vegetable and otherwise, which were use to fix pigments before 1450. It would have been much more illuminating (pardon the pun) had some of the eastern gums been tested against those normally used in say, Persia and Italy. (not all used gum arabic).
The only reason I could think that anyone would choose such a peculiar test was if there was a fairly solid clique intent on arguing a ‘New world’ storyline, as distinct from the German, or the Italian proposals. And, I thought, they’d have to be a clique with clout. Not the only reason for my thinking so, but it was a fairly staggeringly inappropriate choice, given the probable date for the MS. I would even be willing to wager that McCrone itself didn’t make the choice – they were too experienced and sensible to be theory-driven in their scientific methods. Unless the customer insisted… or so it seems to me from my experience in labs.
Diane: tests can also be chosen to eliminate possibilities and suggestions, not just to confirm them.
If you want to eliminate possibilities in experiments, you test possibilities.
It was plainly historically more likely that the manuscript had been made in Europe or Asia or Africa than in South America, because these were all linked by communication lines of one sort or another before 1440.
Leaping to south America for a bit of Aztec binding medium .. well, I’d call it a total waste of the time and money, but it wasn’t mine being wasted, so should I worry? 🙂
Diane: can anyone write a sentence about mopa mopa without sounding faintly whimsical? As anyone under the age of 12 would doubtless put it, as words go it’s a bit cra-cra. 😉
Diane, Nick et al., I have only the summary/conclusions of McCrone on the gums used in coloration and inks and it appears to me that they used gum arabic as a control (Fig. 1D in the addendum) BUT they do admit that the IR spectrum indicates by absorptions in the 1100-1000 cm-1 region, that the gum used in the specimens of the VM they chose to examine is not pure gum arabic (or maybe not gum arabic at all [my comment]?). The absorptions in the 1100-1000 region likely are C-O stretching frequencies and are going to be in many common gum additives, such as sugars or glycerin. Is the mopa mopa gum Diane refers to mentioned in the McCrone CD-ROM? Gum arabic from the acacia tree would have been a very common article of commerce throughout Europe, the Middle East and even the Far East. It does seem though that the composition of this gum, if not gum arabic at all or gum arabic plus an additive, would be worth investigating further. Some simple techniques such as those of mass spectrometry (MS) could and should have been explored. It would require way less material than an infrared spectrum. In fact, since IR spectroscopy is a non-destructive technique, maybe one or more of the tested gums still exists and a routine method such as chemical ionization MS could be tried?
It may well be that in the “out of the ordinary” that some vital clues will be found as to the place of origin of the VM or even the time that the vellum was written upon and colored. Cheers, Tom
Diane, I think mopa-mopa gum is a huge red herring in the context of coloration used in the VM.
1. Incidentally, It was Inca not Aztec
2. It is found in a jungle shrub found in the island of Aruba but mainly in the extreme south of Colombia, close to the coast, near a town,, San Juan de Pasto. Some shrubs have also been found in northern Ecuador.
3. Its preparation is hugely tedious, involving even chewing the resin obtained after many steps from macerated leaves and fruits of the shrub,, then colored and most often applied as a varnish like lacquer to wood.
I find no mention of it being used to color vellum. If McCrone picked this as a reference gum for the VM. they must have been smoking something. Just my opinion. Cheers, Tom
ps. Most gums in the New World were things like Chicle or Sweet Gum and were mainly for chewing, not art work. A search for art gums might still be profitable. No luck here at the moment.
Gum arabic can simply be scraped off the branches of an acacia tree with minimal work-up before use as an art medium.
Diane, Nick and anyone else interested, like you BD, We know that the Aztecs used color and must have used some vehicle for their pigments! It would have greatly predated the mid 1500s when the Nahuatl (an Aztec sub group) culture became known to the Europeans.
My main source on Aztec art coloration seems to fixate on black but does indicate the vehicle for coloration was latex, from trees of the species Castilla elastica, not technically a gum at all, but an isoprene polymer that sets up to a rubbery substance. It was mixed with soot or lignite coal to provide black which was common in their art work. I found that latex was mixed with some bark colors or copper sulfate (not clear whether Cu+ or Cu++) providing the browns and greens found in their art work. Red was provided by the cochineal beetle.
Aztecs used a soot-based ink but it unclear what the vehicle was. Some seed oil likely but I cannot imagine that latex would work for any lengthy writing; the ink would set up while you frantically wrote. No mention of any iron based inks.
Gums that seem ruled out are the following Old World gums: Gum Tragacanth (main source Iran) and its use in pastels; guar gum (India, Pakistan, Australia, Africa and West Texas). The latter will raise eyebrows as it did mine. It turns out to be used by all the oil service companies involved in Fracking. No use that I could find as a vehicle for art pigments but another huge use is as a thickening agent for foods. Others that can be ruled out are: xanthan gum (food additive), locust bean (also known as carob bean) gum, that is a chocolate-flavored food additive found in the Mediterranean area, particularly Spain and Italy. No art use reported for either.
The Aztecs used the root of orchids also for a gum that was used in the coloration of feathers and shields but evidently only for articles of clothing and mainly as an adhesive. A gum was also used by Aztecs based on beeswax and a pine resin and again used mainly in the role of a glue.
That’s it for the moment. No obvious hits for an artist’s gum that would have been a reasonable reference for the gum(s) of the VM. Cheers, Tom
OK, folks, I will try to be brief: red pigment = cinnabar
An excellent discussion “Colors of the New World” The writer/lecturer had her very small book printed in the late 1990’s -2000’s. Since my recently adopted cat has managed to sweep the contents of my six shelving units into knee-deep piles — I have a way to go (cleanup) before I can rejoin the discussions I’ll catch up with y’all in a little while, or day or so.
bd
BD, Cinnibar is found world wide and of ancient use in both hemispheres,. McCrone does not indicate that it appears at all in the VM coloration although it can be justly argued that their sampling was mainly (only?) of non-original pigments. It could have been used in the original coloration. I think Sir Hubert has also mentioned it. It would have been a natural pigment to use, either by itself or mixed with brown pigments. No brush licking is recommended! Does the mysterious writer/lecturer answer to the moniker “BD”? Cheers, Tom
ps. I look forward to your return to the discussion once you bell that cat!
Hi Nick,
I was surprised to see the sentence “Consider the Voynich Manuscript” in a popular physics book.
Physicist and science popularizer Sean Carroll, in his new book “The Big Picture,” (recommended!) uses the VM (and includes a sample of Voynichese) to explain some ideas about the ways we use the word “information.” He asks the reader to compare the information content if the VM is random scribbling in an invented alphabet, or if it is an unsolved cipher. After leading the reader to guess that the latter case would contain more information, he wonders whether the situation would change if the VM were launched into space forever just as the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid impact. Spoiler alert: “information” in the usual sense of the word involves correlations between one thing (the VM) and another (a reader’s mind), so asking the question would no longer be useful, even if information in the physics sense is conserved.
The reference is on page 288.
Jim
Jim: in many ways, the asteroid has already hit, insofar as so much time has passed between the context in which the Voynich was written and our present-day context that we are already the (putative) aliens trying to read the VMs. 🙁
Hi JIm,
I was about to say much the same. If the information is embedded in the object, there’s no necessity that we become the people who put the information into that form; we just have to learn to think as they did, and see if we can’t retrieve their language too. Like aliens, indeed.
Dear all, I am going to adopt a contrarian position. I think the message and meaning of the VM herbal lies East of Suez and that mid and far Easterners can grasp the intended use of most of the herbs through obvious, embedded graphics. No alien status required! All that is needed is a passing knowledge of yin/yang philosophy at an elementary level. The plant blossoms are either blue (sky=yang=male use) or brown/red/orange (earth=yin=female use) and when red and blue appear together, the herb is used by both sexes.Incidentally the color blue is comparatively rare in botany but common in the VM. Where leaves are joined (not careless drawing), the herb is used for wound healing; where branch stems penetrate the main stem of the plant, the herb is used for penetrating wounds such as might occur on receiving an arrow in warfare. When every berry faces the viewer, the plant is used for eye ailments. These are a superficial overview but I think the herbal could be useful EVEN IF NOT A WORD OF THE TEXT CAN BE DECIPHERED. So the take home for students of physics is work on gedanken experiments, a la Albert. There is meaning in the graphics which is easier to grasp than the Heisenberg equation. Let’s send that Physics text into orbit!
Dear Thomas,
I agree with you that:
*the message and meaning of the VM [botanical images] lies East of Suez.
* that… [it is possible to] grasp the intended use of most of the [botanicals] through … embedded graphics [which I term mnemonic devices].,
* that … the color blue is comparatively rare in botany but common in the VM.
* that .. the botanical drawings [I can’t agree that they are exclusively medicinal plants] could be useful even if not a word of the text can be deciphered.
* that.. there is meaning in the graphics which is [potentially] easier to grasp than the Heisenberg equation.
The difficulty – and thus the desirability of having the written part of the text understood – is that while one person asserts the imagery culturally Chinese; another insists that it is culturally German. Another (me) holds that the exemplars were (Sephardi) Jewish but the present quires were copied and bound early in the fifteenth century in northern Italy; Nick has said that it is an original and authorial creation by a Renaissance Italian..
Touwaide has said the binding is characteristic of Italian work – so in this Nick and I agree.
Since the demise of the old mailing list we’ve seen the strange phenomenon whereby, instead of beginning study by considering the opinions of earlier well-qualified persons, and then investigating the primary evidence and commenting on points one disputes, each new Voynichero begins anew by throwing away all the past century’s efforts (sometimes with reason) and developing a brand-new theory.. or falling into line with some theory being urged at a given moment, and then working less on understanding the manuscript than on working to make it serve the favoured theory.
I think we must hope that the written part of the text will be understood – one day. Perhaps it will turn out to be a Chinese medical work. But at all events the text should help reduce the infestation of theory-bug.
Diane, I agree that we are largely reading from the same page, at least in the case of the VM herbal (plants) section, where the stress is on the imagery. If I indicated that ALL the plants depicted had a medicinal use, I may have overstated the plant uses, although plants we would not consider having a medicinal use, do appear in the Chinese Materia Medica as being curative of a number of ailments. One example is the common mulberry (Morus alba L.) that appears in MM on pp 436-428 where leaves and root bark are used. It also appears in the VM.
I feel certain that embedded in the VM plant section is a lot of yin/yang philosophy and have commented on that before. The clearest example is found on f38r, where that fern-like plant has five yangs complete even with the little black dot. This is a plant for male use (the little blossoms at the base still have a faded bluish coloration). I think there was a sixth yang but the herbalist adjusted the dose to indicate a fern leaf was sufficient for only five, not six, potions for some male use, like an aphrodisiac (?). Amazing how concerned the Armenians were with procreation. Anyway, that sixth yang was scrubbed out by the scrupulous plant artist creating a rip of the vellum. When this happened in the timeline of the VM’s history would be interesting to know.
Other yin/yang symbology is found in the directionality of roots and leaves with some debate still existing about whether R or L was yin. For example, the roots of f32r all point to the right and with the blue flowers, I opted for yang use.
Where several plant stems join, as in f17v. f22r,, f22v, and f40r, I think the plant use was for helping fractures heal.
A real reach might be positing that the roots of f14r (28 knobs, alternating brown and uncolored; (now at least)) represent “worry beads”. I have tried to put myself into the mind of the plant delineator but may have just wandered into the weeds. Incidentally medieval representations of St. Jerome show “worry beads” in the foreground.
Diane, you made a valiant effort to extricate BD from the tight corner she has painted herself into. I think BD is embarked on a lesser-worn path to a dead end, in trying to sell a New World origin for the VM. The problem considering f93r, a fair representation of a sun flower, is that the blossom has no petals. All for the moment, Cheers, Tom
ps. One easy conclusion that can be distilled from the mnemonic clues in the VM herbal is that the ultimate reader/ user was not any kind of trained herbalist but knew how to interpret the clues.
Thomas,
I wish it were a standard convention in Voynich studies to indicate which system of foliation we are using: whether the current Beinecke foliation, the older Yale foliation, the mailing list foliation or some other.
But I hope what follows is about the same “folio 38r” that you mention.
Those ‘comma’ marks appear in other imagery, some plainly uninfluenced by Chinese philosophy or medicine. One which I know comes from a horrid mish-mash of half-understood Syrian traditions, as reproduced in a Latin manuscript around the time of the Crusades, though not ‘Crusader art’ as such. There the plant is meant for a dracaena or balsam or something – the image is too confused to be sure. But it has nothing to do with Chinese medicine or philosophy. In the same way, when I considered that folio, I referred to a comment made in Pliny’s natural history, and which seems to have been some sort of proverb among buyers and sellers (making it a natural subject for a mnemonic) – viz, that ” Bactrian bdellium is dry and shining, and has numerous white spots, in shape like ‘claws’ (or ‘finger-nails’). Historia Naturalis, 12.19.
Other details suggest the plant one which provided a sap or resin that was sweet-scented and in some way considered like myrrh or true balsam: the resemblance of the two lower shoots to two nails set at an angle is another reference to long-standing habits and ideas associated with such plants in the east.
Though the plant-picture looks to me far more like some sort of palm than any member of the Commiphoraceae, but I do think whatever it is was associated with a sweet smelling sap or resin equated with myrrh, and was also in some way considered a ‘balsam’.
I settled for an identification as Bdellium by reason of those white ‘claws’ but consider the mystery of f.38r abandoned rather than fully answered.
What I really enjoy about your work on the manuscript, Thomas, is that you talk about what you think of this folio or that, and that one has a clear idea of exactly what details from the informed your opinion. It means that one can still discuss those details in a sensible way, and keep the conversation going, rather than having it all derailed, detoured or stopped dead by a theory-wall.
Cheers.
Diane, I use the foliation used for Beinecke 408; the recto number is written in the upper right hand of the folio. So f38r depicting a fern-like plant, is that folio you studied.
That fern on f38r is overlaid with five yang symbols; they are NOT COMMAS. Note the little black dot on each. Would a comma from any culture have such an addition? Cheers, Tom
There really aren’t any different foliation schemes, at least not since the Beinecke library corrected the obvious mistakes on their web site.
The official Beinecke foliation exactly follows the old foliation written in ink on the MS. The pencilled a, b and c on some pages play no role in that.
The library does not propose any method for identifying individual parts of foldout folios, and to my best knowledge they will not do that in future either.
For this particular “problem” (for example: how to identify one of the three drawings on f68r), a scheme exists since 1995, which is the same as the Beinecke foliation, but extends it for these cases. This method was already used by Anne Nill before 1960.
Rene,
I don’t think it is helpful to divide the foliation for e.g. folio 86v. That foliation is sensible and doesn’t give a misleading impression that the map is drawn on separate bifolia, as would normally be implied by “folio 85v and 86r”.
I understand when you say that the Beinecke foliation’s “obvious errors” have been corrected, that you do not mean they have returned to the first Yale foliation, but am not sure exactly what you do mean.
How does the Beinecke library’s “corrected” foliation relate to that which you and others got into the habit of using on the first mailing list, before Yale or the Beinecke posted their scans?
Does your evident approval mean the library has agreed to conform to that foliation which was never quite orthodox.
Obviously every shift and change to a manuscript’s foliation makes things more confusing for scholars, attempting to correlate earlier and later work, much of it published without illustration.
May I ask when, exactly, the Beinecke corrected what you see as “obvious errors”? The question matters, obviously, since one may have to return and change the content of several, perhaps dozens of posts to blogs and/or web-pages.
I must say, though, that it is terribly nice of Yale University and the Beinecke library, to be so responsive to amateurs as they have shown themselves to be. I really couldn’t imagine the British Library, or that at Leiden etc., altering a manuscript’s foliation to suit the habits developed by a mailing list, no matter how well qualified – in their own various professions – the mailing list members were. Positively charming of them.
The incorrect foliation is still visible at the Bibliotecapleyades site:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_manuscrito07d.htm
(I doubt very much that this is in any way associated with Yale Univ.).
The fact that recto and verso of some of the folios don’t have the same size, is one of the clear signs that something went wrong. See e.g. 69r and 69v or 70r and 70v. But there’s more.
The rosettes illustration is on a single bifolio, but spread over two folios, namely 85 and 86. These numbers are on the other side of the sheet.
Maybe it’s a bit awkward, but there are manuscripts with bigger inconveniences than this.
Two weeks ago I was browsing one where the foliation (in pencil) had been changed. Old numbers struck out and new numbers added, again in pencil. There are printed papers that now refer to the wrong folio nr.
A folio is normally one sheet.
Some folios may be larger than others, but they remain a single folio.
To that extent, it is unusual (in the normal way that manuscripts are foliated) to have the former folio 86 now described as if it were more than one folio, with a single recto and single verso.
The original Yale foliation for the map and its back (the map being the former folio 86v) was pretty sensible and allowed a short and equally sensible description, I would say.
To call it the ‘rosette’ folio seems a little perverse given that (as you yourself pointed out) a number of people sensed that it might be a map, even before my very detailed analysis, and that since that was done, quite a few people have attempted to follow me and/or argue it a different sort of map.
Before it had been read, ‘rosette folio’ was a description used for want of any better, but it is surely misleading or just some way to avoid acknowledging the work done to insist upon it still.
I agree that the older Yale foliation is superseded by the Beinecke foliation – awkward as that is, but then you still have the foliation which was devised by the first mailing list, and even Jason Davies, which seems to me to differ again.
It is a great pity that there was never one official foliation, by the holding library, which was maintained and to which everyone conformed. I guess we can put it down to the self-confidence of Voynicheros that some even expected to persuade the holding library to change their foliation to suit the amateurs, rather than the reverse. 😀
Diane: I have to say that I don’t even begin to understand your point. The foliation was not added by a modern conservator but by an individual four or more centuries ago: and even though in the case of the nine rosette page that individual got it wrong (numbering a single folded-over sheet twice, etc), everyone has happily used that numbering ever since.
Her point?
Same as always Nick: baiting people with infuriatingly futile, self-aggrandizing, passive-aggressive arguments, in the hope of causing reactions she can complain about later, and thereby satisfying her desperate, inextinguishable craving for attention.
Yawn.
Goose,
I’d be glad if you could direct me to any place where you have attempted an analysis of some matter connected to the topic which heads this page of Nick’s. I understand that you hope to become one of his pals, but the way you go about it is the way toadies go about earning pats from a school-yard bully, and that hardly does justice to Nick’s intelligence, good character or manners.
Driving people out of Santacoloma’s mailing list led to its demise. Decent minded people leave because it is so unpleasant to witness, and the object of such useless and senseless noise also leaves, sooner or later.
Perhaps you can think of more constructive ways to build a friendship. I’d surely try if I were you.
Nick, there are discrepancies in the different foliations. I follow the Beinecke foliation now, as I used to follow the Yale one.
Last I looked, though that was about two years or more ago, voynich.nu foliation differed. The Yale bibliotecapleyades.net/ site differs again. Jason Davies’ site, last I used it, set folio 86v (Yale)/ 85v and 86r (Beinecke) at the end and called it by a descriptive term without any folio number.
I don’t think the point is obscure, or trivial, or unreasonable. We need to agree to use the holding library’s system, or at least to reference it, if new and future readers are not to find the whole of past Voynich writing a nuisance to work with.
Oh, and speaking of nuisances..
Diane: I suspect you’re confusing moderation with approval. Just because I allow comments through (yours, Goose’s or whoever’s), it doesn’t mean that I approve of their contents, claims, attitudes or sentiments.
Oh, and the less said about that particular mailing list, the better.
Nick,
If one keeps an untrained pup off the leash, knowing (as your visitors also know) that it savages visitors thinking it earns a pat or two, I should think that it would take a little more than silent disapproval to regain control of decisions about who may, and who may not approach.
About that sad second list – bloke-y team-spirit killed it, not stupidity.
Diane,
You want to see some of my research? OK then, here you go:
I found this scintillating statement you made on this very site a few years ago, in which you admit to the very behavior I’m calling you out for.
“Diane O’Donovan on August 31, 2013 at 7:21 pm said:
Analysis? Not necessary.
See you later, baiter.
Diane: the “pup”-thing may be your idea of a hilariously funny that’s-how-to-slap-people-down extended metaphor, but it’s certainly not mine.
Actually, it’s a bit tiresome, now I come to think of it.
Diane, Nick, Goose, Rene, et al., I feel as though I stepped into a cowflop with my short post of 5-24. Or maybe I stepped on someone’s “blue suede shoes”. Starting a food fight on the issue of foliation was the last thing on my mind!
I think Rene has the last word on this! For me, it seems definitive. Let’s get back to the task at hand. maybe just maybe. uncovering some clues useful for a VM decrypt. I think the VM botanicals abound with yin-yang symbology and suggest the following additional examples:
f46r, The plant on this folio shows yang like ( or “comma-shaped”) leaves, all to the right which suggests yang BUT the blossom color is not blue as would be expected but rather tan for yin. Nick’s idea in “Curse” was that these leaves represent disguised “sails” but it maybe that things are even simpler.
f39v: The leaf inserts in the eight leaves are yang like, The upper left leaf has a hidden “8” and the striations sort of look like gripping hands. Blossoms are blue with some original blue being detected.
f42r: The roots’rootlets are to the left indicating a yin use. Obligingly for a plant with no blossoms, the artist has a little plant with red leaves along side confirming that a yin use is depicted.
f56r: All those comma-shaped blue leaves are to the right with blue blossoms indicating a yang (male use) of the plant.
Incidentally, The Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica embodies yin/yang ideas and traditional Chinese medicine used yin-yang ideas as a primary guide.
I fear that if VM foliation can generate hard feelings that introducing yin/yang ideas into the VM will lead to hand-to-hand combat! I stand ready with many more examples! Back to vowel frequency analysis and “Hangul”.
Where is all this going? I think a simple answer is that the Far East has to be considered as influencing the content of, at least, the VM botanical section. Cheers, Tom
Nick
Your website is one of a handful of places where people are drawn towards to talk about the Voynich. That means you have great power. If tomorrow you post that you have found evidence that the manuscript was made in, say, Russia, the whole community will read your words.
This also means that you have some responsibility over “your” part of the community. You are the moderator here. It is you who decides whether we will insult each other like children, or debate each other’s ideas like adults.
As a relative newcomer to the scene, I was surprised to see to what extent you allow abusive behavior to thrive in your comments section. Not so long ago I saw you complain about exactly such behavior on another forum, which gave me the impression that you were a champion of decent, to the point discussion.
We are all here for the same reason: we want to know. To know what the Voynich manuscript is, and what it isn’t. It is the internet however, so things get out of hand easily. Then we look at site managers like you to intervene at times. Ever since Anton and David adopted a stricter stance on ad hominem remarks, conversation is remarkably civil and I haven’t been insulted a single time 🙂
Sometimes that entails being nice to people you don’t like, but hey… it’s all in the name of science.
Anyway, to get back to the point myself. Yesterday I discovered something striking about the nymphs in some of the “bathing” folios. They correspond to classical constellations, and the overlap of these nymphs with surfaces or flows of water shows where the constellations cross horizontal circles on the celestial sphere (Tropics, Poles, Equator).
Essentially, these folios use story elements from Greek myth to teach about the constellations in a quick and dirty, but effective way. I have a background in linguistics myself, and I’m only just entering the subject of star stuff. Any advice or input from those more experienced in this matter is greatly appreciated.
My first post, exploring this hypothesis, can be read here, and a next one with more constellations is soon to follow:
https://herculeaf.wordpress.com/a-metamorphosis-of-the-fixed-stars
Koen Gheuens: my website is not
wantwhat you think it is, and a decade of posting on it amply demonstrates to me that it has not even remotely the power over people you think it does.The website: posting about cipher-related things here is just what I do to scratch my own research itch – whenever I stumble upon a new unsolved historical cipher mystery or an interesting angle on a previously well-known cipher mystery, I get excited and want to share what I’ve found with others. That’s the basic idea: nothing more, nothing less. I have a second website (the Cipher Foundation) where I post all the primary evidence I can on historical ciphers, but even though Google’s algorithms like it, it gets less then 5% of the traffic that Cipher Mysteries does: being factual is just too boring for the Internet.
The website’s reception: in the vast majority of cases, the people who are attracted to Cipher Mysteries are abusive, fighty, angry-headed people with ill-formed theories and/or preconceived (and often historically nonsensical) ideas about what constitutes evidence or relevance, together with sophisticated-sounding rhetorical chips on their shoulders they want to take out on me, usually for daring to having an opinion (e.g. that there is no evidence of “microwriting” in the Rubaiyat page whatsoever, and/or that the Voynich Manuscript is a product of the mid-15th century, etc) that contradicts some basic assumption they’ve made about historical cipher X.
Unfortunately, that means that I have a basic choice: (a) whether I want to be like a six-year-old with a policeman fixation (i.e. and just delete nearly all the comments as they come in), or (b) whether I prefer to let people post what they like (short of being disgustingly abusive), and let them make fools of themselves in their own words. That is to say, as a kind of digital libertarian sympathizer, I’d rather expose than censor.
What has happened recently, though, is this: that, to further their own personal online agendas, a number of people have told outright lies about this moderation policy (e.g. that by taking this stance, I am “encouraging trolls”, or even causing individuals to be “stalked”, both of which are shameful, deceptive, libelous rubbish). Other people have then blithely repeated these false accusations in their posts, extending the reach of the original lies.
Oh, and the reason that “Anton and David adopted a stricter stance on ad hominem remarks” is that I was openly attacked on Voynich Ninja by people who really ought to know better, and I made it clear to the moderators it wasn’t OK. Nice.
So – in summary – Cipher Mysteries has brought little but abuse and criticism to my door, so your comment criticising me for my moderation policy is (to my eyes) no more than yet another twig to throw on the same long-raging fire. And yet I have moderated and published it, like I moderate and publish everyone else’s criticisms of me. What non-fun I have being brutally consistent at my own expense.
You see my running Cipher Mysteries as a thing that somehow gains me power: but if there is any upside to it whatsoever, it’s something I’m not currently aware of. All it actually does is make me a ridiculously easy target for people to take cheap shots at.
Nick
I’m really sorry, I didn’t know.. Like I said, I’m new and I don’t know these things. You seemed like a person with some esteem to me, so I had no idea you had ondergone similar ugly experiences as the ones Diane describes.
Since I haven’t participated or witnessed any of the Voynich scene before late 2015, I look at this with the eyes of an outsider, and all I can think is: such a shame!
Diane is done great work that has proven useful for me to build upon, but it is ignored by most because of all the stuff going on on the side.
You have written “the book” on the VM, and now it appears that similarly, you have to devote way too much of your energy to dealing with trolls, talking semantics, debating the same tired points over and over…
Some other people will only listen if what you say could have been possible in 15thC Germany. And so on.
How can we make any progress like this? How can any consensus be reached? With all the camps, all the trolls, all the “you guys I found the solution it’s totally a witchcraft book” people? All the burdens of decades of ugly internet communication constantly lurking around the corner?
Well, I really don’t know the solution, though letting the wound fester seems like a bad idea 🙂
You are one of the most mentioned Voynich researchers, and yet with all the nonsense that is slowing us down, I don’t even know your views about it, how they have evolved and what your latest discoveries are/were. All I know is that you’ve written a lot about paint and nymph sideboob…
Koen Gheuens: after I published “the Curse of the Voynich” in 2006, I received deep and sustained abuse online for my (apparently disconcerting) suggestion that we might be able to use mainstream Art History, codicology, and palaeography techniques to place and date the manuscript’s origins to Northern Italy in the mid-15th century. Why, now that we have radiocarbon dating and more in-depth technical analyses that have strengthened this to the point that it has become what is arguably the mainstream position, that sustained online abuse continues is no less a mystery to me than the Voynich Manuscript’s encrypted contents. Perhaps people enjoy being dismissive and unpleasant too much to stop their ‘sport’ at my expense, who can tell?
Also: please don’t presume what does or doesn’t take up my energy. At any given moment, I’m actively researching around ten unbroken historical ciphers, of which the Voynich Manuscript is merely one (albeit a particularly fine one): I don’t publish as much on Cipher Mysteries as I used to simply because I don’t have enough spare time to do that and to do real research as well. Oddly enough, the stuff that takes up too much of my energy is dealing with bait-like comments such as yours, where commenters leave tangled mixtures of light praise and outright criticism (“talking semantics” and “debating the same tired points over and over”, etc).
Several years back, I came to the conclusion that the last people to solve the Voynich Manuscript’s mysteries would be Voynich researchers themselves: and why I should bother having a conversation with someone about it when they haven’t even got the basic decency to read “Curse” first before criticizing the observations and hypothesis I put forward in it, I just don’t know.
Dear all, I, for one, totally approve of and admire Nick’s policy of “letting every flower bloom” even though some may turn out to be thistles or worse!
Two more examples follow of yin-yang elements depicted in the VM botanicals:
f31r: (tight scribe). Five leaves are on the left and 5 tan blossoms to the right indicating a plant for yin (female use). Note that one leaf stem on the right is made to penetrate the main stem and emerge on the left. This suggests the roots/leaves are for treating penetrating wounds. The deep brown root and rootlets started leftward but loop to the right leading to some confusion here as to yin/yang meaning. One possibility is that the roots are for both male and female use but leaves only for female use?
f31v: (tight scribe). Seven green leaves to the right and one brown leaf to the right and two blossoms with blue centers to the left. The sprig of berries is blue. A yang use is indicated and the leaf color indicates either fresh or dried leaves will work for some ailment. The roots bearing only traces of coloration are not used.
I have a few more yin-yang examples but will unload those on the readership anon. I suspect many think, as I do “If it is not port it is starboard!” when dealing with the dichotomy of yin’/yang. I am surprised frankly that it is so much ingrained in the far East, even to the point that it appears at the center of the S. Korean flag. There red (equivalent to a lighter color) overlies blue (the darker yin color). If I can summarize yin/yang philosophy: It is sort of like Newton’s First Law of Motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. So for Y/Y, up/down form a pair, as do hot/cold; day/night; fire/water. It emerged from Taoism before the common era. Chinese adherents will even site a house on one side of a river as opposed to the other bank. My view is that it is goofy way to look at plants for healing properties but traditional Chinese medicine does exactly that. Cheers, Tom
Nick,
I had decided to stop posting the results of my own research online until I read your comments above, which as they say “speaks my mind”.
Though I had noticed – and publicly protested – the off-line ‘memes’ which are no more than efforts at propaganda, and which suggested the standard, pointless, and unsupported slurs conveyed by amateur psycho-babble, I hadn’t realised that you had also known of them: I mean the assertions that your work makes ‘trivial’ points (which I interpret as points which are precise, and unanswerable), that your work on codicology is ‘unnecessarily complicated’ (which I interpret to mean that the meme-er found them too hard to comprehend), that you ‘had an agenda’ (which I interpret to mean that you, like the meme-er, have a theory which you are prepared to defend).. and so on and so on.
I seem to be propaganda-immune, and cannot hear any assertion about the manuscript or about another researcher without asking “from what evidence was that idea gained?”
Where you say:
“…after I published .. I received deep and sustained abuse online for my (apparently disconcerting) suggestion that we might be able to use mainstream Art History, codicology, and palaeography techniques to place and date the manuscript’s origins.”
you speak to the situation exactly as I’ve experienced it, too. You will know how often I have recommended your book, and urged others to consider the same things.
I absolutely agree – these days – that the manuscript which we have was made in Northern Italy (I’d say more exactly north-eastern Italy, in the region between Padua and Udine) in the mid-15th century (I’d say about 1428 or so).
Like you, I never argued for any date of manufacture later than the early fifteenth century, and you, Patrick Lockerby, SirHubert, Edith Sherwood and I were among the handful whose opinions on this point were supported by the radiocarbon dating.
Where you and I differ, is chiefly in our description of the content: you hold it to be the original composition of a Latin Christian author; my opinion is that it represents copies from exemplars which I’d date to between the last quarter of the 12thC to the mid-fourteenth (I’m working to refine those dates at present), and that those exemplars were not original ‘authorial creations’ either in their content, though the script or form given the written part of the text could first have been devised then.
I agree that we need professionals from various fields to address the issues raised by this manusript. The difficulty is that when a person with such expertise ventures to comment in public, their opinion is so little respected by Voynicheros that not only the experts themselves are deterred from contributing further time and effort as a rule, but that so are their colleagues and other potentially helpful persons.
The fantasy ‘Diane’ which has been created by the “meme-mill” in Voynich studies bears no relation to real one. Unfortunately, it is the real one who is known to the various codicologists, palaeographers, epigraphers (these because Baresch spoke of copying inscriptions from monuments) and specialists in Jewish scripts and texts (to assess Panofsky’s first opinion and explain the reasons for it).
In each case, these persons have first taken the time and effort to find out what is being thought and said about this manuscript, and have thus read the sort of thing that has been published in your blog and its comments about Stephen Bax, and about me, as well as others.
As a result, not even the colleague who directed me to the Padre Island crossbows, and thus solved one long-standing problem, would allow his name to be published. Voynich studies has become known as a toxic field and I’m as sorry to see it has poisoned your pleasure in the subject, as to see that your own comments above follow Goose’s ad hominems with what some might consider positive support.
Had SirHubert or Philip Neal, or Jim Reeds made the point that we should all adopt the normal custom of using the holding library’s pagination, some discussion might have followed, but its aim would surely not have been to ‘put down’ the person making that point, but to discuss it.
I do not think this is a case where ‘appeal to authority’ can reference an amateur – although I do not deny that in his own field of computer systems analysis Rene is a fully qualified expert.
Our standards here should be those of the majority in the wider world, and I cannot think of any other instance – ever – where the holding library’s pagination is not used as the standard one.
I can appreciate how you felt, Nick, when your sensible and perfectly normal emphasis on codicology and palaeography were treated as ‘trivial’, ‘peripheral’, ‘unnecessary’ or ‘too complicated’. I cannot agree with your Averlino hypothesis, but that’s largely because in my own field – iconographic analysis and research – I am a professional and generally treated, and paid, as an expert.
You are mistaken about the imagery’s having originated in the mind of a fifteenth century European Christian. About the written part of the text, you could still be right, I suppose, but a number of persons have informed me privately that the ‘hand’ looks to them like the fifteenth century copy of an earlier exemplar.
Worth some consideration, I think. As your work also does.
Diane: I’m sorry to have to say it, but your comment is yet another example of the kind of “tangled [mixture] of light praise and outright criticism” that keeps wasting so much of my energy.
All the while you continue to project straw man arguments onto other people’s mouths (“you hold it to be the original composition of a Latin Christian author”) which you then triumphantly claim to demolish (“You are mistaken about the imagery’s having originated in the mind of a fifteenth century European Christian”), your style of writing will continue to get in the way of your own arguments.
And as for that whole “faint praise” trope you gleefully employ so much these days, I really don’t know where to begin by way of a response, except to point out that it demeans you 10x more than it offends the recipient. 🙁
Nick,
You keep attributing forms of humour to me which are entirely projected. I do not find metaphors or parables hysterically funny; that I constantly refer others to your work on the manuscript does not mean that I agree with every aspect of your theory. This is not ‘damning with faint praise’ but accurately giving my opinion, backed up by research etc. “Gleeful” seems to me to describe mischief, when in fact my chief reaction to anything Voynich related these days is better described as depression.
If you want the evidence, background and comparative imagery which leads me to conclude that the imagery in Beinecke 408 could not have originated with any fifteenth-century Latin, then I can only refer you to the past eight years’ work. I once calculated what that time is worth, and now I just wonder why I bothered. I imagine – and it may be pure imagination – that somewhere out there, now or later – may be someone who may find it as helpful as I hoped it might be.
Somewhere along the line, the most important element in all human interactions seems to have been lost – the assumption of good will.
I’m dragging my way through the remainder of the current series of posts, while also working on the book due to be completed by the end of this year. Perhaps I’ll make the 10-yr mark, perhaps not. *shrug*
Diane: yeah, ok, whatever.
Diane, We have all benefited from your scholarship but often I find you go for overkill and unload on the readership way more than is necessary to prove a point. You bring in issues that are not immediately relevant or even pertinent and verge on logorrheism at times and other times in your frequent disputes with Nick, you give rudeness a bad name!
Nevertheless I look forward to reading that magnum opus you are embarked upon. If you are being paid by the word, it will rival the Oxford English dictionary in length!
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A punctillo on the matter of yin- and yang-based elements found in the VM botanicals. Seven have been discussed on the posts above. Both the tighter writing scribe and the looser writing scribe are involved. The tighter writing scribe (also darker, higher iron content in the iron-gall ink used) is responsible for f31r; f31v; f39v; f46r and f56r plant depictions. The looser writing scribe (low iron ink) can claim f38r and f42r. This finding rules out that one scribe was keen on yin/yang symbology; the other was not. It will be noted as I am undoubtedly not the first to comment on this, is that the looser writing scribe nearly always uses a low iron content iron gall ink. This is confirmed by six analyses by McCrone of the iron gall inks used in the VM for drawings, text and one quire number.
Incidentally, I forgot a folio reference for the the mullberry plant. A pretty good depiction is seen on f25r, showing berries near the leaf/stem joint.
A more thorough analysis of the loose and tight scribe’s work on the VM botanicals will follow soon. What complicates things is that sometimes the tight scribe will use a low iron ink, like dipping his quill into the ink pot of his fellow scribe and also. in a mix of tight folios, will come a single looser one.
In my opinion, all Voynichers who aren’t just self-promoters, (lumbering the membership with some totally preposterous, evidence-deficient, origin for the VM) and are willing to impartially mine the VM data for hints as to time, place and reason for the VM creation and furthermore are willing to go out on a limb with hypotheses. that any progress will be made. Let a spirit of colleageality return to these pages! Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I have done a survey by inspection as to whether a folio is prepared by the tighter writing scribe generally using a higher iron-containing ink or the looser writer, most often using a lower iron ink resulting in a lighter text. Exceptions occur and the tighter scribe will occasionally use the lighter-hued ink.
Folios by the TIGHTER writing scribe: 1) f9r-f34v (except f10v & 25r)= 48
2) f39r-f46v (except f42r (see below) =15
3) f43r-f46v = 8
4) f48r/48v = 2
5) f59r-f66r = 18 ( f65r has just a legend but is counted).
TOTAL: 91
Folios prepared by the LOOSER writing scribe:
1) f1r-f8v = 16
2) f10v, f25r = 2
3) f35r- f38v =8
4) f47r/47v = 2
5) f49r/f49v = 2
TOTAL = 30
Folio f42v has the upper part done by the tighter scribe; the lower part is done by the looser writer. I have not counted this folio in either tally of the VM botanical folios. The pairs by the looser scribe occur within a sequence by the tighter writer.
Some have argued for only a single writer or more than two. I have yet to find a tell-tale glyph where the two scribes that I regard as proved, by line and syllable spacing, differ significantly enough for me to hold my hand over a candle to defend some idea like the
loosertighter scribe favoring more scribal flourishes (see for example the leading glyph, a gallows, of f42v).The question arises: Why two scribes for the VM botanicals when one only does a third of the work of the other? The idea occurred to me that maybe the looser writer is also the artist? McCrone’s ink analysis however indicates one drawing (f26r) is done with high-iron ink. More examples would be useful to settle this point, particularly as some plant stems seem by inspection to have been done by the looser scribe with his lighter ink. I conclude that the tighter writing scribe would occasionally use a low iron ink but the looser writer, having less work to do, manages to keep to the low iron formulation of iron gall ink.
I plan to submit another post soon on embedded clues in the botanicals that indicate 1) the preparation of whatever medicament is made from leaves; omitting roots for the moment and 2) the implied use of the medicament.
More anon,
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A curiosity hit my eye while researching VM plant depictions
for clues on use, when my eye lit on some annotations I had made years ago and forgotten. In re-spotting these I was reminded of a quote Nick used as a chapter header in “Curse”, p24 that had arrived in the interim. The quote reads “It is in the margins that poems are found”; maybe a bit reminiscent of a remark in “Either-Or” of S. Kierkegaard, “One can often profit from one’s typos” or words to that effect.
Anyway, Look at the thicket of sprigs of the plant on f21r for hidden numbers!
Unless the readership has already played “Where’s Waldo”, I think one “2”, several “3’s” and maybe a “4” and “9” can be spotted among those berry clusters between leaves. Going counter-clockwise around the plant, a “2” is found at 6:30; a “4” with the open part facing left at 6:25, “3”s at 6:20, 3:20, 12:00, 8:20; a “7” at 3:15; a “9” (upside down) alongside the recumbent “3” at 8:20 (both numbers thoughtfully left un-tinted). This whole operation might be slightly delusional on my part but I might justify more scrutiny by someone with sharper eyes such as Sir Hubert, Some of the “3”s may be “m”s? What it means at the moment is unknown. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, While searching my ragged old printed copies of my VM botanicals, I find notes to myself that I did not act upon during the shutdown of my lab. One is the depiction on f25v with what appears to be a little turtle but may well be a small dragon? I was led to look up “dragon’s blood” in my trusty Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica and I think I found it on p. 248. The plant is Resina draconis where the red resin of the plant is used for liver and blood problems. The view of VM 25v is that of the clumps of the lanceolate leaves when viewed from above.
Another old plant ID that also relied on MM (p148) is that of VM f20v where an ID of that plant that seemingly has some ten sunglass-wearing heads above stems having arrow-like (lanceolate) leaves. I think it is Flos Buddeiae where an extract of dried flowers is used to battle corneal cloudiness. The extract is used also for painful, red eyes due to a partial obstruction.
It will be noted that the Armenian herbal written by Amirdovlat Amasiastsi was oculist to the court of Mahmet II in istanbul and wrote widely on herbal treatments of eye problems. His herbal, translated from Russian and commented upon by Stella Verdanyan, Carvan Press, Delmar, NY , 1999. pp 145 (not a major US press) was not illustrated. AA’s first ms was copied in 1482; an autograph was supposed to have been produced in 1460. Cheers, Tom
ps. What a weird little “dragon” showed up on that lower right hand corner of f25v . I assumed as I think many Voynichers did, that because it looked like a turtle, that a turtle it was. It is what it is, but in what part of the world could an artist be so devoid of imagination? Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
A partial list follows, for illustrative purposes, of indications in the VM botanicals of what time of the growing season of the plant, leaves can be used: I think the herbalist(s) indicate a green leaf can be used directly from the plant, whereas a brown leaf can (or should?) be used dried and is tinted brown. I lean to an optional use as dried since both green and brown are often seen on the same plant stem. I think the leaves colored red are an indication that the plant is found in a temperate region where frost occurs.
Following are some examples: f1v; f 3r, (red/white and green); f4v (red/ green), f13r, 20r (red/ green); f34v, f36r, f36v, and f53r. The uncolored (white) leaves are perplexing at the moment. Perhaps they are an herbal code for a leaf that has fallen from the plant?
At any rate, the herbalist may be dealing with collected samples in those apothecary’s jars, that I believe are color-coded to represent plants from land (red, roots), green (plant parts above ground) or blue (plants found in bogs). If not at hand, then the search for the herb to “find and grind” is undertaken.
VM botanicals used in treating various eye ailments:
Cataracts: I think the plants showing blossoms that “shun the light” or blossoms displaying “Joe Cool” smoked glasses, might be an embedded clue (or “mnemonic” to use a word first applied by Diane) : f20v; f 22r; f 26r/f26v; f30r, f27v ( evidently, the roots are used ) f42r/f42v; f46v, f49v., and f53r. Incidentally smoked-glasses were ancient in China; and were often used by judges to conceal their identity. They were invented in Italy in the 1400s.
Embedded clues for a bone-mending function of the herb: f22r/f22v; f40v, f46r , Either several shoots from a rhizome are depicted as joining or two adjacent plants are shown sharing a common branch. In one instance (f11v) leaves and leaf stems are shown joining and this may indicate the plant is used for tendon repairing (early “Tommy John” surgery!).
I plan one more post on some even more speculative embedded clues and the use of roots and then will get back to vowel-frequency analysis. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, While many of the VM plant drawings are pretty faithful representations of the real thing like the mullberry bush (f25r); others are totally fanciful. Two exemplars of the latter are f45r, and f51r, where the former has brown and green mouse-shaped leaves hanging by their tails with the stems having blue inflorescences and the latter has 4 depictions of “stag” beetles. These beetles appear to have a ridge down the back and of the 1200 species, are most like those of Odontolabis femoralis (family Lucanidae with 4 sub families). These beetles were known to the early Romans. The plant may offer relief for a bite on a bare foot, although such bites are rare. The beetles range in size from 2-4.7 inches. The plant with hanging mice generated a Google hit on a book chapter by Pamela Berger on medieval plague iconography in several illustrated medieval bibles where one, the Morgan Bible (1244-1254), indicates that plague like symptoms afflicting the Philistines in the Old Testament were brought on by mice. I don’t think it really matters whether it is true or not, just that some believed it and maybe it found its way into the VM botanicals. More on this anon. Portions of the book can be read online as a teaser.
As Sir Hubert indicated years ago, in an exchange with me, the flea and rat as vectors for plague were discovered much after the date of the VM compilation. A French investigator, Paul-Louis Simond (1898) is given credit for this discovery. It has been noted that rats die rapidly of the plague but mice and voles should be better carriers for the plague as they can become infected without dying. Incidentally in Mongolia, the main plague vectors are marmots and plague is still endemic. I will do some more digging on mice and plague as it may not be ruled out in all historical accounts.
I live in hope that some oddity, if followed up, can shed new light on some dusty corner wherein lies a useful clue or clues aiding in the decrypt of the VM. If we could just get a firm ID on some depicted and unusual life form shown somewhere in the VM, (that Nick or Diane have not already followed up), we might just get a new little Eureka to bat around. Dream on!
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Just to keep my eyes on the yin/yang view of the world as I perceive it in the VM. Folio 55r has it all! The right stem has droopy hand-like leaves all to the right; the center stem has those hands to both right and left whereas the left-most stem has the hand-like leaves to the left. At the top of each stem is a yin-shaped red bud with a bloom with blue and white petals alternating. So the plant leaves and roots are, I’m guessing, designed to perk up the hands which I think don’t show fingers but rather 8 or so, probably arthritic, knuckles. The blue flowers (yang) and red buds (yin) are for both sexes and this is furthermore indicated by the directionality of the arthritic hands. More coming anon, fear not! Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Examine for a moment, the homeliest of all the botanicals of the VM.
I refer to f41r. It appears at first, second and third glance to be really poorly tinted and that is going some as many of the drawings of this part of the VM are colored by unskilled hands. I think the brownish roots, looking like women’s hair is a give away and in this case we do not have any hint of yin/yang symbology. The reason for the streaky tinting is clear when you spot the little nose-like structures on the leaves and the spots on the leaves. The roots are for elimination of freckles on a woman’s face, particularly the nose. This is why the leaves are not fully colored, so as not to interfere with the tell tale dots (i.e. freckles). The structure at the top is difficult to explain as it appears to be some sort of supporting structure, like maybe an umbrella? The Armenians incidentally were fixated on preventing or removing freckles and the great herbal of Amirdovlat Amasiasti deals with this annoying problem for Armenians. Cheers, Tom
Thomas, on the other hand, the way the root descends looks like .. not sure it’s a good idea to write the word here – might attract spam ads.
So you could just as well argue that the plant produced material used as depilatory.
What id do you propose here? That’s the test, isn’t it?
PS – nice to see again how the mnemonic theme has recently taken off like a rocket. 🙂
Diane, I had not considered that possibility. It could be worth considering. I would admit neither freckle-avoidance nor removal of unwanted hair seems like a pressing need for herbal attention but I think you have stressed we have to approach the VM from a non-contemporary viewpoint, i.e. adopt the perspective of another time, another place.
I still like those little “nose-like” protuberances (I have used them on some other plants for perfumery) for the site where freckles would be most annoying. Also what appears to be an “umbrella” with five spines, strangely blurred, but not by bleed-through. Early umbrellas (invented BC by the Chinese, of course!) did have spines showing.
While on the topic of pesky spots, likely freckles not pox, consider f3r. The plant has alternating green, red and white “yin” shaped leaves with spots shown on the edges of the white leaves. Again I think these are left uncolored to show off the spots. The red leaves indicate a yin (female) use and both leaves and roots are used.
Many roots have spots (not cross-hatching) and I think might be to alleviate “poxes” of various kinds. More on alleged “freckle” minimizers, anon. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A bit of female biology dealing with the origin of us all. I refer to f6r.
Th roots are elegantly entwined but only lightly tinted so not used but hinting at a plant for female use. The three leaves are deeply lobed. The 15-16 lobes are sort of yin-shaped. One has been plucked indicating the leaves are the useful part of the plant. I think the number of lobes is equal to the typical hours of labor in delivering a baby and the 4 green huge and bulgy buds represent a baby in the birth canal. The little sun emerging near the end of the bud reflects the joy of a baby on the way. The red ring is some blood associated with the birth process. It has to be stressed that the Armenians were really down to earth with their herbals, not for cooking generally but for life’s important medical assists. This is made clear in the herbal of Amirdovlat Amasiasti as translated from Russian and commented upon by Stella Verdanyan. All for the moment, Tom
Publish or perish We only know the names of those whose works survived. It is possible the Voynich is a transliteration of many texts in many languages that was not to be shared.
Why would anyone give it to the polyglot Athanasius Kircher ?
xplor
It was sent to Kircher twice:
first in ‘facsimile’ copy by Baresch because, it being…
“a piece of writing in unknown characters, I thought it would not be out of place to send the puzzle to [Kircher]”.
and secondly, I think, because having treated it with contempt at first, he came to want it. This seems to me the only explanation for the apologetic tone in Marci’s letter of gift – made some thirty years later, where he says.
“ever since I first owned it I have destined it for you ..persuaded as I am that it can be read by none if not by you.”
– so that seems to be why. Kircher claimed to know just about every classical and ancient script, including hieroglyphics.. whether he did or not. 🙂
Thomas –
I have difficulty imagining anyone in medieval Europe mystifying a medical or pharmaceutical text. The usual texts are pretty well known. By the mid-fourteenth century, at least in France, the physician handed the patient a receipt [recipe] to give the pharmacist, and the pharmacist (a) had to know the relevant plants and (b) have them stock – very likely labelled in plain Latin. So it’s difficult to imagine secret medicine, especially if written on vellum in fifteenth century Europe. The chain of communication which turned plants into pills or lotions etc. was necessarily fairly transparent, wasn’t it?
Theriac was an exception, it is true, but even then the textual sources are not many.
One might imagine gynaecology a forbidden science, but not sure how that squares with the historical record. Mid-wives did most deliveries, and I’ve not heard any felt the need to write, let alone encode a text to do their work.
So – here’s another angle for the meantime: what if the leaves are shown red and green, and (?)strap-like on folio 3r because the plant(s) referenced had leaves that really were red and green, and strap-like.
Way back when – 2010/2011 – when I offered an identification for this group as “second-rank” Dracaena – which were available in the same regions that the best (Dracaena cinnabari) might be bought – I included though remained puzzled by those dots you mention.
In these drawings, dots appear on plants known to have yielded oil of economic value, but I puzzled by their being here – possibly an allusion to D. fragrans, though I found no evidence of trade in D.fragrans or its oil – unlike the others of that type.
just btw – I took (and take) the model here from Dracaena marginata, which though called the ‘Madagascan dracaena’ grows more widely. It is best known today (and to G/gle) as a potted plant.
Thomas – the plant known to horticulture as D. marginata is to botanists D.reflexa var augustifolia.
xplor, I think the steps all attempts to understand or decrypt the VM text will proceed through 1) transliteration and by this is meant assigning a letter to a glyph/symbol, then 2) making “words” from these deciphered letters and finally translation into a language that the researcher is familiar with. As an example: I was familiar with the Armenian herbal written by Amirdovlat Amasiasti ca 1460. I never intended Voynichers to think that the VM was actually written by A.A. but that their might be an Armenian influence in compiling the botanical part of the VM. I familiarized myself with the Armenian language in cursive style in the massive book on Armenian paleography of Michael Stone, et al., which gives hand-written Armenian glyphs (a-z) roughly every 10 yrs over hundreds of years. Subtle and not so subtle changes occur during these intervals. Armenians claim their language is unchanged since being created by a blessed Armenian bishop Mashtots, ,ca 320 AD for writing holy scripture but this clearly is NOT the case at all for the cursive styles. An interesting aside is that Biblical scholars when not relying on Greek or Hebrew often jump for Armenian.
Anyway In my early attempts to decrypt the VM, I focused first on the “8” and “9”, often as “89”, suspecting that it might be a conjunction like “and”. It is known that many older languages did not use the indo-arabic numerals directly but used letters from their alphabets for numbers. If the first 10 glyphs of Armenian are put in alphabetical order, then the glyph for “8” is noted and TRANSLITERATED, into Latin (i.e. Romanized), one obtains an “e” and “9” becomes by the same steps, a “t”. so “89” is “et” that is the Latin conjunction for the English word “and”. So the common VM “word”. “8am” becomes “eam” which is Latin for “that” (feminine singular). Now complications arise in that a study of the gallows glyphs reveals that they cannot be constant, immutable consonants but their identity changes in a manner that neither Nick nor I have yet figured out. The proof for this is that the choice and frequencies of the four glyphs changes between folios by both the looser and tighter writing scribes. One might guess that “o” is a vowel but if one studies vowel frequency, it is present at a much higher occurrence than is possible in any known western language. For example, Russian, Czech and Greek have “o” as a vowel exceeding the others, but not by much. In English, old English, Latin and Italian, the vowel “e” is the most prevalent. I think “o” is from the Korean language (Hangul) and is a complex consonant “ng”.
Other Armenian glyphs that I think occur in the VM are: the tipped “2” (2′) for “ch” [Armenian is written L->R and phonentic, i, e, no diacriticals), the “4” (both open and closed forms), the ampersand-like glyph (but differing in having a rocker at the base and not closed up) if “f” &’) ; I see it in “gallows-8a&’) which might be “leaf”. I think “8a2′” might be “each”, (note the latter two going directly into English not via Latin).
I think that the VM is both “poly-glyph” and “poly-glot”, which makes it difficult to decrypt. Your guess as to Voynichese being a polyglot language is sound, I think. I still have hopes that the VM can eventually be understood. Cheers, Tom
ps. Diane, thanks for the helpful input. I will respond anon.
Armenia used to be much larger and one of the oldest centres of civilization. I am looking more at the city states of Italy . Who was there and who passed thru . Amirdovlat Amasiatsi may have influenced the voynich. I don’t think Jesuit s like Athanasius Kircher had anything to do with it.
When two Jesuits meet, the devil is always there to make a threesome. – Old French Proverb
xplor, Armenians, being astute in business, often were in the company of Venetians. For example, they shared a major outpost in the Crimea, where the black plague is supposed to have originated. They were present in the Benevento area of Italy. Nick, BD and others looked into Beneventon as an influence in the VM script but as I recall, there was no clear cut evidence for this. In my reading around on Armenians, they do seem to wind up in the wrong place over and over. Now it is Aleppo, Syria. Their attempt to ally themselves with Russia and carve off part of Turkey met with total disaster. Still they played a major role in the Ottoman empire, with the greatest mosques having been designed by Armenians like Sinan and their early medical knowledge relying on Armenian practices. My view is that the VM text has Armenian influences but otherwise they had no hand in it. I have not found, for example, that Armenians were believers in Yin/Yang ideology and suspect the herbal imagery comes from elsewhere, likely further East than Armenia. Also, I find it hard to believe that Armenians could have been involved in creating the VM, without imparting to it a lot of religious iconography.
Thanks for the Jesuit humor.
What follows is hear say but I recall a conversation about an Armenian boys choir that got stranded somehow in Palestine before Israel was split off. The Lion of Judah, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, heard the boys sing, and of their plight and adopted them on the spot. He took them back with him to Ethiopia where they became the official musicians of the court and went on to compose the Ethiopian national anthem.
I don’t think that modesty is a trait common to many Armenians and their claims are sometimes preposterous. Like ALL species of plant and animals known on earth can be found in the foothills of Mt. Ararat, still in Armenia, where Noah’s ark grounded. And the claims that many major scientific discoveries, like the sun being at the center of our solar system, were the discoveries of Armenians. Their postage showed the three wise-men being Armenians. Astronomy with and without telescopes was a passion (they did have a great observatory) and the Nativity accounts in the New Testament indicates that the wise men did “come out of the East”,
One trait of the Armenians that seems true, is that is they never did things by half measures. When they adopted Christianity, about a century before Rome did, they translated the Bible from scratch in their own recently created language, both New and Old Testaments and a lot of non-canonical works as well (like the book of Enoch in 4 parts). They enthusiastically joined many of the crusades that went through Cilicia, (western Turkey, part of their old empire) after hosting and resupplying them. They joined the crusades but stayed on in the environs of Jerusalem, having their own cemetery and part of the church of the sepulcre on the Holy Mount. After leaving behind many petrographs enroute, they went on to found a monastery on Mt Sinai which has one of the great collections of early Armenian manuscripts, but alas most are unreadable since the velum has become fused by the climate. Some used a proto-Armenian language called Odessian. A few have had their pages pried apart by conservators but it would be a huge hill to climb to get through them all. Incidentally, one has to be amazed that the same fate. i.e. folio-fusing, did not befall the VM.
Cheers, Tom
Deja vu all over again, Nick worked the Armenian angle about five years ago. Still nothing new to report. It would be great to tie the Voynich to someone like Mkhitar Heratsi ,who understood Persian, Greek, and Arabic.
xplor, The Armenian connection is not Deja vu for me. I have not wavered from my view that Armenian glyphs appear in the VM and “89” which occurs often in the VM text is derived from the numbers used by Armenians and, when Romanized or Latinized is “et” in Latin. That is the cornerstone of my contribution to a decrypt of the VM. It also provides a key vowel “e”, Turns out that often “89” is immediately followed by another “89”. The expression “et et” and not the equivalent of “etc” as is used in some Latin-derived languages (like Hungarian) but was used for emphasis in original Latin as in “both (hand and foot) et et” [hand and foot was put in by me as an example. I was out of active Voyniching for two years because of a lab shut down but I have never wavered from my belief that Amenian paleography is involved in the VM text. I do not think that the VM is written in Armenian and have never espoused that idea. It is mainly Latin I think but some other languages like Hangul and even English might appear. Nick was kind enough to consider it and even enter Amirdovlat Amasiasti in the Wikipedia to see what additions might show up. The fact that A.A. had a long sojourn in the sultan’s court in Constantinople overlapped with Nick’s narrative for the timeline for an Italian creator of the VM, undoubtedly made A.A. of interest to him also. BTW Amasiasti refers to Amasia, the birthplace of A.A., in north central modern Turkey. Amasia is the city where Julius Caesar uttered his immortal “I came, I saw, I conquered” after suppressing a minor Persian prince.
Heratsi is the father of Armenian herbal medicine. For a good summary see “Stella Vardanyan” and Armenian medicine on Google. That survey includes several herb depictions from hundreds of years later than the likely composition date of the VM and these are drawn in a space saving horizontal lay out. These include no “cues” (Diane’s nomenclature. I prefer this expression of hers to her use of mnemonism which implies memory). Cheers, Tom
Thomas,
While remaining neutral on whether the text includes Armenian, I thought I should note the possibility that I raised in relation to the ‘castle’ on folio 86v (Beinecke foliation 85v and 86r) that it represents Laiazzo/Ayas which, of course, was the port of Cilician Armenia. From Armenia, as also noted in those posts, had come two teachers of Armenian to the Avignon papal court, at a time when those sent as papal ambassadors regularly went to Armenia beforehand and had done since the time of Montecorvino – as I’m sure you know.
Altogether, the possibility seems reasonable that something of Heratsi’s work – one would suppose his “Consolation of Fevers” in particular – did reach the west and given the close connection between the invitation and the intention to send missionaries eastward, it would not be inconceivable that something of it might be included in a Franciscan or similar handbook. The difficulty is evidence. We have plenty for interest in Ibn Botlan’s work, probably gained from the school of Jundishapur, but is there any evidence for Heratsi’s text having been known to the Latins, other than a possibility that it is preserved in the VMS?
ps ‘cues’ is the casual term which I rarely use, because it makes them sound like a “guess me” whereas I think those elements were designed as memory-jogs for the material *already* known to the user/s and so more correctly described as ‘mnemonic elements’
Thomas
ps – have you come across any comparative study between the Syriac book of medicines and the two Armenian texts? I’d be interested to see the extent to which the Nestorian corpus might have been taken up by the Orthodox churches.
pps (sorry, Nick)
Thomas – about the ‘space-saving horizontal layout’. This may strike readers as something like the layout of the Voynich ‘root and leaf’ section – i.e. where the plants are in horizontal registers, with text similarly aligned.
In the illustration on Stella Vardanyan’s post “The Medical Heritage of Medieval Armenia. Its Theoretical and Practical Value in the Light of Modern Science”, 13 January 2012, we see a page with horizontal text in the wider column on the left, while the right margin, wide enough to make a ‘column’ is filled with plants that have been set at right angles to the text. It’s a novel and interesting way to solve the text-and-plant-picture problem, but that page (at least) doesn’t resemble the Voynich fold-out. The images we see there show their heavy reliance on Persian-Greek models, another factor which suggests some reliance, even if only for pictures, on the Nestorian medical traditions and/or those deriving from Jundishapur.
This isn’t at all a bad thing from my point of view. It suggests that some twelfth century Cilician mss might have shown similar stylistic habits as those in common between the VMS botanical section and works made in the twelfth century for others – the Mashad Dioscorides as one example.
Thomas, I wonder if you’ve heard of an early medical lexicon from Armenia – I’ve just come across a brief mention of it, curious about the way some images in the Armenian works are like a couple in the Juliana Anicia codex. This item links to the ‘Cyranides’ which (if it is the ‘Kyranides’ quoted by the medieval lapidaries) would be very interesting, wouldn’t it?
Within a century or so of the Juliana Anicia’s being made (this while Byzantium still ruled in Egypt) was written ..
… the Barke Gatianosi , a Greek- Armenian lexicon to the medicinal
vocabulary of Galen…
[with footnote..] This rather brief lexicon, probably of the sixth or seventh century, when Armenian culture was focusing intensely on things Greek, was devised as a desk manual for Armenian physicians who would have some access to the writings of Galen (or Dioscorides). The vocabulary dealt with is largely botanical, terms used in Galenic medical prescriptions; there are, however, twenty-six Greek bird names which are mysteriously listed, with Armenian gloss. Most all of these bird names can be found in the Cyranides , and that might be their source since only a few appear in Galen or Dioscorides. The dictionary survives only from late medieval copies that are included as pages within larger eclectic medical manuscripts. The condition of all existing copies imply that these handbooks were actively used by Armenian physicians, and are considerably worn.”
John A. C. Greppin, ‘Gk. ρ̒άμφιος, Arm. pʿarpʿar’, Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics, 111. Bd., 2. H. (1998), pp. 242-246. (p.243)
and if I may presume further on Nick’s space..
The same article gives an unexpurgated ‘Pelican’ story and one sees immediately why the Latins shortened it in their bestiaries, wanting to describe the bird as metaphor for the sacrifice of Christ:
” “The bird is most loving of the children. When it begets the chicks,
and they increase a little in size, they beat the parent birds on their
face. They, however, not being able to support the young, slap their
young and kill them. Later they eat their entrails and mourn the chicks
which they have murdered. On the same day the mother has pity on
her young: she pecks around her breast and regurgitates, shedding her
blood upon the dead bodies of her children; she restores them to life,
and they are roused in a natural way. After three days they come
alive.”
yes, well..
Diane, To cut to the chase! When you use a “memory assist” i.e. a mnemonic device, what exactly are you “remembering”? To me this implies, in the context of the VM botanicals, that you know of similar depictions of plants/herbs?
To reiterate: My interest in Armenian herbals came by accident in reading the slim volume of Vardanyan on Armirdovlat Amasiasti. I obtained a copy on loan through the National Institutes of Health, where I worked as an organic chemist. I had to read it rapidly and made notes and in doing so, glanced occasionally at folios of the VM, which my daughter had indicated I might be interested in. At that time I was focused on possible herbs and alleged curative properties that might be amenable to investigation by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry as I was in a natural products laboratory. The lab has since been closed and the program terminated in favor of molecular biology.
Anyway, Verdanyan’s account of the work of A.A. {“Useless for Ignorants” and several other works) with some unusual concerns like “freckles”, “elephantiasis”, stones (bladder and kidney), the eyes, animal bites, war wounds and dental care, led me to examine the VM botanicals more closely for clues as to the use of the depicted plants. I think I did uncover some embedded clues as to their medicinal properties but these were often totally weird, obscure and as cryptic as the text. I saw in the text, unusual glyphs that I guessed were certainly not Latin, even not dealt with by Nick’s work on Tironian notation, So I emptied my wallet on a copy of the great work, in scope and weight(!), on Armenian paleography by Michael Stone, et al., I saw there many old friends from the VM text and have already expatiated on those. I deduced that Armenian fit the bill for some aspects of the VM text including being written L->R, being phonetic, and using letters for numbers, as many ancient languages did, like Hebrew that you are familiar with. It was an easy matter to figure out the “89” represented “et” in Latin and then some other Latin pronouns starting with “e” fell such as “that” (eam), them (eas) and “et et” fell into place.
I have examined some Arabic herbals, the illustrated Armenian herbals of a much later date as discussed by Vardanyan, but I have NEVER found anything as mystical, disguised and plainly weird as most of the botanicals of the VM. Some are pretty faithful facsimiles (like the mullberry) of the real thing but most are not. Some, as I discussed in my post of June 1, are fanciful to an extreme.
The clear use of yin/yang symbology in the VM botanicals is not an Armenian practice that I am aware of. To me it is another layer of the VM onion. I think the observed R or L directionality seen in many plant toots, leaves and blossoms, the limited palate for blossoms (either blue/purple or red/brown/beige) and those “comma” like inserts on that fern-like plant on f38r, (that you have discussed with an interpretation differing from mine), are clear cut descriptors for yin (female) or yang (male) use. I do not think blue or purple blossoms are any kind of warning by the plant delineators but indicate a male use is intended. A. A. often specified the use of certain herbs for one sex or the other. Many got into essentials of reproduction but let’s not go there at the moment.
Clearly you have invested time and energy into Armenian herbals and herbalists and you deserve a tip of the hat for this but I think one can go only so far with Armenian herbals that were not even illustrated at the time of A.A.’s first ms in 1460. My thinking is that Armenian medicine influenced the VM botanicals but that non-Armenians compiled the VM. I think the whole VM amounts to a “common place” book, sort of a scrap book of memorabilia.
Cheers, Tom
Diane, On re-reading your posts pertaining to the expression “mnemomic “, I see now that you refer to the memory assist for USERS of the VM plants/herbs and not necessary to yourself. Still it does imply that somewhere one or more herbals or horticultural works exist that have elements in common with those of the VM. I am still interested in what one or more of these might be? Also I am interested in what you might consider the “cues” to be that are being remembered? Cheers, Tom
Thomas,
we have very different understanding of the botanical folios, I think.
I can’t agree that the internal evidence supports the usual hypothesis about their subject being medicine – with all due respect to the opinion of Georg Baresch. The range of their plants is far wider than that. I have certainly found nothing particularly outre about the images themselves – their seeming ‘weirdness’ is (imo) a result of attempting to match them inappropriately to the medical-Dioscoridan herbals. The ‘weirdness’ is the indication that the imagery has been misinterpreted. That is – if one began by presuming that Fienman diagrams must represent an electrician’s handbook, or alternatively diagrams of local traffic flow, then the Fienman diagrams would seem extremely weird for street maps and wiring diagrams and one might then suggest that the electrician was mad, or that the local traffic manager needed a break. Not that there wouldn’t also be points in common.
The botanical imagery in the Voynich manuscript (bar a couple such as f.9v, and even that tries) is rational, systematic and consistent – but it is not made from any idea that it is supposed to make a ‘portrait’. It is as different as, say, a photograph of a old Greek vase, and an archaeologist’s diagram of that pot. Parts are ‘realistic’ and parts are not; the information which is incorporated into the drawing is more informative for the professionals who use such things than a photograph would be. In the same way, a person who wants to learn what a Greek pot ‘looks like’ wants the photograph, at the very least.
Also, about the ‘9’.. you know a glyph of that form might represent the Latin ending “..us”?
that is, of course, Feynman diagrams… I think I’ll chuck the ‘voice to keyboard’ idea. 🙁
Thomas,
You ask,
“When you use a “memory assist” i.e. a mnemonic device, what exactly are you “remembering”? To me this implies, in the context of the VM botanicals, that you know of similar depictions of plants/herbs? ”
In a sense all pre-modern imagery assumes that the viewer ‘reads’ it from a base of memorised learning. You don’t get a Raphael Madonna with an arrow and label saying “this is Mary, see the Gospel of Luke for more information”. The language of communication in imagery is exactly parallel to that in written text: it has to be learned, either at one’s mother’s knee (that’s a metaphor not a sexist assumption), or by formal training.
A person who speaks the same ‘visual language’ as the picture’s maker will recognise the little cues in the picture which tell him or her the difference between the picture of Mary as Queen of Heaven, and any other picture of a queen. But the more technical sort of picture or diagram may use a different or more specialist vocabulary and visual ‘language’ in which details are particularly designed to carry much more, and more dense information. Our system of numerals, for example, is one which has to be learned, and is then employed to various levels of technical information or even arcane communication. What I’ve tried to explain is that (a) the language being spoken by the Voynich botanical imagery isn’t that of Latin Christian Europeans and (b) it has to be taken seriously, seriously studied and learned. A funny story keeps coming to mind from an old Punch cartoon. One colonial chap says to another “Smithers, they tell me that you speak French like a native”, to which Smithers replies, “Oh no, sir, the natives speak Swahili.”
🙂
Diane, Your analogies are well made but they are not, in my opinion, mnenomics in the usual sense of a “memory assist”. Something that even a well-educated reader requires to recall something that might appear imprecise without such a device as might be required in a data-heavy discipline such as organic chemistry. One of the many “mnemonics” that one learns in elementary studies is “oh my such good apple pie” for the trivial names of the dicarboxylic acids: oxalic, malonic, succinic, glutaric, etc… I think your use of the term falls under “reasoning or recalling by analogy” and requires essentially educated and informed guesswork.
I think your expression “cues” is more to the point. I think the VM herbals are a “one off”, as in my searches of herbals I have never encountered such odd depictions of plants. My guess is that some are faithful representations of the real thing while others are so fanciful that no herbal is likely to be useful as a reference. I do not expect even in my well worn Chinese Materia Medica to find a plant with mouse-like leaves hanging by their tails or beetle-shaped leaves. These are mnemomics for a herbalist who has then to search his memory for an herb for maybe avoiding plague or beetle bites. Perhaps here the text must be consulted? A faithful depiction such as the mulberry may not have a medicinal use as I find only the seeds are used in traditional chinese medicine and this is not implied by any kind of clue that I can spot in the VM for f25r.
I seem to be out on a limb in my insistence that the VM botanicals involve yin/yang ideology in the directionality of roots, leaves and blossoms, in the shapes of leaves and in the coloring of blossoms as either blue or red/brown. I think these provide cues, to use your expression, as to whether the herb is designed for male (yang, blue sky) or female (yin, earth color) use. This draws one into traditional Chinese medicine as depicted in the Chinese Materia Medica (CMM) which is based upon yin/yang philosophy going back to Taoism BCE. The use of animal parts is totally foreign to western medicine but does occur frequently in the CMM. That seems not to have a place in the VM so far as I can tell.
I hope I have never gone on record as writing that the VM botanicals are ALL for medicinal use! I think some might be for perfumery, warding off pests or uses that are still obscure. Some I think are actually shrubs as indicated by
a brown cylinder rising above the root system. One (f87v) is likely for dental care with 30 molar-like teeth floating above the plant. Dioscorides paid a visit to the Greek island Chios to observe the mastic plant, which this might represent. Incidentally he did live in ancient Cilicia, after retiring from the Roman army at the time of Nero.
Well, enough on these topics. Cheers, Tom
Tom,
You say, “reasoning or recalling by analogy” requires essentially educated and informed guesswork”.
I’d say of the original users (pre-15thC) that they were “educated and informed” and that’s why they didn’t need guesswork.
But you would prefer to end the topic, so that’s that.
Diane, The subject of mnemomism was the basis of our discussion, not any kind of “look–say”.
I think mnemomism could still be involved in identification of a plant/herb in the VM botanicals. Here is one way, but not a unique way, in which it might work.
1) At lease one or preferably more horticultural works or herbals existed before or at the time the VM was composed or copied and these were as “otherworldly” and strange as the VM botanicals.
2) A visual cue is recognized, for example, periodic cubic distortions in a root.
3) To initiates in herbal lore, this was a mnemonic for a root or leaf extract that aided in the passage of stones (kidney or bladder). Here is a visual cue serving as a mnemonic or memory assist. Textual mnemonics could convey the same information, but we are limited at the moment to imagery.
So in short a visual clue could be a mnemomic if this root characteristic were shared among one or more horticultural works. It would remind the viewer of one possible medicinal use of the plant being examined.
IF you can provide an example of another herbal as weird as the botanical part of the VM, then I would heartily agree that the term “mnemomism” is appropriate and we should compare the herbals to the benefit of all Voynichers. It could fill a huge void in VM research.
As it is with “educated and informed” herbalists proposing the plant ID and use by inspection, I think we may enter the area of “necessary but not sufficient” and more wrangling. Like the old Boy Scout adage “leaflets three; let them be!” to avoid poison ivy. Wild raspberries also have three leaves.,
I had no wish to suppress your, frequently, good suggestions, just that I think I may have spotted a limitation to your use of the word “mnemonic”. I hope I have not driven a wedge into Aussie-Yankee relations! Cheers, Tom
Do you guys recall the metioning of the VM in The 39 Clues series?
Brandon, I’m sorry that I have no idea of the “39 clues” series you refer to and cannot help you with an answer.
To the membership: I am proposing a venue for the VM. It starts with the Genoese soldier Giovanni Giuistiniani who, with his family, controlled the Greek island of Chios (called by the Genoese “Scio”) from 1347-1566. Chios was the ONLY island that Genoa controlled unlike the Venetians who controlled many as well as sites on the Greek mainland. Chios was the source of the very profitable crop of “mastic” and a way station for the Genoese spice trade from the “spice garden of India”, the Malabar coast in south-west India. Here is where a mix of foreigners associated to profit from the lucrative trade in cinnamon, cloves, cassia, cardamon, mace, malabathron. turmeric, nutmeg but most predominantly, pepper. The main pepper species (there are over 1K in the Piperacea genus) were Piper longum L. and Fructus Piperus nigrum Trade in these spices proved hugely profitable for Venice and Genoa until Constantinople fell in 1453 and the Arabs took over control of the trade.
Genoa was a supporter of the Holy Roman Emperor and the famous gates to the city (Porta Soprana, built 1155) have swallow-tailed castellations.
On the malabar coast of India are two centers of the spice trade, Maziris and Calicut. Here were Armenians and Jews in residence as well as Venetians and Genoese.
I have written earlier on the many cisterns of Chios and their use for bathing. The locals had extensive plumbing arrangements to connect the cisterns and many had shade provided.
I realize I may have stepped on Diane’s toes in adopting her focus on travel routes into the middle and far east. Just happens that we end up at the same
point from different points of departure.
I will provide spice IDs anon for a few of the botanicals of the VM. I think, in all candidness, that some illustrations are not very accurate and I will argue that many of the delineations are done on the basis of second hand descriptions. Most of the Indian spices were not raised on the Malabar coast but the end products (seeds mainly) were there for sale. Cheers, Tom
Dear Tom,
It is hardly ‘stepping on toes’ to adopt the results of others’ research, especially when you acknowledge the precedent.
If you decide to stick with this latest idea, I will happily add your name as a footnote to the usual list of those who concluded the botanical section refers to plants not native to the Mediterranean: Georg Baresch, then me (in 2009), Mazars and Wiart (2010, I think) .. and now you.
I think it was also 2009, or perhaps early 2010 when I began describing the routes, languages, trade goods, travellers and historical context to the trade across the “Great Sea” to as far as southern China. (If you’d like some references to cite about that, just let me know).
I’ve also analysed the map for general use – so that should help your case, because I’ve shown how the routes co-incide with those attributed to the Radhanites first, and later how they accord with the Franciscans’. Not sure of exactly the date (but certainly 2010) when I began publishing about the Genoese presence in the Persian gulf, emphasised their connection to the Nestorian embassy and so forth.
No – all in all, I think it shouldn’t be hard to produce the evidence on which my own opinions were based, and which you are more than welcome to use now to support the same argument.
Welcome aboard. 🙂
I’m delighted also to think that my having already broken the ice and survived the flames (Rich Santacoloma once spoke of the “the Asian swamp” in relation to my work, you should have a fairly easy cruise.
PS Tom
I seem also to have led the way in explaining the link between St. Thomas, Malabar, Chios and Ortona. In fact, as no doubt you have divined, it will be part of my current series of posts enquiring about the ‘healing Thomas’ figures.
But I ride an amblere, and have been drawing the map of my path now for eight years. Of course anyone who’s a bit quick will have seen where it was leading – so good luck and I hope we may be able to see how well our sources and evidence adduced will co-incide.
Thomas,
Sorry – but have you started to read any scholarly works yet?
I think you may need to check some of your ideas about the history of the eastern trade (you will find a fair list of sources in my published work), and in particular I think you need to re-think this paragraph, which seems to suggest that the eastern trade had been a free-for-all before the fall of Constantinople. That notion isn’t one I’ve ever seen before, especially not in relation to the maritime trade – about which many studies have been written over the past twenty years.
The paragraph I mean is this one:
“Here is where a mix of foreigners associated to profit from the lucrative trade in cinnamon, cloves, cassia, cardamon, mace, malabathron. turmeric, nutmeg but most predominantly, pepper. The main pepper species (there are over 1K in the Piperacea genus) were Piper longum L. and Fructus Piperus nigrum Trade in these spices proved hugely profitable for Venice and Genoa until Constantinople fell in 1453 and the Arabs took over control of the trade.”
I have often recommended the various merchants’ handbooks (Zibaldone) and so forth, together with the historical sources which show the limits on travel at different times, for different reasons, along the various routes.
If you have gained some impression that westerners could hop over to southern India at their pleasure before the fall of Constantinople, I’m afraid nothing that I’ve written, and nothing that I’ve read would support you.
Diane, I have no interest in retracing your steps and research on trade routes in the medieval and renaissance periods but only to focus on one route and that is the route through the Red Sea to India that was used by Genoa. This linked the Giuistiniani-controlled Greek island of Chios with Genoese operations in the spice trade centered on the Malabar coast of India. Trade in pepper was instrumental in making Genoa extremely wealthy.
Incidentally, Marco Polo on his return to Venice after his 26 yr travels arms a ship to fight the Genoese but comes out on the losing side and is imprisoned by the Genoese and parked in Pisa.
My interest was only in the role of Genoa in the spice trade but only as a way of interpreting some elements of the VM, such as some of the plant IDs, the map of Chiostown and the bathing scenes. There are, I think, in the VM botanicals, drawings for several of the Malabar spices, I concede the general field of spice routes, the burial site and church of St. Thomas to you. My interest was more limited.
It was more than three years ago I stumbled onto Chios as maybe involved as one of the venues for the VM. I was led to this focus largely by remarks from BD, who was interested in mastic. From this I was led to the Giustiniani control of Chios until the Ottomans grabbed it after the death of the son of Giovanni defending Constantinople.
Where are the Armenians in all this? I find no evidence that Armenians were ever a major population on Chios but they were prominent on the nearby mainland and on the Malabar coast. I think though, that many Armenian glyphs are found in the VM text and most particularly “89” as a stand in for “et”. I have written repeatedly on my deciphering of this based on the use of the Armenian numbering system. It leads to the use of “8” as a cipher for “e” and “9” for “t”. It seems likely that there are redundancies in the VM glyphs for the vowels.
I can produce a few references on Genoa and the spice trade but these are available to anyone searching online. I have not used any excerpts so did not cite sources. The Red Sea route I mention appears in many sources and I thought was so generally accepted that it required no citation.
Cheers, Tom
Tom
Are you quite sure that you mean the ‘Red Sea’ here?
I do not recall having read any mention of Genoese travelling that route to fetch pepper during the period of interest.
Perhaps you mean the Persian Gulf? Classical sources meant a wider area of sea when they spoke of the ‘Red Sea’ but in the way we use the term now I have not seen any reference to Genoese ships using that route.
On the other hand, as I explained a while ago, we have evidence of Genoese in the Persian Gulf before 1440. If you like I can hunt out again the article I published back then, which speaks of western presence in the Indian ocean by the 13thC.
There is a great deal available about the maritime routes and trade between the 1stC AD and 1438, and one which I found particularly enlightening for all sorts of reasons was Takahito Mikasa (ed.), Cultural and Economic Relations between East and West: Sea Route (1988).
We do know that the Genoese were inclined to register their vessel as leaving port for the Black Sea when they were actually headed to north Africa .. chronic problem for historians but it made economic sense. And of course there may be some record of a Genoese ship travelling via the Red Sea to fetch pepper during the period of interest, but I should like to see some evidence. Most records suggest that the trade was carried from warehouses ( = Lat: thesauri) from Alexandria, or Tabriz, or obtained directly from other ports: the Zibaldone da Canal, for example refers often to Tunis.
So I’m puzzled, I admit by the idea of Genoese sailing through the Red Sea to India and returning with a load of pepper and spices earlier than 1438.
Tom,
Just btw – it is a good idea to cite the sources of your information whether or not you include a direct quotation. It is so easy to mis-read a source, or to use a secondary source which has mis-read the primary sources, that it is really helpful to know where information has come from, and not just where a quote was garnered. Readers need to be able to check the original source for the information, as – in Voynich studies – for first enunciation of a given idea or argument. It is this right of the reader which is so often disregarded in Voynich studies from the erroneous idea that “credit” is like a medal, to be reserved for mates and other ‘approved persons’. 🙂
To the membership, I propose that f17v is a fair representation of the chief spice that interested Genoa, Piper niger. Despite the fact that Wiki indicates in their text that the heart shaped leaves are ALTERNATE, their photographs and others I have seen, indicate the leaves are OPPOSITE as indicated in f17v.
The seed-producing “dropes” are sometimes seen in pics as coming off the end of the viney plant and sometimes in groups although it has to be admitted that v17v has them in huge abundance.
Interesting from a codicology viewpoint is the fact that a transfer of two of the drupes in seen on f18r. I use Nick’s terminology although this one was not mentioned in “Curse”. Oddly enough only two if the topmost drupes transfer and twice for that matter. This poses a question as to why just those two and suggests they were done last or only those retouched? The vine nature of this plant is indicated by the vine extension from the end of the plant.
Pepper was grown mainly in southern India and particularly in the Malabar coast.
Diane< I will supply evidence and documentation that Genoa used the Red Sea route to voyage to the Malabar coast. They did not go overland to use the Persian gulf route favored by Arab traders operating out of Baghdad. More on this anon, as well as possible IDs of some other spices of interest to Italian sea powers, mainly Venice and Genoa. Cheers, Tom
Tom,
Thanks for the offer of that reference.
Tom,
A very neat summary of Genoa’s history as maritime and trading power is online.
http://www.pages.pomona.edu/~glg04747/genoa/genoa3.htm
Diane, I have read a bit more on Genoa and the Red Sea route to the Malabar coast. Looks like I have to eat some crow!
I had seen several spice trade maps showing a route covering western Italy through the Red Sea to the Malabar coast of India. What I missed totally was the trade ORIGINATED in India and ended in Pisa and Genoa, in other words I had the direction reversed. So traders started from the Malabar coast, proceeded up the Red Sea (from Bab-el-Mandeb) then went overland to the Nile (from trading centers on the Red Sea like Berenike), Once on the Nile, the traders resume maritime travel down the Nile to Alexandria, then off to ports on the Western side of Italy as well as Venice and Constantinople. A good source is “Encyclopedia Metropolitano, ed. E. Smedley, Hugh J. Rose, and Henry J. Rose; pp 81-82, included in a fine essay on Commerce.
I have focused on Genoa and find they also controlled Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily as well as holdings in the Levant (like Chios). Trade via the Red Sea with western Italy reached a high point in the 12th-13thC.
Ruinous maritime battles occurred between Genoa and Venice (battle of Curzoia, Genoa wins) [incidentally Marco Polo is taken prisoner]; “war” of Choggia, 1378-1381 led finally to the utter vanquishing of Genoa. Earlier Genoa had defeated Pisa in the battle of Meloria, 1284.
To the membership: I have tentatively identified two more species of pepper in the VM botanicals. I think f37r is Piper retrofractum and f96v is Piper longum. I will supply more documentation for these in another post. Oddly enough, if P. retrofractum is depicted in f37v,, it likely originated in Java. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, On scanning the VM botanicals, there are three plants shown with berry-bearing stems called “drupes” indicated. These are f17v, f37r, and f96v.
I think these are representatives of the huge Piperaceae family and incidentally the three most widely used, economically important species of the family. As posted on 8-11 (BTW, “drope” used in that post is a typo for the correct “drupe”), I have proposed f17v as a fair representation of Piper nigrum or P. niger, the most valuable, commonly-used of the peppers. It has heart-shaped opposite leaves, although a few are sort of alternately arranged. Depending upon how the mature peppercorns are treated, one obtains either black or white pepper. The viney nature of the plant is indicated by the plant extension on the left side of the folio.
The plant shown on f37r, I think, represents the pepper plant, Piper retrofractrum. The leaves are more ovoid and opposite (mostly!) as shown in Wiki illustrations. The herb delineators are not always scrupulous in sticking with the leaf orientations. Nature does not mix alternate and opposite leaf orientations in my limited experience. It is one or the other but not both.
The last pepper plant in the VM is that on f96v, Piper longum with alternate heart-shaped leaves. It is shown as a plant with an extensive branching as found in nature. The family Piperaceae is huge with five genera and hundreds of species. Interestingly, I think the three most important, from an economic and health, standpoint are shown in the VM botanicals.
An operating hypothesis is that the venue where the VM was copied was the Kerala area of the Malabar coast with cities like Calicut or Muziris where Genoese, Venetians, Armenians, Jews, Arabs and Indians all worked in a competitive mercantile environment. I lean to Genoese compositors who were also familiar with mastic production and the wide-spread bathing in cisterns on the Genoese-controlled island of Chios (Scio).
I think it is probable that the VM botanicals contain depictions of some of the other SE Asian spices and will continue work on identifying these. Cheers, Tom
Tom,
No-one is a universal expert, and with a cross-disciplinary study like this, errors are unavoidable. I think it’s a greater shame when people who might help by correcting an error prefer to sit and snigger about it.
One of my aunts had a saying to the effect that a person who might help correct a misunderstanding but doesn’t is like a physician who won’t set a broken leg.
I’ve just found that the official story that Becket’s bones are in Gravina may be mistaken, and that the local belief that Frederick II built the Cathedral is just a local legend! So now I have cause to blush, too.
PS – Tom,
About your theory concerning Java, Muziris and the Malabar coast – perhaps I can save you some research time. Just use the ‘search’ function on my blog for the key words and quite a bit should come up. Cheers.
Tom – I forgot to mention that we seem to have agreement on some of these ids.
Short version is at
https://voynichimagery.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/botanical-habitandhabitat-waterplants-and-vines/
to which I added a note about fol. 17r, that it “is distinguished from pepper vines by its tendrils. Otherwise its sorrel-like leaves would make it very like P.cubeba (Java pepper).
Cheers.
Diane!
I thought f35v was pepper grown on a tree but you disagreed, and now (as so often) it appears you thought the same in 2013. Did you change your mind about it, then?
I also agree that there is a very high chance that some of these plants depict “Piper” species. There just must be pepper, right?
Koen,
The pepper from which we get our white and black pepper is a vine, but not like a grape-vine which uses tendrils; it has suckers like an ivy.
In one sense it “grows on trees” – by clinging to them – but pepper (P. nigra) berries don’t grow on tree, but on a vine. Then there’s the third factor – whether in cultivation, on the Malabar coast – where, btw, they were for some time the exclusive right of the Community of Thomas, together with the steel-yard, – the vines were trained upon stakes or upon trees. There seems no way to be sure. I hunted through all the evidence available to me: I don’t read Tamil, or Sanskrit etc. and nothing was said on the point.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear about the sense in which I meant it doesn’t “grow on trees”.
Diane, I will look into P. cubeba. Thanks for the tip.
What I think is important is that we and others begin to have some agreement on a few of the VM botanicals as representing species of Piperaceae. I have refrained from using the research of others (at least non-intentionally) preferring an “ab initio” approach, It is not from any attempt at disparagement of existing research but in “building a third leg of a stool”. If several arrive at the same conclusion, then it strengthens that conclusion.
Maybe the VM botanicals are an attempt to describe the propagation and cultivation of some of the herbs? This might explain the encryption of the text to evade prying Arab eyes, attempting to prevent westerners from growing their own supplies of these valuable commodities? Just a guess. Cheers, Tom
Tom, From what I can see in the documents, westerners had no interest in growing P.nigra, though I guess some of the early efforts to re-create an Eden (as it were) might have tried.
Since the trade was usually run as a combine of traders who agreed to co-operate, and most of the ships were Indian or Yemeni Arab when they weren’t Chinese, there’d be about as much point in trying to hide the information from Islamic people as in trying to hide a description of a gothic cathedral from Europeans. You know, it was right there, anytime.
Also, the historians who’ve studied the original documents (legal agreements, letters home and all that sort of thing) constantly remark on the harmony and equitable nature of those agreements – between Muslims, Jews, Hindu and even some Latins. Well done, all.
Diane, Point well taken! Romanesque did coexist for a century with Gothic, but that does not change the argument.
Maybe even more pertinent is another fact. I think that Westerners probably knew also that the Piperaceae family thrived ONLY in the tropics. A few of the Piper genus could however be cultivated in the subtropics. I have considered the subtropical island of Chios as a destination for introduction of some of the piper genera as the temps are within the same range +/- 1-2 C degree (range (33-34C; Calicut, India, Mar-May) and 31-32C; Maziris, India, July-Sept) vs Chios (31-32C; July-Aug) but the Malibar coast has monsoon rains, not found on Chios. Incidentally, P. katsura, was successfully introduced into subtropical Japan.
Still no evidence that Piper species were considered for the subtropical West. According to the Kew gardens publications, Piper genera have not been successfully propagated in the temperate zones unless grown under glass.
P. cubeba has lanceolate 5-6″ leaves and resembles P. retrofractrum (f37r) so I’ll have to dig more to confirm that proposed ID.
Silk making was introduced into Chios during the middle ages. BD has commented on this. Cheers, Tom
Tom,
I’ve always been intrigued by the report by one of Charlemagne’s biographers – sorry, don’t have the text to hand – that on being obliged by the city guard to return the silk garments he’d worn in Constantinople, Charlemagne then imported and settled somewhere on the south-eastern coast of France, an entire group – family or community – of silk-weavers whom he brought from Syria. Since he also kept in touch with the Christian communities of the holy land, Egypt and north Africa, we can’t be sure of where each of the silks originated that are found e.g. in the tombs of early saints or of kings, but silk was known in the west and apparently woven in he west, so early. Agnes Geijer’s book on the history of textiles was written in the 1980s but is still a standard reference.
Regards
Diane, Thanks for this additional indication that the original monopoly on silk held by the Chinese was gradually eroding. I recall reading years ago in the historical fiction of James Clavell (cf. “Shogun” ) that medieval Japan was prevented by the Chinese emperor from trading in silk with China despite the Japanese desperation for silk garments in dealing with the heat and humidity of a typical Japanese summer. The Chinese would sell, however, to the Portuguese who in turn sold to the Japanese. This made Portugal missionary traders immensely wealthy and their shipments home of gold made their ships attractive to Spanish attack.
BTW, a minor masterpiece by Clavell was his novella, “King Rat” which never got the attention it deserved.
I have done a bit of digging on Marco Polo’s account of passing the Malabar coast of India on his return to Venice and will relate that in my next post.
Cheers, Tom
Marco Polo’s cellmate-scribe writes (chapter 25) about the Melibar {Malibar] coast on his return from 26 years of business recon. For a traveler who does not set foot in India he gives a surprisingly detailed account of the peoples and the spice crops being shipped from the cities of that coast. He lists pepper, ginger,cinnamon and something called “turbit”. The annotators are of the opinion that the cinnamon mentioned is actually cassia and the turbit is cubeb. The cubeb elicites much discussion as the annotator is familiar with it coming from Java but admits the Dutch claim to be shipping it out of the Malibar coast.
Furthermore spikenard is an article of commerce from the Malibar coast even though it originates in the Himalayas. Incidentally, for students of the Bible, it appears in the Old and New Testaments. In Mark 14:3-5 and John 12:3,5 it is used by a follower of Jesus to annoint either his head or feet, respectively. Strange to stumble on a significant textual difference (King James version) in this regard.
Then Polo gets into Chinese traders visiting the Malabar coast and some evidently having settled there for generations. Maps included in the huge two volumes of the voyages of Marco Polo indicate that he makes no port calls there but seems to know from some unidentified source, a good deal about the trade there and the peoples. Could it be that he is a bit deceptive here, knows it well, and is saving this rich coast for his own trading purposes? Incidentally he does not kiss off the locals as “Idolaters” as is usually his introductory phrase in discussing the peoples of a new region or kingdom, so he may know that many are Christians. Much discussion in this section on confusion that results from Polo’s references to Maabar and Melibar, with the former being pegged by most commentators as the Eastern coast of India.
I have tentatively identified spikenard (Nardostachyrs jatamansi DC (family Valerianaceae) in the VM as the plant represented by f8v. The leaves are indicated as being opposite as seems the case in most illustrations I have seen. The ground up roots (should really be black not brown as shown in the VM) produce an oil used primarily as perfume, a sleep aid or sedative. One drawback to using Bax’s repro of the VM is that the roots of many botanicals are cut off when often they are the part of interest. Otherwise his illustrations are handy for quick reference and he should be thanked for making these available. Cheers, Tom
Thomas,
The line from the Himalayas, through the Indus, to southern India is a very old trade route. The Hindu Ayurveda, like the southern Siddha medicine traditions both relied on plants which grew in the Himalayas and in fact the patron of Siddha medicine (a deification of the star Canopus) was said to have brought Siddha to southern India ‘from the north’.
Also, there were just a few ports from which the bulk trade went to the Mediterranean. They differ according to period, but effectively the east horn of Africa, Soqotra, the Malabar coast, Barygaza and Java-Sumatra. Some ships went as far as the Moluccas, and the archaeological evidence shows that in one way and another the trade in cloves (which plant I include in f.1v with Ravansara from Madagascar) had been travelled to as far as Syria by no later than the 2nd millennium BC. The Indus route was also that of the lapis lazuli trade which passed to Mesopotamia by the third or fourth millennium BC, and by about the second as far as Egypt.
So altogether you don’t have to puzzle about how Himalayan plants or others might be traded through Malabar.. depending on the period and traders.
Diane, Thanks for fleshing out some of the details in European trade with the Malibar coast.
I have noted some years ago that the McCrone pigment assays did not pick up lapis lazuli in the blues used in the VM. The coloration of the VM was done on the cheap.
Do I understand you correctly that you have proposed f1v of the VM as the plant from which cloves are obtained? Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Reprising a guess that the VM botanicals might be information needed to transplant certain lucrative spices to areas where the Arabs could not intervene and non-Arabs could continue to continue to prosper from the spice trade. Recall that with the fall of Constantinople to the Arabs in 1453, they interposed their own traders athwart the trade routes of Venice and Genoa to the Malabar coast of India.
I offer a few examples as follows to the successful replanting of certain key spices to areas not under Arab control: Clove plantations were established on the island of Pemba part of Zanzibar and Zanzibar itself by both the Portuguese and the English. Nutmeg (and the related Mace) from Rhun, one of the Molaccan Banda islands of Indonesia was transplanted to Ceylon and Singapore in the early 16thC. Sailors downwind from Pemba/Zanzibar claimed the delightful aromas of cloves could be detected miles out at sea.
The fight between the Dutch and English over the nutmeg groves of Rhun led after the treaty of Breda (1667) to the swap of the Dutch-controlled Manhattan island of the New world and allowed the Dutch full control of Rhun (sometimes called Run). So New Amsterdam became New York. What the Dutch got from the natives for trinkets, they swapped for nutmegs! What the Dutch got was the most valuable spice of the time, where a few could buy a grand estate and were considered a cure for plague. Stevedores unloading ships were forced to wear clothing with no pockets!
Nutmegs were an article of commerce for India, but coming in, not being exported. The first description of the use of nutmegs appeared in a book by Tome Pires, a Portuguese apothecary in 1512-1515.
Will write more anon on what I think is a VM depiction of the cloves tree.
All for the moment. Incidentally, nutmegs were even transplanted to the British controlled island of Grenada in the New World. Often when cloves or nutmeg were transplanted, the original soil accompanied the seedlings.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I wish to retract my tentative ID (f8v) for spikenard, that I had put forward in the last paragraph of my post on Sept 5. The VM botanical f8v much more closely fits Cloves (Syzygium aromatica; or three Eugenia species) It should be recalled that the buds, originally, are blue but change to red when mature and harvested. These are plucked and sun dried to form hard brown spikes. They are not brown while on the plant.
The plant thrives in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Madagascar.The tree can reach 12m in height and has opposite leaves. Oil of cloves has been used since antiquity to deaden a tooth ache. Outside of seasoning, it can still has dental uses. Cheers, Tom
ps. It is possible that since spikenard is found in the Himalayas that no depiction occurs in the VM botanicals.
Dear all, Another day, another tentative spice plant ID. Today’s is cadamom (Elletaria cardamomum). There are three species known. The main source is Kerala, India. It is now the third most valuable spice in the world (behind vanilla and saffron). I propose that f14r is a close representation of that plant, described as having two ranks of sharply pointed lanceolate leaves pointing upward. There are still problems with the VM depiction, mainly in not showing the leaves coming off a main stem in an alternate arrangement. I think this might not hold true of a seedling that I think is shown by f14r. Also the blossom associated with the plant is not the aster-like bloom of that plant depiction in the VM but is more like a white snap-dragon with a central red streak.
The seed pod changes from green to yellow when ready for harvest. Used in cuisine throughout the middle east, particularly in teas and in bakery goods throughout the world.
BD would cheer that Guatemala is, since the WW1 period, the world’s major producer of cardamom, thanks to a German coffee planter. Right latitude and soil and then good to go.
Nick can comment on that hole in the vellum on f14r. None on f14v or anywhere else I could detect. Using Nick’s categorization of holes, as man- made or natural, f14r would appear to be intentional. Where is the match? Gone with the wind maybe. Cheers, Tom
Hello Thomas ! As long as you are talking about various spices, you might like to consider the difference between bulbs and corms: For instance, the very valuable tulip BULBS and the much more valuable saffron CORM. The corm is easily differentiated by its flattened shape.
The saffron flower is easily identified by its most valuable pistils and stamens: Those little red items are the source of the saffron spice. And YES, the saffron flower corms can be divided and re-planted to produce more flowers.
bd
BD, The off hand remark I made regarding cardamom should have been qualified by commenting that this financial ranking was pretty much the current one; not that of the 15thC. In that period, I think the most valuable spice would have been nutmeg. One shipload was worth way more than the value of the ship. A good read is “Run” indicating that the spice was so valuable that the Dutch would let a good ship go to the bottom from woodworms while awaiting the optimum time to pick nutmegs. I have yet to identify it in the VM. Maybe too far off track in the 15thC to show up in what I think the focus of the VM botanicals is: the Malabar coast of India.
Slavers were said to haul the most valuable cargoes but I think ships carrying spices likely could beat them out.
I may be led to the crocus plant in the future and will bear in mind your comments on saffron. I have not spotted it yet and I doubt if I will spot any tulip bulbs which came, I think, mainly from what is now Turkey.
I am puzzling still about that odd hole on f14r. No hole that large anywhere in the VM botanicals that I could find. I am guessing that f14r was completed but for some reason nothing was drawn and colored on the verso side.. That was just left blank and the next folio was numbered with the usual recto side actually numbered as 14v. A close inspection of the vellum might indicate whether the exterior (having hair follicles) or interior part (next to flesh) was used for this? Maybe the scribes kept the original layout and the usual recto side just numbered 14v. The original scribes might have left f14v out and would have labelled the next folio as 15r/15v? A punctillio for sure but still a minor puzzlement.
Another spice plant ID I think is coriander (Coriandrum sativa; family Apiaceae). I think it is shown in the VM as f36r, It is common in Western Asia, widely used in India for curries and a condiment in general. The plant has many oddly lobed leaves that are opposite one another. What strikes me as odd about this plant is that the leaves change in shape from bottom to top of the plant (20 inches or so in height). The herb is also called Cilantro .
It is also found in Southern Europe where Pliny comments on its additional use in perfumery. I am guessing that the yellowish leaves shown in f36r might indicate that with much of the color being lost during the extraction process.
More anon. I am focusing now on cinnamon. Cheers, Tom
ps for BD: Coriander (Cilantro) was so popular in England that the emigrants to North America brought it over ca 1670. Now, It is all over the New World and a special species is found in Mexico. The ability to appreciate the aroma is genetically linked; some finding it appealing, others appalling. Some are even allergic to it.
.
Dear all, A tentative plant ID for VM f94r is Chinese cinnamon (Cinnamomum cassia; family Lauracaeae) from SW provinces of China which was an article of commerce and also imported into India. It has opposite leaves and seed pods that resemble those of f94r (see Chinese Materia Medica pp 182-3). It is one of the most important herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The leaves are shown coming out of a stump where the typically two year growth has been trimmed back and the fresh shoots used for the inner bark that is used for TCM, cuisine, perfumes, etc. Neither the roots nor the leaves of f94r are accurately depicted in comparison with photos of the plant,
There are at least 350 species of the Cinnamomum genus; the most common being C. vera (true cinnamon), C. aromaticum, and C. zeylanicum, all found on the Malabar coast of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Burma. Some C. species have alternate leaves and some oddly seem to have both opposite and alternate on the same stem! as seen in drawings and photos. But all leaves are lanceolate, many with a characteristic point on each leaf as a drip point to shed moisture. Some species have purplish black ovate seed pods. C. cassia is not considered true cinnamon.
At this time, I do not mean to indicate that the plant shown on f94r is found naturally growing on the Malabar coast; It may be either imported into India or depicted by an herbalist operating to the East of India.
This ID is one of the most tentative I have proposed. I hope to gather additional corroboration for this ID. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A couple of additional comments on my tentative ID of the VM plant shown on f14r. Turns out there are two plants that are called cardamon or cardomum. Very strangely they are not two species of the same genus but two plants from two different genera of the family Zingibaraeae. One genus is Elettaria cardamomum, that has two species, a green type and a black type. The second is Amomium subulatum. Both are native to India, the former from the Malabar coast; the latter from Nepal. I think the depiction in the VM f14r is the black (less valuable) species of E, cardamomum. The binomial name evidently does not include the green and black sub species.
Now what is very weird about the depiction of this plant are the roots that tend to resemble the Greek form of worry beads. These are exised from the depiction of the whole VM put online by Bax. I think they might reflect one of the many medicinal uses of the plant in addition to cuisine. The plant seeds are useful for mood-elevation and function as an antidepressant.
Marco Polo’s Voyage (chapter 24) and footnotes refer to this as one of the spices from the Malabar coast. He also refers to cumin and ginger that I think I have also spotted in the depicted VM botanicals. More of these in another post. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Some quick VM botanical IDs follow: Cumin (Cuminum cyminum; family Apiaceae), I think, is f41r; shown with opposite inflorescence clusters that are only lightly tinted so as not to obscure their finely divided structure; Ginger (Zingiber officinale), f39r. For the latter, the root rhizome is used that is shown totally stylized. The alternate long leaves are alternate. Both of these spice plants originated in the Indian subcontinent. One spice plant that may be more problematic is that shown in the VM botanicals as f26v that I think is the Tamarind tree (Tamarindus indica; aka “Indian date”; family Leguminasae) that has clusters of opposite compound leaves that themselves have an opposite arrangement of their small leaves. This herb has only one genus. I think the cut off stems indicate where the sausage-sized fruits have been harvested. The flowers are not realistic however. The real problem with this ID is that the plant originated in Africa and Madagascar but was known (date uncertain) in southern India to Arab traders and the tree resembled to their eyes the date palm so they coined the name Tamil (palm) Hindi (India) for that plant. Whether it could have been known on the Malabar coast to the VM scribes is not proved.
I have found very useful a book “The Art of Indian Curry Cooking” by Rani that is available on Google as an e-book for $3.03 USD. Using this book I have put together a list and have some more tentative IDs for Southern Indian spices and will relay these anon. Interestingly, Richard II had a book prepared in 1390 on “The Forms of Cury”, considered by most cooks to have been too heavy on saffron.
One last ID is f1v, that I think could be Malabar leaf, or the regional Bay leaf Cinnamomum famala, family Lauracaeae; also known as Malabathrum). The dried ovoid leaves are used after 3d (hence the two colors) and was used in cuisine with the leaves also for healing snake bite, insect stings, cuts and infections. Hence the “bear paws” showing sharp claws. The leaves should have three lengthwise veins but this is not obvious.
It is tempting to consider that the VM botanicals show plants used for spices and that some common European potherbs may be absent. Cheers, Tom
@ThomS: You might like to compare the saffron corm and its flowers (at least the stamens and pistils). The dialogue which accompanies the illustration is somewhat obscure, but one is still able to differentiate the corms (flattened) from various bulbs.
bd
ps: There is some obfuscation in that folio — can you blame them? Consider the value of the ‘spice’ which was used not only as food enhancement but was used in huge amounts as a yellow dye. Another use for the yellow powder was for the mineral “gold” which appeared in many works of art, and even the ‘gold’ edging on the pages of religious books.
bd
ps: Egg white was used to enhance the appearance of the yellow powder into ‘gold”.
bd
Hi friends. Don’t you think that this picture is drawn by the author of the manuscript? https://yadi.sk/i/jVv5v6ycw9iEF Very similar ink and handwriting.
Viktor, The script is in Arabic. There might be some tiny bits of arabic here and there in the VM. Recall that arabic is read from right to left, not the case with the VM text. The image you provide is carefully colored and much more sophisticated than any in the VM. Lovely nonetheless! Cheers, Tom
BD, At least one species of the crocus plant is grown on the Malabar coast of India, an area that I am currently focusing on in terms of the spice trade and I whose spices, I think, are shown in many of the botanicals of the VM. C. sativa has a huge 6-petaled flower with red stamens and unbranched very slender chives-like stems. The deep blue flower is nearly at ground level.
I have not found a really good facsimile of this plant among the botanicals of the VM. I think that f49r, while not being a very good representation of the saffron-producing crocus plant does have some elements in common with depictions of C. sativa including the somewhat slender leaf stems and a six- petaled blue single flower BUT the root is all wrong. It should be a bulb but is more like a tap root.
Can you or any other reader of this post, provide a more accurate interpretation of any of the crocus species from among the botanicals of the VM? I plan to search a few of the other species and their methods of propagation.
I find the plant interesting in providing textile coloration as is used in the robes of Asian monks although turmeric is now more common and cheaper to use.
Your mention of saffron being used as sort of gold leaf was a new use to me. Was it egg white or the yolk used in the gold coloration you cite? If it were egg yolk, it would be a more or less expected application for the medium of egg tempera. Cheers, Tom
ps. I committed a typo in the alleged derivation of the spice tamarind in my post of Oct 3. It is considered to have derived from the arabic for palm which was “tamir” not “tamil” as I had it.
Egg white and saffron powder. If a manuscript artist was low (or out of) metallic gold leaf, he could resort to to powdered sex organs of the beautiful ‘saffron’ crocus. I’ve recently been re-filing my file cabinets. Take a look at what I seem to recall as folio 55v: If you see the “bulb” of that specimen somewhat flattened so it looks like a shoe or boot, you are viewing the saffron crocus. There has been quite a bit of confusion (over centuries, and countries) as to when bulbs are planted, and when saffron corms are planted. It is the little sex organs of the beautiful flower which is dried and powdered.
🙂
ps: the powdered saffron (bright yellow) has been used for centuries (mixed with egg white) as a substitute for “gold” — in many works of medieval artists — and right up to current years.
bd
@ThomS : Boenicke Manuscript 408 (so-called “Voynich”) folio 35r :
What looks like a ‘wine goblet in shape” — with a stem arising from the center; which centered stem has stamens and pistils (in full colors of blue and red). Take a look at the shape of the “bulbs”. They are NOT bulbs; but rather CORMS.
Once you get a good look (and can ignore the ‘bleed-through’ plant) and can enlarge the photo enough that you can read the “Voynich writing”, you might find yourself right on track, and can validate my finding of the “Saffron Crocus and corms.
bd
Dear all, I think I have found another pretty good but still tentative VM botanical ID. I think f65v is Ferula asafoetida, (family Apiaceae). It was virtually unknown in Europe until the 16C. The odor of the stem sap smells like a fetid dung heap yet is called “the food of the gods”; “the god of your choice, evidently “. Yet it is a critical ingredient in nearly all Indian curries and adds a meat flavor (sort of like modern use of MSG) to the vegetarian diets common in India. It has many medicinal and practical uses (like drawing moths, catfish, wolves or anything else attracted by an animal that has died). The uses would fill a book. including killing trees, but I will just comment that f65v is a fairly good depiction of the plant, showing 4 stems that have been severed for cookery. It adds a leek-like flavor and aroma to curries and other Indian food. In general serving as a flavor enhancer.
Incidentally, the aroma of the fresh resin is so potent that the resin has to be stored in air-tight containers lest it contaminate one’s other spices with off aromas. The resin is also used for pickling.
The plants grow to 5 ft in height and have clusters of greenish flowers that are sometimes yellowish. The roots are fairly accurately depicted.
The plant uses are so varied that I will post other comments on this strange plant in the future. I think the main take home message on this plant is that it was virtually unknown in Europe UNTIL WELL AFTER the end of the Roman empire, that many date to the fall of Constantinople in 1453,
Anybody know whose is the picture?
Viktor, My guess is that it is from a children’s counting book where the erect man is the Arabic numeral for 1 in our system (which is actually Indo-Arabic). The man in that loop, that resembles the zero (that Indians introduced ca. 600AD) is the arabic number for 5. I think the written arabic is the name of the number in arabic, maybe the equivalent of “fifteen”? The Arabic zero is a dot. Interestingly the Italian mathematician (from Pisa) Fibonacci is credited with introducing the concept of zero to the west about the same time as the VM vellum is prepared. Roman numerals did not use it thus our weird numbering of clock faces and centuries. Cheers, Tom
My guess is that this originated several hundred years after the date of the VM vellum (early 15C).
Cheers, Tom
Again at ThomS: Look for folio 35r in Boenicke ms 408:
What appears to be a huge wine goblet is the flower. Those little red thingies and yellow thingies are the sex organs of the CROCUS –specifically referred to as the “SAFFRON CROCUS”. The accompanying text is pretty clear in identifying that specimen. What really identifies the specimen on VM/Boenicke Mss 408, folio 35r are the CORMS (NOT bulbs) which appear at the base of that illustration. You may now find the discussion to be more easily read. I’m still pondering about the text (not very forthcoming — probably because we couldn’t get around the ‘tetchy’ nature of ‘sex’ or ‘fertility’ or ‘fertilizer’.
bd
“Open Sesame” Well, maybe, maybe not! The world’s oldest oil-seed plant, Sesamum indica; family Pedaliaceaea) cultivated for 3K yrs, might be found in the Malabar coast, and might be found in the VM botanicals although I have not found a really accurate depiction of the plant as pictured in online photos. There are 20 species, many wild and some naturalized from Africa or the middle East.
The plant is a bush with single stems 1-2 feet high with opposite lanceolate leaves, wrinkled and deep green in color. The leaves have bulb-like pods
of seeds located at the leaf junctions. While f18r has many differences from these characteristics, it is my best guess for sesame although it lacks the pods and the flowers are not fox-glove-like blooms at all. The plant while reported as growing in the Kerala province of India (that includes the Malabar coast) prefers the arid soils found in northern India. This area and NE China are the major sources of the plant (syn. C. orientale). The plant has a long tap root with many rootlets making it drought-tolerant. At the moment, I am inclined to the view that the plant IS NOT shown among the VM botanicals, like spikenard that I discussed earlier. It may not be common enough in southern India to have deserved the attention of the VM scribes. The main current uses are seeds for bakery goods like hamburger buns and the oil (benne oil) for soap making.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Two punctillios: One is that two of the four cut stems of the VM botanical f65v are bent at angles that I think indicates they are loaded with resin, not hollow.
The other point is that the cashew tree, now found in India and a key component of some curries, was introduced into India from Brazil in the new world and would not have been found anywhere in the old world at the time the VM botanical images were drawn and first colored. So it is not expected to be among the plants and on inspection, I have not found anything close. The trees are up to 14m in height and seems to have both alternate and opposite ovoid leaves.
BD, I will give a closer look to the VM botanical (f35r) you have identified as the saffron crocus (Crocus sativum). For consenting adults, I think most can handle your decript of some of the racier accounts of the plant’s reproduction! I am speaking for myself on this however!
Cheers, Tom
Thomas, apart from some reservation about the flower – which doesn’t much resemble that of Asafoetida ( when open, though before the flowers open, they’re not unlike), I think your id for folio 65v is very reasonable and with that reservation, I’ll cite it as your id.
D
Thomas, I wonder at your saying that it was unknown to Europe until after the fall of Byzantium, since the same wiki article you’ve cited for its various uses also says:
“Though it is generally forgotten now in Europe… It emerged into Europe from a conquering expedition of Alexander the Great, who, after returning from a trip to northeastern Persia, thought they had found a plant almost identical to the famed silphium of Cyrene in North Africa—though less tasty. Dioscorides, in the first century, wrote, “the Cyrenaic kind, even if one just tastes it, at once arouses a humour throughout the body and has a very healthy aroma, so that it is not noticed on the breath, or only a little; but the Median [Iranian] is weaker in power and has a nastier smell.”
Nevertheless, it could be substituted for silphium in cooking, which was fortunate, because a few decades after Dioscorides’s time, the true silphium of Cyrene became extinct, and asafoetida became more popular amongst physicians, as well as cooks.
for which last statement, the wiki-author cites Andrew Dalby, Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices. (2000).
He then goes on to say that:
“Asafoetida is also mentioned numerous times in Jewish literature, such as the Mishnah… Maimonides also writes in the Mishneh Torah ‘In the rainy season, one should eat warm food with much spice, but a limited amount of mustard and asafoetida.’..”
and
“Asafoetida was described by a number of Arab and Islamic scientists and pharmacists. Avicenna discussed the effects of asafoetida on digestion. Ibn al-Baitar and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi described some positive medicinal effects on the respiratory system.”
~ so it was known as near as Egypt, and perhaps (since Maimonides came from Spain) in Iberia.
It is only within Latin Europe, from “after the Roman Empire fell, until the 16th century” that asafoetida was rare.
I must check to see whether it gains a mention in the Great Antidotary. 🙂
@ Diane and ThomS:
Y’all might look at previous posts I have made to Nick’s presentations of the arugula and radicchio — both of which appear on the same folio of B-408. There is another folio which discusses cilantro. I have recently boxed-up the contents of my file cabinets (until I can get another set of file cabinets). Except for the folio which discusses the life span and feeding of the beautiful BUTTERFLY which while still a caterpillar, creates a ‘silk ‘ thread cocoon around herself. If her cocoon ends up in near-boiling water, she never emerges as a butterfly.
bd
ps: This butterfly larvae eat only the leaves of the morus alba tree. The bark of the morus alba tree is used for ‘paper’. The fruit of the morus alba tree is illustrated, by itself, as ‘looking like’ a pineapple………
Diane, Thanks for pasting in the pertinent part of asafoetida (aka assa-foetida) from Wiki for use in our discussion.
Firstly: I agree that the small yellow petals of the plant as shown in the botanical section of the VM as f65v were either never there or were obscured by the carelessly applied green coloration. If the yellow petals were there, it is possible that they have just faded from view with the passage of 500 years.
Secondly and mainly: Your point that the existence of asafoetida could have likely have been known in Europe well before the 16th C depends on Alexander the Great’s reports back home (probably present day Macedonia where Greek was used) and its being known to Maimonides and the Jewish community either in Iberia, N. Africa or the middle East. The former would have been possessed of the knowledge BC of asafoetida, the latter ca. 200 yrs before the creation of the VM vellum. I was aware of Jewish and arab knowledge of the plant but was focused on what was likely known to Latin Europe about the plant, mainly in supporting a non-European origin of the plant and its depiction among the VM botanicals
I may have overstated the situation with knowledge of this plant in Europe by focusing on Latin Europe and ignoring areas under Moorish control like Spain and the Jewish populations there (until their expulsion after the battle of Grenada in 1492), Macedonia or in the Middle East. The areas under Islamic control were also neglected from consideration with my current concentration on the spice trade of the Malabar coast which was a melting pot of Christians, Moslems, Jews (the ancient settlement at Cochim), Hindus and Chinese among others.
I could have overemphasized the Malabar coast of India as the source of knowledge of asafoetida, its VM depiction (as f65v) and the use of this plant in nearly all curries. Necessary may in this case, not have been sufficient so far as locating the source of the depiction in the VM.
I was mainly interested in localizing this plant and its knowledge to a non-European venue; I could have overstated this case. Early cook books might be worth consulting, like the one commissioned by Richard II on “Curys”. Amazing how VM research seems to expand to every topic known to man.
for BD, Marco Polo was impressed by the use of paper money in Kubla Khan’s empire made from the bark of the mulberry (Morus alba). You evidently came from another direction at the making of paper from the same tree bark?
Cheers, Tom
@ThomS : You betcha!
Fray Sahagun was following ‘the rules’ for making paper money as well as manuscript paper (instead of animal skins). He also maintained the mulberry orchard’s tree leaves as fodder for the hungry caterpillars/silk worms before they wound their cocoons. I still have a bet ‘on the table’, so to speak: My bet depends on my guess that Fray Sahagun got a fairly good education while visiting or attending the University at Salamanca.
I do hope that Professor Leon-Portilla is intending to visit Nick’s “Voynich” (Boenicke Library/Yale’sdiscussions which parallel greatly with the Florentine Codex/Manuscript.
bd
A little bit more about the Morus Alba tree bark and the parasitic ‘strangler fig’ vine/tree bark. Sahagun’s assistants illustrate the use of both when manufacturing “lower quality” paper. I can’t remember, now, if that discussion and illustrations appear in the “Voynich” mss or Fray Sahagun’s Florentine Manuscript. Quite interesting — as far as the quality of the ‘paper’ depended on the status of the person commissioning or purchasing the material/paper.
bd
Dear all, An interesting link, I discovered, during a Google search on “Malabar coast”, was Malabarsuperspices.com which mainly sells Indian spices but also has a useful glossary but even better, a thumbnail sketch of spice trade history. Among the history sources was a book by F. H. Prescott. “Once to Sinai” McMillan, 1958, that turns out to be a bargain on Abebooks (used hard cover with dust jacket at roughly $3 USD). Among the assertions that got my attention is that Marco Polo’s book (1271) (I do love generalizations!) was the following: “His accounts led to the downfall of Venice, the destruction of the Arab empire and the opening of trade between Europe and the Orient”. “Pen being mightier than the sword” dept. More anon.
I will convey shortly: A possible ID of Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum), a native of India and a member of the mint family. My mom. long under the sod, once pointed out to me that all mints have square stems.
Also I think I have a possible ID from the VM of fenugreek (Trigonelia foenumgraecum (pea family, Fabacea)), one of the major spices of India. Both the seeds and leaves are used (with tamarind) in fish curries and in mango chutneys.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I think that VM botanical illustration f87r (left plant) is a fair representation of Fenugreek, known in the Middle and Far East since antiquity. It should have opposite ovoid leaves, wider toward the tips and yellow flowers that turn into long seed pods. While the leaves are pretty faithfully delineated with smooth edges, the flower color is not yellowish as it should be.
The roots should be a slender taproot with many side rootlets that allow it to survive in the more arid soils of central and northern India.These are not accurately depicted in the left plant on f87v, that are not thin at all. If it were found in Kerala (Malabar coast area) it would have to be transported there from the northern, drier areas. The state of Rajasthan near the Pakistan border produces 80% of the Fenugreek grown in India. My plant ID is very tentative and Fenugreek may NOT be among the VM botanicals at all. Because of its widespread use in curries, I lean toward finding the closest facsimile but this might be wishful thinking. Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A tentative ID for Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum; family Lamiaceae) is the VM plant f7v. It has opposite ovoid jagged-edged leaves and small white flowers. I have at present, no explanation for the differently colored leaves nor the black dot on each leaf. The plant is native to India.
As a followup to my discussion above on Fenugreek (left illustration on folio 87r) it appears to me that the preceding folio 87r has a mature depiction of the same plant. It has the same-shaped leaves and what is more importantly, exactly the same layout of the three-fold root.
Cheers, Tom
Discreet: adjective — caut-us-am — prud-ens-entis
Ciao !
BD, Don’t quit on us! We need more contrarians. Could you provide the folio number(s) for Nick’s IDs on arugula, radicchio and cilantro. Thanks in advance. Cheers, Tom
I’ve thrown out the files. Radicchio ‘looks like’ a large red and white cabbage leaf. Cilantro ‘looks like’ a ‘clover leaf’ with jagged edges. Arugula/Arrugula — I can’t find my files — I cleaned out my file cabinets recently. I just did a search for the leafy vegetable ‘arugula’ ‘arrugala’….nothing for 4 dictionaries, two encyclopedia sets….sorry!
Gotta eat. Y’all are on your own now………
@ThomS:
Eruca sativa — aka: Arugula sativa, brassica eruca roquette, colewort, roquette
Coriandrum sativum, cilantro, Chinese Parsley
Radicchio — Italian chicory (per Pliny the Elder)
All of the above are excerpted from Wikipedia
I can’t find the contents of my file cabinet — since I relocated the contents to another room in our house ! Time to eat!
Ciao ! (or ‘chow’ when it comes time to eat…..)
bd
BD, Thanks for the effort and the plant synonyms. Bon appatito! Cheers, Tom
If you should come across ANY mention (in the “Voynich” Manuscript) of Malinche or Malintzin and her life as a captive/translator of Hernan Cortes (and mother of Cortez’s children) please let us know. There is some mention in the Florentine Codex.
bd
Dear all, “Where are the Chili Peppers?” Chilis were a New World export but showed up in the Portuguese province of Goa on the SW coast of India ca, 30 yrs after the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. Putting that date as ca. 1525, the VM botanicals might show the characteristic depiction of Chilis if the VM were drafted before or on that date.
India is now the major exporters of chili peppers and it is domestically a critical ingredient of nearly all curries. see “Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers” by Lizzy Collingham. Seventy-five percent of all of India’s chilis are exported from the Southern province of Andhra Pradesh. Turns out that the Indian dish of Vindaloo is an approximation of a Portuguese dish. The binomial name will be one of the many genera of Capsicum, the most common species being Capsicum annumum.
The other side of the Chili coin, is that IF the VM is based on New World plants, that Chilis would be a major plant shown. It is NOT, to the best of my perusing the VM botanicals. Chilis were known for thousands of years in the New World, throughout N. and Latin America and particularly (BD, this is for you!) in the Aztec world. Cheers, Tom
ps. After de Gama and other Portuguese traders, Chilis quickly spread thought Southern Asia
Dear all, A profound “oops”!
If it seems likely that the VM text was laid down soon after the vellum was prepared and the date range for that has been established by carbon-14 dating, as early in the 15thC.
I meant in my post above on the absence of any illustration in the VM botanicals of any of the many species of Chili pepper plants indicates that the botanicals were likely drawn BEFORE 1525 (I mistakenly wrote above “after”) which is the earliest Chilis would have been known to the Old World. IF they did show there, (and I doubt that any depiction in the VM reflects that) it would imply that some. at least, of the VM botanicals were drawn AFTER 1525, roughly 100 yrs after the VM vellum was made. So I think Chilis which are critical in most of the Middle and Far East cuisines, but particularly in southern India (where they are a key component in most curries) are a non-player in the VM botanicals.
I think I have an ID from the VM for “Indian mustard” (Brassica juncea, family Brassicaceae), called also brown mustard. That will be relayed anon.
How can we assign consonants to the gallows if the variance is so great as seen on folio 24r? Going from the simplest to the more complex, we have NO examples of the single stemmed, single-looped gallows, only THREE of the single stemmed double-looped gallows, TWENTY-ONE examples of the single looped double stemmed gallows and TWENTY occurrences of the double-looped double-stemmed gallows.
I cannot get my head around the idea that they represent English or Latin consonants, t, k, p, f. or any consonants at all.
The idea of their being punctuation also seems unlikely regarding their distribution in this folio or others. For example one gallows might be a start symbol, another the end of a sentence, another a comma and another as a colon. Some merely set off a single glyph. My daughter comments that old ms that used pilcrows will separate an “amen” with pilcrows, but a single glyph like “9” seems a reach too far.
Could the gallows simply be nulls? Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I think VM f27v is a fair representation of the Indian brown mustard (Brassiica juncea), used in curries before the introduction of Chilis that is discussed above. There are many species and subspecies (or varieties). The family Brassicaea has another genus Sinapsis and between them, many species are native to India including B. hirta, B. nigra and B. alba. Greens, stems and flowers are all used in cuisine. The illustration of VM f27v shows a typical leaf layout of compound opposite slightly ragged-edged leaves. The flowers should be yellow but I assume that color was fugitive? Cheers, Tom
Dear all, One more ingredient for that perfect curry is spotted in the VM botanicals: One uses leaves from the curry tree (Murraya koenigii, family Rutaceae (Rue)) which I think is fairly well represented by f19r. The opposite compound leaves hang down as in this depiction. It is native to India and Sri Lanka. The smallish tree can reach 31 feet in height. The slightly jagged leaves (2-4 cm) are arranged in groups of 17-21 pairs. The tree has clusters of small white flowers that become clusters of small black berries, typically 20 or so. Now what about that large blossoms at the top of the illustration. I think this is phony, designed to mislead! This remark is bound to create some argument but I think the illustrations are often as coded as the text.
Another herb I have spotted in the VM botanicals is lemon grass that I will comment on in another post. Cheers, Tom
Another
Dear all, Lemon grass, an ingredient in cuisine and teas in India is I think found in the VM botanicals at f 101v2 one to the left at the bottom of that crowded folio.
BTW a wonderful little book on spices is found in the approximately tiny ( ca.16mo sized) 64 page book entitled “The East India Book of Spices” by Antony Wild, Harper Collins, 1995. We learn the ingredients of Worchestershire sauce and that Marcus Aurelius was a cumin seed counter! Cheers, Tom
Dear all, For those who care about Worchestershire sauce, The little book I refer to above has a link on page 15 with the Lea and Perrins sauce and an “officer” of the East India Company who developed it. A chemist at Worcester, England found the composition to include anchovies, garlic and raw chili peppers. I sort of wonder about the organization of the East India Company in that it was evidently based upon a military model. Next we will get into Major Gray’s Chutney! Cheers, Tom
Hey, ThomS ! (and anyone else who might be interested a paperback copy of the “Florentine Codex — particularly Book 11 – Earthly Things ) : Which is Fray Sahagun’s dialogues in two languages and his assistants illustrations and Nahuatl written translations.
My favorite item (in the so-called Voynich (folio 11v) is the single mulberry fruit. Six lines of discussion (Nahuatl translation of Sahagun’s Espanol). The single fruit was an edible fruit. The leaves of that same mulberry tree were fed to the butterfly (silkworm) larvae until the caterpiller (payatl-huahuatli) enclosed herself into a cocoon. The very fine strands of sericine were prized above all other threads.
So — now you will be able to recognize what a ‘mulberry fruit looks like — and read the Nahuatl dialogue which appears on both sides of the stem.
bd
Dear all, Another possible ID from among the VM botanicals is equating f39r with the ginger plant (Zingiber officinale; family Zingeriberaceae). It is a rhizome with lanceolate leaves and a blossom that has white and pink buds that become yellow when mature. Mainly the roots are used in cuisine, beers, tea and in controlling nausea.
Its occurrence in rain forests of India and south Asia is shrouded in antiquity. Zingiber is Latin and a variant was introduced into Europe in the first Century.
The VM depiction seems of young plants, some of which have been harvested as indicated by the cut stems. It is difficult to spot whether leaves are alternate or opposite, but photographs of the species I have examined are alternate.
BD, Thanks for the info on silk making in the New World. One disaster befell New England at the time of Thoreau when the gypsy moth was introduced to MA in hopes the caterpillars might feed on the local hardwoods, probably mainly chestnut at the time. The caterpillars went wild and remain a huge problem to this day in the Eastern US, but made no silk at all. Instead the weight of the caterpillars pulled down the gutters at Walden.
I have indicated that my ID of the mulberry in the VM is f25r, not f11v.
I based my ID on the Chinese materia medica but have no ID for f11v at the moment.
Cheers, Tom
@ Nick (and ThomS) : For roughly $ 15.00, one can obtain a (used ? ) copy of Sahagun’s ” Florentine Codex-General History of the Things of New Spain : “Earthly Things”. It is a greatly helpful INTERPRETATION of a huge section of the so-called Voynich manuscript: any illustration is accompanied with discussions written with Espanol and Nahuatl – and English. Not just insects, but birds of every kind native to New Spain, — and trees – and flowers – and insects ……
bd
bd, When was the original of this interesting sounding opus written? Seems to me that it has to have to have been at the earliest, 16th C. roughly 100 yrs after the VM vellum was made. Doesn’t this pose a problem? Cheers, Tom
Bd, It seems to me that what is needed is a way of dating when the script was laid down on the 15thC vellum. I think all have assumed that the vellum was written on shortly thereafter. BUT. this is assumption that needs backing up by the best our modern technology is capable of.
Can we date anything in the ink? I think iron gall inks often contained glycerin or syrups that contained sugars. This is why the inks had to be made fresh frequently as molds would grow in the inks. BUT here is the problem. The fresh inks could be made and used years and years AFTER the vellum was made!
There is on one folio a dab of something that I think is gesso that was laid down to cover an error. Better that than an embarrassing scratching out! Gesso which is gypsum (CaSO4) and a binder like linseed oil could be carbon dated. Just scrape it off and use a mass spec to measure C14 vs C12. But what do we learn? That gesso might have been in a bottle for years and the results could and should be challenged.
The pigments used in the botanicals could in some cases be carbon-dated; For example, carbonates of colored ions, The problem there is getting at original coloration that has been overpainted to a fare thee well leaving very little of the original available for testing. The original in most cases seems to have been very thin, likely water color. The later coloration is oil paint, goache or even crayon. I think the delineation of the botanicals was done early, since the text is integrated so carefully with it. They had to have been done at the same time. BUT,what date are we talking about?
I think we have to fall back on content. Like maybe: No peppers in the botanicals = a date before 1525? It has to be content, content, content!!!
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Another tentative spice ID for one of the VM botanicals is f5v for Anis
(Pimpinella anisum family Umbelliterarae (or maybe family Apiaceae; some uncertainty here). The leaves are shallowly lobbed at the base and become more fern-like at the top. It has a tap root and an umbrella of small white blossoms at the top, whose seeds are mainly used. It is the basis of the flavors of alcoholic beverages in the Middle East including Raki and Ouizo. The plant photographs seems to have both alternate and opposite leaves.
The seeds are mildly diuretic and diaphoretic (increases sweating).
Cheers, Tom
Nick, “Counfounded” or not, why do we not see any instance of “gallows-gallows” occurring consecutively as consonants do in most languages? Whatever consonant “shape-shifting” is going on, one might still expect to see a few “consonant-consonant” combinations? Cheers, Tom
Tom: ah, now you’re starting to think like a proper Voynichese analyst… feeling the pain for what it is. 🙂
And what about gallows at the end of words, then? How many can you find that aren’t 2/3rds of the way along the top line of a paragraph? And why are they common as the first letter of the first line of a page/paragraph, and not nearly as common as the first letter of other lines?
Dear all, Another tentative ID from the VM botanicals is that depicted on the right side of f87v, and that herb might be Achillea millefolium subspecies chitralensis (feamily Asteraceae) found in India from the Himalayas as far south as Kerala.
It is reported as the plant used by Achilles to heal wounds and is an astringent with blood stanching properties, known also as stanchweed and soldier’s woundwort. The plant is described (Wiki) as having fern-like leaves and clusters of pink or red blossoms It is described a being an herb, not technically a spice although having many spice like uses, including a hops substitute, an ingredient for teas in addition to being eaten like spinach. Cheers, Tom
ps. It is also described as a rhizome but this is not indicated in the VM unless the small plant to the left of folio 87v is viewed as a seedling from a common rhizome?
Dear all, A fuller distinction between herb and spice is that spices have a woody stem, herbs do not (see “Spices: A global History” by Czarro, Edible Press, p9) . The leaves of herbs are mainly used; the roots, blossoms, seeds and stems of spices are used. I should have indicated the herb above is the common yarrow.
Cheers, Tom
Nick, Are you holding out on us with a way of determining the end of a “word”?
Please share if you are of a mind to! Cheers, Tom
Tom: people didn’t start taking the spaces out of ciphertexts till the early sixteenth century (in Venice), so I would say that there is a near-100% chance that words in the Voynich plaintext do indeed map to words in Voynichese.
Yet when you combine this with the observation that Voynichese words have such low information content (i.e. they are highly formulaic, and hence predictable), this has profound implications for the kind of a text it must be expressing.
DONT BELEAVE THE LIE…. WRITTEN WHEN I WAS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL…….
http://ᓕᑭᓂᓴ.com/decoding.html
Charles: good luck with convincing anyone of that.
Good luck, folks, in finding anything forthcoming from the newly published replica of B-408. It is only a replica (same size, exactly). So, we are still not being enlightened of the contents of B-408. We still can barely read/make out the written comments/ identifiying features in the replica. AND I could find NO enlargement feature in the replica.
So, I expect that the next maneuver at Boenicke will be to close down their on-line version/viewer enlargement capacity of the original document.
So, to me (hearing and visually impaired) disaster lies ahead. Bye-bye Boenicke !
Fortunately, I have translated some 20-30 of the “Voynich”s offerings.
So, I am satisfied — and really have no more interest in translating B-408.
Good luck with your sales ploy Ms Zyatz ! Is your next step going to be the closure of the online viewer, with its enlargement feature?
bd
BD, You can still access the complete VM using the web site of Steven Bax (Voynichese.com). Only the roots are sometimes truncated. Clicking on the small images gives a good enlargement with each folio identified. He provides a translation that is unique to himself. Just let your cursor linger over the Voynich word.
I would think, in the interests of selling facsimiles of the VM, that Yale will maintain the online site for awhile as a teaser.
Cheers, Tom
Nick, In your post of Nov., 13, you have summarized some of the oddnesses of the gallows glyphs. I think this is magnified by the single-stemmed-gallows that you have also alluded to in that post. I think they are so weird that they may not be consonants at all but represent some kind of markers, maybe something like printer’s signs or paragraphing signs like pilcrows.
Is it possible that when “Neal pairs” occur, that what is being indicated as important is the text that lies between them?
Below is a reiteration of part of my post of Nov. 6 with some of the data deleted for clarification and emphasis:
Some of the folios with a single-stemmed, single-looped gallows have only one: e.g. f2r; f34r f43v; f55r; f50v; f53r.
Three folios have NO single stemmed gallows at all: f15r (15 lines by the tight scribe) (top part of f42v (8 lines; tight scribe; f36r, (6 lines by the looser scribe).
These single-stemmed gallows are sprinkled about, mainly in positions in the lead lines as you indicated. But what about the three cases above that have NO single-stemmed gallows at all and all those folios that have none of the single-stemmed, single-looped gallows at all?
Cheers, Tom
Tom: that pieces of text between these pairs of (typically single-legged gallows) are probably important / different / whatever is – broadly speaking – what Philip Neal suggests, though without any easy explanation as to which option to choose. And that, sadly speaking, is just the start of your confundity…
Nick, Thanks for the prompt response. I guess, in the absence of just doing the logical thing by dumping the lot, single- or double-stemmed, I will continue to exist in a state of confounded confusion! The single stemmed gallows glyphs could be consonants but appearing in a, now “on again”, then “off again” mode and likely changing their identities as well.
Turning to another possible spice ID from the VM botanicals, I propose that f4v is Florence fennel, Foenical vulgare subspecies Azoricum (family Apiaceae), which unlike the original F. vulgare is less ferny and has broader leaves that can be eaten, along with the seeds and a bulbous root. Florence fennel is known in Italian as finnochio. It is a perennial with a woody, hollow stem and having a maximum height of 2.5 m. That big blue blossom is put at the top of the plant drawing as a deception.
Importantly, it has been naturalized in India at an undetermined time in the past, and is the feature of many Indian dishes The anise-tasting seeds are often in breath-freshening candies.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A tentative ID (most of mine will be approximations as I think most of the plants were drawn that way). I think most of the plants shown are spices since they have a woody stems and the bulbs, bark, roots, or seeds are used. The spices are perennial although at the moment, we probably have to rely on the text to settle that point.
My tentative ID for the saffron-yielding crocus is that on f94v. The binomial is Crocus sativa and the family is Indaceae. There are many species. It is thought to have originated in Greece and the Wiki article on Saffron is worth a look as it depicts an ancient fresco in the archaeological dig of Akrotiri on the Agean Greek island of Santorini.
The leaves are lanceolate but start life as more fibrous, expanding a bit on aging. The pollen from the long red stigmas is collected in the autumn when the blossoms mature and provides saffron, an essential cuisine ingredient in the Mediterranean area but particularly SW Asia, particularly India. Its origins in India are shrouded in prehistory, although it was likely introduced.
The plant spreads by human intervention, via the planting of the bulb-like organs at the base that are actually “corms”. [BD first pointed out this factoid, but I have trouble with her VM botanical identification] A corm indicates that that “mother” bulb, produces “daughter” bulbs. Four are shown in f94v. These are usually not as separated as shown on that folio and are usually pried apart and stored for later planting.
There can be up to four flowers per plant with colors ranging from pink to blue, sort of like hydrangeas which are responsive to soil pH. The plant shown on f94v has only one (and not five-petaled as an authentic depiction should have), although the center has some evident complexity as found with an authentic crocus flower. I have no explanation for the “graffito” scratched in the rightmost corm. It could be a later added scratched out glyph? It is overt and no attempt was made to conceal it as is usually the case with ‘coloring cues” etc. found in VM “hidden writing”. Also I have no explanation for why two left-most corms are lighter in color, two at the right are dark.
One last point, Most curries would be prepared with saffron. See for instance an e-book: “india’s Unsurpassed Cuisine: the Art of India Curry Cooking”, Rani” (available for ca. $3 USD as a Google book).
Nearly every ID I have made from the VM botanicals has been qualified by the expression “tentative”. One explanation for this state of affairs is that the drawings were not made in the field but from hastily drawn notes or sketches or even drawn second-hand following a report from the field. This raises the possibility that the plant delineator was nowhere near where the plants were found, which for purposes of argument I assume was the Malabar coast of SW India.
Cheers, Tom
ps. Now we see in the US, the downside of the presidential system, where we will be stuck with a demagogue for 4 yrs; not the more expedient PM system of countries with parliaments.
BD, I think that your post of Nov. 15, 2016, 10:06 PM where you puzzle over the images of f86v3 and the “birds sailing down a waterfall” and “persons hiding and huddled under what appear to be giant toadstools” has a possible explanation in “The Travels of Marco Polo”. In book 3, chapter 19 “The Kingdom of Mutfili” (Part of India, lying north of the Malabar coast), an interesting observation is relayed by Marco who must have heard this second-handed as he evidently never set foot in India on his travels. This mountainous land has rivers that wash diamonds out of the hills after heavy rains and into deep ravines infested by poisonous vipers. The locals figured out a way of avoiding the snakes and still getting diamonds by using the white eagles nesting in the area to retrieve some of the stones by throwing into the ravines, meat treated with some sticky substance . The birds, engorged with meat containing diamonds leave some in their feces they leave in the area or sometimes the birds are grabbed from their nests and cut open to retrieve the diamonds in their stomachs. I think the rains are indicated as originating from fanciful storm clouds and one of the hiding figures is throwing portions of meat into the air above him and this might be destined to fall into one of the ravines or perhaps small portions are thrown into the air as a teasing snack to interest the birds in the task destined for them? The other person is eyeballing a nesting eagle. Not sure what the budded branches above that eagle indicate, maybe the season when the rains fall?
Footnoted research indicates the diamonds are washed down from famous Golcanda mines by the Kistna River. Or from mines in Kadapa or Karnul.
If this exegesis is sound, then the question naturally arises as to why something written at roughly the start of the 14th C, (and originally in French) appears in the VM?
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A correction, The eastern coast of Southern India is Maabar and Mutifili lies 1000 miles to the north so it is on the Northeast coast of India and is not north of the SW side where lies the Malabar coast, called Malibar by Marco. It is on the same coast where the body of St. Thomas reposes.
BD might find interesting, the account in the same chapter of “Travels”, an account of fine cottons made from the hibiscus-like flowers of a tree that resembles the mulberry. Special iron chopsticks are used to remove the seeds and pick up a thread which is then wound around the iron chopstick until a fair quantity of the thread is accumulated. Polo does not mention the intervention of any moth larvae but he is sometimes in error on geography and details. The fabrics are called buckrams, muslins or chintzes and vary in quality but some are as fine as spider webs.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Sticking with Marco Polo’s Travels a bit more, I think he might just explain those tubbed nymphs in the “zodiac” circles. Assuming for the moment that the zodiac signs are equivalent to modern usage: we have Pisces (two back to front fish in the center roundel) as Feb. 19-Mar. 20 (29 days, a non leap year) = 10 nymphs in the inner 10 tubs, f70r2; Aries (Mar. 21-April 19 (31 days but all (30 in VM f71r, f71v) nymphs in tubs in light goat and dk goat roundels; Taurus (April 20-May 20; 31 days; 5 women in tubs in center ring of the 15 nymph circle with dk. bull roundel (f72r1).
I calculate that a total of 45 nymphs are enjoying a cooling immersion in those barrels or tubs and that I assume contain water. This corresponds to the time period of March 10 through April 25.
In “Travels” Marco Polo writes (Book 1, chapter 19; “The City of Hormos”) of the intense heat between early March and the end of April in Hormuz, Persia with people having to either leave the area for the mountains or exist by immersing themselves in water from various sources. One footnote said no foreigner would stop there after the start of March and all the locals left in April, even the beggars. After a brief stopover, Marco headed toward India but going and returning from the Far East, he claims not to have been on foot in India. [It seems very odd to me that a merchant like Marco Polo would not have done some recon in “The Spice Garden of the World”. Maybe he did in fact and kept this info to himself?]
So to summarize: The tubs are likely real and not loaded with some symbolic
meaning. I think the decorations on some tubs might however, be status symbols.
Again, if this exegesis stands up to scrutiny, it seems to me that we have to wonder anew, are we embarked in the VM on another travel account?
Cheers, Tom
BD, All I can find from where I sit is that “The Florentine Codex” by Bernadino de Sahagun, volume 11 on Earthly things would only be worthwhile as part of the whole Codex, which unfortunately falls into the category of a rare collectible.
Pasted in is a part of the discussion of ABE books, usually a good source of used books: “Volume 11: The Earthly Things 297 pages with 963 illustrations and index;” Most of the Codex (that has what appears to be a complete but used volume 11) is $1200. a bit pricey for my pocket and it has been extensively censored by Sahagun and illustrated by two modern artists, Dibble and Anderson.. Most of the used paper backs are in the $40 range but are extensively abridged with just a few (e.g. 52) b/w illustrations. The Codex itself on New Spain was written between 1540-1565. If you got the whole volume 11 for $15, you got one heck of a good deal. At $15 for the whole book 11, I’d be a buyer even though I think the composition date remains a problem in terms of the vellum date.
Cheers, Tom
BD, I have trouble with two of your plant IDs from the VM.
Most folks think that f11v that you propose on Nov. 4, is not the mulberry but is turmeric. I think f25r is a better match,
I have no quarrel with your discussion of the saffron crocus plant in your post of Oct. 6, particularly your commentary of the corms by which the plant is propagated. But I do have a problem with your ID from the VM botanicals, where you pick f35r as a match. That has a huge tulip-like structure and an elaborate flower BUT no leaves of any kind and most importantly NO CORMS. My pick for Crocus sativa (VM f94v) has problems too (in the flower part) but it at least has corms.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, The botanical on f93r, alleged by some to be a sunflower, has to me an equally puzzling characteristic and that is the flower head has been tinted with a yellowish- tan colored ink or water color. This seems to me unusual in the VM as I have found no other example of such a tannish-yellow.
Furthermore the scribe seems to have knocked over the bottle, spilling pigment on text and the more opaque dark green leaves AFTER the leaves had been painted (or more likely) recolored. This seems odd, that a thinly colored pigment would then be applied and even thinly applied, more like a wash, it appears to show through on f93v, indicating the green and tan are contemporaneous or close to contemporaneous.
This might imply that a denser, more opaque yellow was hard to come by under the circumstances. Yellow seems to be otherwise absent in the VM coloration, at least now in its present state.
It is accepted, I think, by all Voynichers, that all that the plants were drawn before the text was laid down and original coloration, still visible in places, was neatly done unlike the later recoloration (s) at indeterminate time (s).
With the folio completed but needing a color touch-up at some later, (but evidently not much later), date, why was such a disaster accepted? Perhaps the verso image had already been drawn and the text created when the ink spilled? To redo the plant and extensive text might mean sacrificing and redoing the verso image? Perhaps, in addition, it was already bound in quire form? There could also have been the pressure of doing this tinting job in a timely way.
I plan next to search for some more opaque yellow, oil or goache, paint that would have matched the green leaves and known to artists in the 15thC. It might be a diluted chrome yellow?
If any additional pigment specimens might be sent to McCrone Assoc, a bit of spilled pigment from the lower left of f93r could be scraped off and added to the samples. It would not interfere with the text.
The clear white paint of sample 12 from f78r that was identified as proteinaceous in the original analyses of McCrone, if in sufficient quantity could be checked by C-14 dating?
This might supply a useful date to rule in or out BD’s idea that the New Spain opus of Sahagun might have been written in its original state on older vellum supplied by his folks while he was a university student at Salamanca, Spain.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: unlike vellum (which has a substantial thickness to it), inks and paints are only in very extreme situations able to be used for radiocarbon dating.
Untangling the paint layers on this page would be a very interesting (if hard) exercise, though one which few apart from me have any great appetite for, sadly. 🙁
Nick, Thanks for the prompt response. I’m back to the drawing board! It still might serve a useful purpose to find something that most agree was likely contemporaneous with the writing of the text,, that could be carbon dated?
Cheers, Tom
Tom: well… it won’t be the cover (because it was later), and I suspect that the stitching would be be too lightweight for radiocarbon dating (though a 15th century radiocarbon dating of the thread would surely be a great way of disproving 16th century hoax theories). So I’m not sure what else there is to work with, sorry. 🙁
Nick, Somewhere I recall a note left by the last owner of the VM, Kraus, on the thread binding the VM quires together and that it was a book binder’s linen thread of some kind (a technical name was given but I am drawing a blank on what it was). Even if it could be carbon-dated, it likely wasn’t the original? That dab of gesso on one of the VM folios could maybe be dated by the binder/ gum holding it to the vellum but the same argument could be marshaled against it as well. It could be a later attempt at dressing up the VM for a prospective buyer or giftee. It might be nice to know, if it could be done, but unfortunately it probably would not be definitive–unless it hit the target of the early 15th C. It gets complicated also by the fact that carbon dating is only useful on carbon accumulated by living things, so we get into whether the linseed oil was recent, the nature of the gum (?), etc. Definitely needs more cogitation!
A correction on my assertion that after leaving the tubbed nymphs in Hormuz, Persia, that Marco headed south to India. The route was buried in the book crease in the Dover version I have and I thought overlapped with his return trip. Instead of what I wrote, Marco headed NORTH to the kingdoms of Greater Armenia and Georgiania (Book 1, chapter 4). I assume the latter to be the present region of Georgia.
Marco imparts an interesting factoid (known from the earlier travels of the elder Polos) and that is the hard working Genoese merchants hauled ships overland from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea (called then the Sea of Ghel or Ghelan), thence launching again to sail the 700 miles straight across for trade good exchanges.
Marco does pass Sri Lanka (Seilan = Ceylon) and the West (Melibar = Malibar) coast of India on his return to Venice some 20 plus years later.
Cheers, Tom
ps. That unusual “crossed out A” on the rightmost corm of the saffron crocus that I think is represented by the VM botanical f94v_, bears a similarity to the last part of the monogram of the King of Armenia, Hayton (ca. 1243) depicted in the preface written by Marco’s prison mate and scribe Ramusio. Maybe there is an Armenian under every rock?
Dear all, A candidate for the off-yellow of the so-called “sunflower” (VM f93r) is Indian yellow, known also “snowshoe yellow”, that first appeared in the 15thC but was later banned, not because of its tendency to fade with exposure to light but because of its legendary method of manufacture, which is odd, to say the least.
Malnourished cattle in rural India are fed a diet only of mango leaves and water, nothing else. Their urine is colored yellow and this is dried with heating and formed into small balls for sale. Some challenge this account (see Wiki on Indian yellow) and propose a plant origin.
It was often used in medieval and renaissance art work, earlier as a water color, later as both oil and watercolor. although Its lightfastness was always a problem. When freshly applied it had a color described a clear, deep and luminescent.
Another strange thing is that Indian yellow is a xanthate derivative of magnesium (a metal not usually associated with color such as cadmium, chromium or cobalt)—of formula C15H16O11Mg-5H2O and called euxanthate. It can be distinguished by FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, (maybe even in the reflectance mode?).
Because the cattle, denied proper nutrition, soon died of the unusual mango diet, the use of Indian yellow was discouraged, few used it by the mid 19th C and it was finally banned in 1908. Evidently artists did believe the stories on the intermediacy of cows and resisted using the color out of humane considerations! However, chemically modified formulations of Indian yellow are currently on the market.
Many of the other yellows used in the medieval and renaissance periods were oil-based pigments like orpiment and yellow ochre,
Please consider this a provisional assignment at the moment. I plan further research on what appears in f93r, to have started life as a yellow color, looking for firmly dated examples. Yellow watercolors were very rare in the early 15th C.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A last few observations on “Indian yellow” known also as “puree of India”. Because some skepticism arose as to the actual source of the pigment in a country where cattle were sacred, a group of Englishmen commissioned by the “Journal of Art (London)” went to the Bengal area of India in 1883 and found the original accounts of mango-fed cattle producing a yellow pigment in their urine, to be true, although the cattle did receive some normal fodder from time to time. They were still appalled by the practice and the pigment rapidly fell out of favor and was finally banned from use in 1908.
It appeared first in watercolor work from Persia in the 15thC although the pigment source was India. It has a totally inexplicable property of being stable in daylight but not lightfast in artificial light or EVEN DARKNESS! I suspect a photochemical reaction occurs in daylight that somehow stabilizes the pigment?
Is the mango tree shown anywhere among the botanicals of the VM?
It is an immense tree of 35-40m with a long life of up to 300 years. It has alternate leaves that are 6-12 inches long that have the remarkable property of changing color as they mature, going from pink to red to light green and finally arriving at a glossy dark green. It is native to much of the Mediterranean and particularly Kerala, India on the Malabar Coast where the Indian species, the national tree, is known as Indian mango, with the binomial: Mangifera indica; family Anacardiaceae. It sometimes produces two crops of fruits per year.
Contact with the leaves causes a contact dermatitis in most people, sort of like poison oak or ivy, since, like mangoes, they contain urushiol. That fact also led to the skepticism that the pigment Indian yellow came from the urine of mango-fed cattle.
The mango fruit appear when the small white blossoms fruit. The tree has a great capacity to generate hybrids and new species; over 400 variations are known (see Wiki).
Although the plant depicted on VM f7v , that is my candidate for the mango, appears to have mainly opposite leaves ,the leaves appear to go through the color changes described. I think the prominent black spot on each leaf indicates that exposure to the leaves can raise a welt on human skin. Incidentally, the plant is shown with a tap root, that could be in Voynichese botany, the hallmark of a tree or shrub.
Still on the lookout for art demonstrating putative India yellow watercoloring.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Another possible ID from the VM botanicals is f4r, that I think represents the caper bush. The perennial plant, Cappais spinosa (family Capparaceae) is a plant found in the Mediterranean basin and throughout Southwest through Central Asia. The plant is described as having small, glossy green alternate, round to ovoid leaves, not the opposite mix of red and green leaves found with f4r. Is this a problem with the ID?
I have made a quick survey of the VM botanicals and find that nearly all are opposite and that fact, I think, reflects one of the many stylistic liberties taken by the plant delineator(s). I think intermixing red and green leaves makes it clearer that two or more small leaves meet at a node. The same technique is used on another VM plant f20r, where most leaves are also shown as opposite.
The plant is another that easily hybridizes and many species exist throughout its range. One major species, C tomentosa is found throughout Africa. C. spinosa prefers a semi-arid climate; high humidity pockmarks leaves but new ones are constantly pushing out the damaged ones.
The plant produces pinkish white flowers at the ends of stems that become large buds loaded with small seeds. These are the “capers”, used in cuisines throughout the world.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A provisional ID from the VM botanicals for one of 15 species of the Rhus genus from S. India is f95v1 that I think with the many berry-producing blossoms and trifoliate leaves is Rhus mysoreis (family Anacardiaceae) a member of the vast sumach (sumac) genus. Rather than compound leaves like many, it has lobed ovate leaves in groups of three, somewhat oak-like. It is also called “Mysore Sumac Sipilai.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, The provisional ID I put forward that f95v1 in the VM botanicals is a
sumac species from India is indicated as propagating from a rhizome which is true of R. mysoreis in nature.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Maybe as much information can be revealed on studying the VM botanical section, by WHICH plants are NOT shown there. Presently chilis and Vanilla beans are grown as major cash crops in Asia and Africa (and my favorite locus, the Malabar coast) but I don’t think either is shown in the VM. These were New World and the earliest they could have been depicted from field work by the VM herbalists is ca.1525.
The vanilla plants, most commonly introduced into and grown in Asia, Africa and Madagascar are Vanilla planifolia, V. pompona and V. fragrans of the more than 110 species currently known of the family Orcidaceae.
The species found in southern India has alternate, long, smooth-edged lanceolate leaves with a pinnate tip and up to 100 flowers that each bloom for just one day and are usually hand-pollinated during the blossoming phase. The plant is a climbing vine and the upper parts have to be trained downward for convenient cultivation.
Another common plant that I think is missing from the VM botanicals is Aloe vera, which has a characteristic spiny cactus like base.
I have done what I have found, for me, to be possible, working with the occasionally accurate depiction of plants in the VM. I think many of these are spices. These characteristically are perennials with a woody stem and where roots, flowers/ flower parts (like saffron) or seeds are used. Leaves are occasionally used but not as with herbs where the leaves are the main focus and the plants are annuals.
I plan to continue with this theme a bit more, looking in the VM for the ABSENCE of key potherbs found in European kitchen gardens, i.e. looking for plants that are NOT there! Incidentally, a few more spices might be found.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I think the plant depicted in the VM botanicals on f33r is the Indian Costus plant, whose binomial is Saussurea costus,, family Asteracea. The plant is described as having arrow-shaped, long leaves with a flower head having purple petals and having florets.
It is native to India from the southern coast to the Himalayas and used from antiquity (see Indo-Roman trade, Wiki) for medicinal purposes and incense/perfumery. The incense has a violet-like aroma. The roots are used for gastrointestinal and arthritic purposes but has both female (fertility) and male (aphrodisiac) purposes, accounting for the female face on a left root, a male face on the right root. Incidentally often yin-yang dichotomy is based on this handidness.
There are over 300 species of the genus Costus but this one best fits f33r, although the flower and florets (implied by the little circles in the blossom center) should be purple but is green and this is troubling. The original color may have faded and been carelessly recolored?
Cheers, Tom
Come on nick they are astrology symbols, They are in a circle cypher. The letters are not singular. You won’t take the time to look close enough to see each of those circles is a letter…. THEN WORDS POP OUT IN ENGLISH…… THE MILITARY CODE DEVICE WORKS THE SAME•・・・ SAME AS IN TOM HANKS MOVIE….. YOUR MAKING IT HARD FOR YOURSELF…….
First line says ‘I C STARS DEAD’. THERES A B AND C IN THAT FIRST LINE…… STARTED WITH THE BACK PAGE WERE IT POINTS TO ANOTHER SYMBOL THAT LOOKS LIKE AN ARTICHOKE…. PLUS CERTAIN AGENCIES USE THIS TO TEST YOUR RESOLVE…….
It’s hard for you to see but this is the way you do the cypher……
You get the whole alphabet from the zodiac from all of them circles with the symbols in them. Then you letter each circle with it. It is shorter than it looks. Anywayz I printed it out and it worked just like that back page shows you.
Dear all, Back to tentative botanical IDs. I think the case could be made that f 25v is a fair depiction of the the “Malabar leaf”, an Indian bay leaf, native to the Malabar coast of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and China and known to the Romans as Malabathrum. The plant is a shrub or small tree with largely opposite, long olive-green lanceolate leaves with three veins running lengthwise down the leaves. This can be seen in a few of the leaves that have not been overpainted. The binomial for the plant is Cinnamomum tamala and of the immense Lauraceae family that consists of over 2850 species in 46 genera. The flowers, not shown, of C. tamala are tiny and yellow.
The plant is alleged to be a digestive stimulant and to have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, probably due to the eugenol the leaves contain. The little dragon might have a bearing on the widespread use of the leaves in folk
medicine.
The leaves are a frequent ingredient in the Moghul cusine of N. India, where they impart a cinnamon taste to food. The bark is also used.
Bay Laurel, found in the Mediterranean area, while of the same family is of a different genus. It has leaves one-half the length of C. tamala and only one vein running lengthwise down he leaf.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, The major species of the genus Erythoxylum are E. coca and three others that contain varying amounts of the alkaloid cocaine and are all New World, from Mexico and south to Bolivia. BUT three species of that genus are also native to peninsular India. The main one, E. monogynum, a shrub-like tree with a distinctive ovoid (obovate) leaf that has a rounded leaf tip with no drip point. Red berries appear on the stem. Two other species in India have tiny amounts of cocaine. E. monogynum has none; however, it is used in Ayurvedic medicine for stomach complaints, dyspepsia, fever and dropsy. Leaves and stem bark are used.
I think that the VM botanical f21r is a fairly accurate depiction of this “coca” plant. It might also be E. gracile or E. indicum. The plant should have alternate leaves but f21r shows most to be opposite. I have observed the VM botanical illustrators tend to draw ALL plants with opposite leaves.
For those who might be curious as to whether Coca-Cola ever contained cocaine. It did between 1886 and 1929! “The pause that REALLY refreshes”. S. American natives chew the leaves with a bit of limestone (gives an alkaline environment helping to release the “free base”) and gives them an energy boost and blocks hunger. I read once that a medieval Pope got a case of wine laced with cocaine and wrote a testimonial and thank-you note (no dispensation however!) to the gifter.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I propose that the VM botanical shown on f53r is Dipsacus follonum or the common “Teasel” It is native to West Asia and introduced into Europe where it has become an invasive pest. It was used by Fullers to bring up the nap of woolen goods. The leaves are lanceolate with very prickly jagged edges. But it is the influorescence that become burrs that are used for fulling wool. The plant is from a family that has over 120 species of 8 to 10 genera.
The flowers that become the burrs, can be purple, pink or lavender. f53r shows the large cup-like blossoms as pink. It is mainly the roots (shown as dark with box-like swellings) that have been used for various medical purposes, such as treating warts, cancerous sores, diarrhea, skin fistulas and for improving appetite, urination, sweating and reducing stomach aches. Most of these uses were in past times, now are rarely used.
Cheers, Tom
Good day!
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nikolai.
Dear all, I put forward the botanical shown by f65r as a fair depiction of Parathenium hysterophorum, native to India, and also known as carrot grass or congress grass. It has complex opposite leaves and little or no plant stem, but the grass stems sprout from the soil. The tiny white flowers are borne at the end of the grass tips. The botanical shown as f65r is rare in that page has no text and a one-word identifier to the left of the plant. Why are the flowers not colored; they should be white? I have no explanation for the lack of coloring. Certainly the tinter of the botanicals could have done this, but for some reason left these blossoms uncolored.
The main use of the plant are for medicinal purposes: roots are used for urinary tract infections, dysentary, skin inflammation, neuralgia and rheumatic pain.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Turns out on examination of the VM facsimile that two other examples (besides that of f65r) pop up where one or more plant blossoms remained untinted. These can be spotted on f48r and f56v.
Nick has commented (Curse, p. 67) that color has bled across from f46v to f47r of the VM. The facsimile reveals that only the ink bled across, with no color that I can spot. That implies some time (maybe half a day to a day?) elapsed between the drawing and the coloration. However an example of color bleed across can be spotted from f32v to f33r.
Nick has commented on “bleed through” that can be seen on every folio and Nick has used to correct pagination of the VM. It seems to me that if we are really seeing “bleed through” that the recipient folio might show a little bit of spreading through diffusion. I have measured many of the most obvious examples where “v” is seen on “r” and the reverse and find no spreading at all (to within 0.1 cm). So I propose we change the term ‘bleed through” to “see through”. Why no diffusion has occurred, at least within this 0.1 cm limit is surprising. Maybe scanning Auger microscopy can reveal if any diffusion at all has occurred?
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, On April 29, 2014 ,in this thread, Sukhawant Singh posted his hypothesis that the VM script is derived from a language used in what is now in the Sindh province of southern Pakistan, a region of both Muslims and Hindus (capital is Kharachi). The language is Khojki, possibly mixed with Landa and that was used originally in a Hindu community of Lohana people created by a missionary, Pir Sadardin (1300-1370; born in Persia) ,and was used largely for ecclesiastical purposes. The Sindh province is the third largest in what is now Pakistan but, of course, was northern India until partition in 1947. The language came into being in the early 15thC and was used and still being used by Shia Muslim for Ismaili religious uses.
This is a condensation of the lengthy post of S. Singh. A blog site “Forgotten Sindhi Script-Waranki” put up by Rakesh Lakhani on the Khojki language. The name of the language is derived from Persian and means “Lord” or “Master”.
Just an n+1 hypothesis of the VM script origin? I think it deserves attention because the “alphabet” has many old familiar glyphs seen in the VM. like two that resemble gallows. One is identical with the double stemmed, single loop gallows (means “ba” in English). The language is evidently a phonetic language and is based on syllables, not single letters. Among many familiar VM glyphs are “c”s with an extending line from the top of the “c” going ahead of the glyph or going backward. Also “c” ; the inverted “v”, Some of the unusual glyphs that appear in f57v are also in the Khojki syllables, the “tipped “T””, the two parallel lines connected by a diagonal, sometimes with a little circle on the leftmost one.
The language has diacriticals (like colons) and I am convinced the VM has some Armenian glyphs nevertheless, the relationship of the VM script to the Khojki language, I think, would profit from further study by the membership.
I think a huge clue has been handed to us by Singh! I was leaning toward India, but toward the southern part, i.e. the Malabar coast, so maybe I was more amenable to India as a venue for the creation of the VM text.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A comment on the missionary Pir Sadardin (Wiki): “he was well steeped in knowledge of astronomy, astrology and physiology and also a master of Indian pharmacology and treated local people”. His devotees were forced to accept some odd practices like 1) not riding horses; wearing no head gear or footwear and 3) wearing red or black scarves. I am now on the search for bathing areas near where the Lohani community bathed, besides the Ganges near Kasi. Hot springs abound in the foothills of the Himalayas, particularly Bhutan are a possibility.
Cheers, Tom.
Pir died in 1416 and was buried in his house.
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nikolai.
Dear all, In the era of the spice trade from the Malabar coast of India, something we might not consider a spice was traded as a very costly spice and that was the non-honey sweetener, cane sugar. I think that f44r is a fair representative among the VM botanicals of a young cane sugar plant. The plant has a tuberous root with many root hairs and clusters of wide blade-like leaves. The blossom shown is not accurate at all, of the composite pinkish or whitish cone of small blossoms. It is left uncolored or the coloration is meant to be white. The parallel hatching may not indicate, in this case, a contoured shape but might indicate the presence of tiny blossoms? The depiction of f44r does emphasize the canes from where the sugar, sucrose (common table sugar), is obtained. I think the cluster of grass like leaves is of two colors to allow separate leaves to be observed.
Sugar cane is native to India and is found throughout India, but is chiefly in SW India. The main endemic Indian species is Saccharum barberi . family Poaceae (the grass family). It has been known in India since 600-400 BC.
Cheers, Tom
ps. Incidentally, the Lohanas, originating in Sindh province in what is now the southern part of Pakistan, ended up all over India, with a settlement in Kerala in the Malabar coast of India. Mainly, however, they were found in Gujarat province to the north.
Two caste-like groups were merchants and traders, the third group were government employees.
@ThomS”
C & H Sugar Company — Long before California had anything to do with the development of boiling cane down to a syrup and further drying into crystals, Hawaii was invaded by American religious zealots. Those zealots also brought diseases which were crippling and deadly: leprosy and elephantiasis.
Those same diseases, including pneumonia, are still being treated in various mild and or tropical climates.
In various parts of “New Spain”, armadillo’s are still blamed for the onset of the same crippling and/or deadly diseases.
Dear BD, Thanks for giving us the downside of raising cane sugar. Maybe the zealots were also concerned with the propensity of a sugar-rich diet in putting on the pounds? Cane sugar has several rivals in producing sucrose, the main one being “sugar beets” found growing in the far north, such as eastern North Dakota. I found it interesting that some species of cane sugar can produce in the reeds, nitrogen-fixing bacteria so some species, sort of like legumes but the N-fixing bacteria are in the stems not the roots.
Looks like sugar cane has a lot to answer for!! I have also read that growing sugar cane is a way of disguising the growing of cannabis between rows.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I think the VM botanical portrayed as f39r is likely Kaempferia rotunda (family Zingberaceae (gingers)), native to India, particularly southern India where it is valued as a spice and used for many purposes in Ayuvedic medicine. The rhizome, plant blossoms and leaves are all used. The leaves shown as f39r with tell tale spots are used to treat skin disorders such as scabies and skin wounds. Some have been harvested as indicated by cut leaf stems. K. rotunda is also referred to as Indian crocus but also referred to a “lesser galingal(e)” The flower can be blue, indigo or lighter in color.
Cheers, Tom
Oh ThomS ! You may (maybe?) clueless as to how people manage to grow ‘pot’ just about everywhere in the US nowadays. Howsomever, if you take a look (in the Voynich manuscript ) for the source of Saffron — that huge wine-glass shaped flower (Crocus) you may be able to read the comment about it in the Vms and here, on Nick’s earlier discussion a few months ago. (all about the sex organs of that particular plant (which is a corm — not a bulb).
bd
Dear all, I think the VM botanical f26v is a fair depiction of the spice tree, Tamarindus indica Family Fabaceae (legumes). It is thought to originate in Africa but has been in India so long that its first appearance there is indeterminate and many consider it indigenous. It has alternate compound evergreen leaves with the leaves themselves on the leaf stems being in an opposite orientation. The individual leaves have a characteristic rounded end and have the property of closing up at night. The plant on f26v is shown with some leaves plucked. Both the leaves and the pods produced from the clusters of flowers born at the end of leaf stems are used in spicy Indian cuisine such as curries and the leaves in herbal healing. The blossoms shown are stylistic and do not resemble the real thing at all, although the colors do vary, despite there being only one species of the shrubby tamarind tree.
BD. I was thinking mainly of yesteryear for cannabis production when there were penalties for possession and use, not the wild west as now exists in the US of A.
Cheers, Tom
The little creature in the left-hand margin of f80v has interested me for awhile. First I thought it might be a garden variety armadillo, but these are restricted to the western part of the US only. But in the same order we have the pangolin, found in Southern Asia, particularly India. The family is Manidae which has three genera, scattered throughout Asia. The indian species is from a subgenus Manis and the binomial is M. crassicauelata. It is small, described as about the size of a large pine-cone or globe artichoke. It is nocturnal and strictly insectivarous, eating mainly ants and termites which it helps to digest with stones in its stomach as it has no teeth. It is protected by hard keratin scales which protect it while in a defensive posture of curling up like a ball. Other species are a gourmet delicacy in Vietnam and China. IT IS NOT FOUND IN EUROPE.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Many might wonder what the hey is a pangolin doing amongst the nymphs. Here is I think an explanation of the object the top nymph is holding in the hand of her outstretched left arm. The scales of the Indian pangolin are referred to as “nagi” and are a key ingredient in formulating incenses.
The following is from a blog “Olefactory Rescue Service: “Ecological issues aside, musk is the dominant aroma of Highland incense stick and it’s an astonishing musk, with the staying power of a skunk spray but with the aroma of paradise. From the ingredients list you also get white sandalwood, purple sandalwood, agarwood, saffron and pangolin scales along with 20 other medicinal ingredients. All of these ingredients are among the most pricy in incense and they make Highland one of the most richest, indulgent incense experiences available. Fragments of sticks will not only scent your living space but your memory as well, and I’ve carried this deep, musky, aroma in my mind to places far away from an incense burner.”
So the take home on this is that the apparently glass vessel held by the nymph might contain a perfume or incense ingredients? The pangolin also has a very malodorous anal secretion, much like that of a skunk. This, like “musk”, might also be an ingredient in perfumes or incenses?
Thus I believe that the pangolin image is related to the topmost nymph and isn’t just a bit of gratuitous natural history.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, The vessel mentioned above (f80v), appears for the first time in the hands of one of the nymphs of f76v, as adding something for the bathing pleasures of one of the nymphs below her. The sequence (f76v–>f80v) makes sense in that the latter indicates the source of the mystic ingredient in the glass vessel, i.e. the pangolin.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Some oddnesses in the bathing section before I present my major argument that the venue of the VM is western India. The following I think amount to amendations of the original VM text at some time after the original was enscribed: 1) The topmost nymph on f79v I think has had a Christian cross plopped awkwardly in her out-stretched left hand. The cross is not gripped as is the symbol of two interlocking circles, one large, one small, grasped by the nymph below (under rain water). I think these circles represent the sun and the moon in Hindu iconography but more on that anon.
Now I think another odd addition is 2) the number “8” in the center of f82v. Why do this here where other 8-pointed stars, e.g. f16v, are missing that superfluous number? The nymph on the right wrapped in a green robe with a 7-pointed star above is I think deceased (note what appears to be closed eyes) and to the left are an estimated stream of five water sources. The Hindu for the death ritual is complicated but I think this indicates part of it and that is anointing the very recent deceased with sacred water from five “Khumbas”, i.e. pottery jugs made by a special group of tradesmen called “Prajapatis”. Usually the robes were white not green but this is not a given. The Khumbas are represented by the zodiac sign “Aquarius”. A good discussion on Hindu death rituals is found in “beliefact.com” on “Roles of Transition-Hindu Death Rituals. After an extensive and minutely detailed discussion of the rituals, which are conducted Just adjacent to the family home, the body is cremated and the ashes deposited in the Ganges.
This is the first of several posts I plan on aspects of the VM that I think reflect the influence of Hinduism.
Cheers, Tom
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters and characters denoting letters of the alphabet one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I picked up the key, which in the first section I could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some signs correspond to two letters. Thus, for example, a word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters of which three. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages showing the translated words.
Nicholas.
@nickoldmate, what in your opinion might be a key word to look for if the manuscript was indeed a language?
petebowes: given that the presumption that it is written in a straightforward language is wrong (as was known more than half a century ago, but the Internet is slow to catch up), I can only sensibly suggest “Freemason”, “conspiracy”, “TARDIS”, and “twerking” as examples of keywords that are all equally likely to be present. 😉
Nick: I think you are really onto something with the Twerking. I am not suggesting that the Voynich is a Twerking Manual, although it could be, but I am certain twerking played a significant part in the subject matter of the manuscript.
In my research in the manuscript I found the words:
Twerk
Miley Cyrus (The ancients clearly foresaw her future importance as a twerker.)
Shake your Booty
All written in the ancient Arkadian language. This is obviously not a coincidence as in ancient Mesopotamia twerking was an important ritual for bringing good fortune.
So I don’t think it will be long before I have a complete decryption of the manuscript. I am sure there will be discoveries in the manuscript that modern twerkers will value.
I have worked to understand the drawings on the different pages of the manuscript.
The manuscript explains how to make the Herbal remedies which help you twerk similar to modern energy drinks.
The Naked ladies are shown preparing to twerk.
The Astrological pages indicate the best times to twerk.
The 9 rosette page shows the twerker’s cycle of life. Starting with the Nightclub in the town in the top right rosette -> then the drawing of a bacteria to indicate the risk of bacterial Infection if twerkers don’t take precautions in the top left rosette -> Puddles of Vomit are drawn in the bottom left rosette with a flower to indicate flower power -> Accident and Emergency are shown in the bottom right rosette Then the cycle returns back to the Nightclub.
If anyone else has made this discovery already I would be happy to share the Nobel Prize with them.
NP: Don’t look now but I think a cuckold is on a nest raiding expedition!. MNO albatross but it is nevertheless getting to be somewhat of a pain in the neck.
Mark: isn’t it time you got back t’work?
John Sanders : That was a very ornithological analysis. I know of only one bird in the Voynich, though I daresay Nick would correct me. That bird could be the emblem of a Novara family, although it does appear in other places.
Mathematicians at the Institute of Applied Mathematics in Moscow have found the so-called Voynich Manuscript is a ‘sensible’ text that is actually written in an artificial language (composed from a mixture of two natural languages – one Roman, one Germanic, – but with vowels left intentionally omitted).
You may want to look into a preprint of this article published online (the publication language is Russian). I, personally, am compelled by methodology (spectrum matrices) used by the article’s authors.
http://keldysh.ru/papers/2016/prep2016_52.pdf
Vadim: the observation that Voynichese words seem to fall into two or more largely distinct groups – for example, qotedy versus daiin – is many decades old.
However, the suggestion that this kind of division implies that Voynichese comprises two plaintext languages mixed up seems to me to be wholly naive and wholly unsupportable.
I see only disappointment down this research path (in the way it has been described).
Nick: I saw some references to this research in various articles in the mainstream/tabloid press. I freely admit I haven’t looked into the research in detail, however I was slightly put off as these articles said the Russian researchers had “solved” or “cracked” the Voynich text and had found various words in the text which corresponded to the subject matter of the Voynich, but it would be difficult to translate the whole text as there are no vowels in the words. This does rather sound like a common refrain. I think ideally if you have cracked the text you should really be able at least to provide a translation for a significant block of text not a few isolated words. Saying this does not mean they are wrong as I have not studied their research as I prefer to spend my Voynich time on other things.
Mark: it seems likely to me that when Voynichese is cracked, the key proof will be by demonstrating that at least one specific section of the plaintext is also present in a parallel (but unencrypted) manuscript or book, block paradigm-style.
Anything else will probably be too prone to interpretation etc.
Nick and Mark,
Unfortunately, all descriptions of this investigantion in the mass-media are misleading. because mathematicians at Institute of Applied Mathematics didn’t attempt to decipher VM in first place. What they really wanted to do is to investigate ‘sensibility of text’, by saying that ‘translation into plaintext’ would not be possible without having a ‘key manuscript’.
What is really interesting is that they identified Latin/Italian and German/Danish as two most statistically feasible ‘donor languages’, with Danish being a single best match. But after careful examination of evidence in article, I mentioned some serious pitfalls in their metholdology, for example, authors used text corpus from modern Italian and modern German.
I know that the hypothesis of VM’s ‘bilinguality’ have been proposed/discussed for a couple of decades, but I haven’t seen any convicing proposals until recently. I think that Russians should really consider translating their publication into English to make it more accessible (although the artucke includes a lot of universally intelligible mathematical formulae).
@ Vadim, you write…
What is really interesting is that they identified Latin/Italian and German/Danish as two most statistically feasible ‘donor languages’, with Danish being a single best match.
I personally would not take Danish. But I know there are places in Switzerland / Italy, because they speak a dialect where the base is French, Italian, German.
If I am now back in the 1400, I still have Latin. And this was written as it was spoken. This has only changed with Gutenberg.
In the Alpine region, there are 100 of dialects, alone in Switzerland already 120 extinct.
Once I have made an interesting experience in England. I met someone from Wales. He could understand a lot from my dialect from Switzerland. I wonder how much Celtic was spoken about 1400
Vadim: to be precise, polyglot theories tend to emerge not from theoretical considerations, but out of frustration with trying to solve Voynichese as a simple language.
However, one obvious reason that the Russian paper seems to be a dud is that it discards spaces: this is because the first cipher where spaces were deliberately discarded appeared 50-100 years after the Voynich Manuscript was made.
Autistic person perhaps?
Jess: In some ways I think you might have a point; in the sense that one wonders if the author had some kind of psychological issue. I say this as I am inclined to think that the author was excessively paranoid to feel the need to encode the whole manuscript. I think the contents of the book were not sufficiently important in the context of the time to merit enciphering. Certainly others would argue that the “hidden” contents merited encipherment. Otherwise it would seem to me not worth the effort to encipher a herbal/medical manuscript.
Mark: I think you may have got yourself caught up with some circular logic there. :-/
Nick: Sorry to clarify.
Crudely->
Assumption: The manuscript was enciphered.
Assumption: I am inclined to the view that the contents of the manuscript did not need to be enciphered.
Assumption: If the author enciphered the manuscript where it was not necessary then he must have had some mental failing in order to bother to encipher the manuscript.
Assumption: The author was a highly intelligent person.
Assumption: Intelligence and putting the effort in to enciphering a huge manuscript when it is not necessary implies paranoia to me.
Conclusion: The author was somewhat paranoid.
I could justify my assumptions, but I am not sure it is really worth it.
I am not arguing that the author was paranoid and therefore enciphered the manuscript. So I don’t think this qualifies as circular reasoning I was just being very informal in my comment.
Mark: your assumption that “the contents of the manuscript did not need to be enciphered” seems to be a speculative conclusion rather than an assumption, given that nobody can yet decrypt a word of it. And in another sense, the presence of some kind of paranoia does not necessarily imply a “psychological issue” (as you wrote the first time). Who’s to say that They weren’t actually out to get the author? :-p
Sure the statement that “the contents of the manuscript did not need to be enciphered” is speculative as is everything else. I am inclined to the view that the manuscript is broadly speaking what it appears to be, a book of herbal recipes and astrological drawings consistent with a medieval “medical” or similar book. I would think that the contents of such as book were really not so secret that they merited a huge amount of effort in hiding them.
I used the term “psychological issue” in a very loose way. Jess mentioned autism. I find it not inconceivable that the author suffered from aspergers which as I am sure you know is high functioning autism. But even if we could read the manuscript I doubt whether an expert psychiatrist would be able to determine.
All the assumptions I made were speculative conclusions which I have not bothered to justify as I don’t view it to be an argument of much consequence and therefore not worth going into huge detail about.
So yes I think the author was somewhat paranoid, but if this is true or not I don’t see at this time how this takes us anywhere. Because of this I wouldn’t put too much attention into my comment.
@Mark
You think too much again.
In other medical books I also have drawings of plants. These are really drawn with a lot of imagination, but they have a text to it. Otherwise I would never find this plant.
Most people could not read. So the text does not help them even if they could catch a glimpse into the book. The drawings have also nished. Ergo … he was just as smart as before.
In the VM, the plants are however very autentisch drawn. But that does not benefit him, if he can not read what one does with it.
In the end, both types of book have kept their secret. …… Goal achieved.
MarkK : with respect, in the absence of linguists and psychiatrists I believe the Voynich domain will be forever inhabited by the paranoid.
Peter: That is certainly your opinion. I am inclined to the view that the effort in designing as complex cipher as the Voynich has and implementing it was not justifiable given the contents.
Mark: …again, only (a) if you know what the contents were, and (b) if you knew exactly how complex the Voynich’s cipher is. 🙂
The question “why encipher an entire book” is a very fair one, especially since there are only two or three reasonably long books known before about 1600 which are (or appear to be) enciphered.
There are all sorts of reasons why someone might do that without them necessarily being non-neurotypical, paranoid, or silly. There are also plenty of reasons why the text of what might, from its illustrations, appear a fairly non-controversial book might have been considered very special indeed at the time.
Nick: Sure. My atttitude is that the contents are what they appear to be, which of course could be disputed, but you know occam’s razor seems to be a good place to start. Certainly we don’t know how complex the cipher is, although it must be sufficiently complex for it not yet to have been understood. So my position whilst speculative, of course, seems not to be unreasonable to me.
Mark: Occam’s Razor is normally the worst possible tool to start with, in that it is almost always used to promote premature-elimination-on-the-grounds-of-nice-sounding-plausibility.
Please, if you find yourself about to type the phrase again, take a deep breath and think again, because you’d almost certainly be making a mistake.
Nick: I am not trying to eliminate any possibility. I am merely saying that in the absence of any reason to believe otherwise the best working hypothesis is the simplest which is that the manuscript is broadly speaking what it appears to be; a book about plants, astrology etc. Which is essentially an application of Occam’s razor. Certainly it is conceivable that evidence may be presented which leads to a different perspective, but for the time being this seems to be most reasonable one to me.
Mark: Occam’s Razor is every bit as simple-minded as the Voynich Manuscript is complex, and marks the first line of defence that the simple-minded try to rely upon. If I’d eaten a doughnut for each time I’ve seen Occam’s Razor invoked by an idiot Voynich theorist, I’d need a crane to winch me off the sofa. Please be better than that.
People wrote in invented alphabets not only in order to encipher things, and not only to hide meaning. There are alternative possibilities.
In the middle ages people would learn in school who was the inventor of each of the known alphabets, e.g. the nymph Carmenta for the Latin alphabet, and others for Hebrew, Greek etc. All fictional of course.
This was an incentive for some to create their own alphabets.
Even when one may read in Wikipedia that the Alphabetum Kaldaeorum is a cipher used in the 15th century, it traces back to the 8th century or so, and derives from such an initiative. Its inventor should have been called Aethicus.
The only difference with a cipher is that there may not have been any intention to hide information.
Effectively, for today, that does not make a huge difference though.
Nick: Am I to understand that you reject Occam’s razor completely in all instances? I know you are a philosopher by background, but whilst I am not an expert on philosophical objections to Occam’s razor it does seem to me to have real value.
Mark: yes, Occam’s Razor is a waste of time. I’ve only ever seen arguments made worse by its application, never better.
Nick: even Wikipedia tells you that well known simpletons like Bertrand Russell and Isaac Newton have included formulations of Occam’s Razor in their writings. I agree that it’s frequently misused and misunderstood. I’m afraid your categorical rejection of it is misguided.
Perhaps you’d prefer this version: “Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler”, which comes from an idiot called Einstein.
SirHubert: I absolutely stand by my guns on the uselessness of Occam’s Razor to all but the most deeply aware logicians and physicists, who only wield it because they are conscious of its near-innumerable limitations and drawbacks.
Which is also why there are just about as many alternative formulations of it as people who have used it: because the unmodified form of it is so useless that people have to muck around with it to make whatever point they’re trying to make.
Even if Einstein himself left a comment here, I would say the same thing: that in practice, all I ever see are people who fallaciously refer to Occam’s Razor in a futile attempt to justify-after-the-event their weak thinking, shallow reasoning, and inadequate argumentation.
Stephen Hawking writes in A Brief History of Time:
“We could still imagine that there is a set of laws that determines events completely for some supernatural being, who could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it. However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us mortals. It seems better to employ the principle known as Occam’s razor and cut out all the features of the theory that cannot be observed.”
Mark: once again, I’d say just the same even if Stephen Hawking dropped by. As with Einstein’s version, Hawking has adapted and interpreted Occam’s Razor here in a way honed to suit his argument’s needs at that precise point. Even so, I’d point out that this is an uncharacteristically weak argument by Hawking: he gained nothing by wheeling out Occam’s Razor, when his real target was unnecessary supernaturalism rather than excessive variable count.
Thanks Rene
Even if at first glance the alphabetum Kaldaeorum says nothing, it seems to me as a few other references to the north-east of Italy.
Such an encroachment seems to have been a problem for the Habsburgs.
Was the trench plate a motivation for the VM?
Anyway, 1 point to the northeast.
Unfortunately there is no wiki in english for the kenotaph for Duke Rudolf IV.
” Kenotaph für Herzog Rudolf IV “
The concept of Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’
This description can be compared to a definition of conflict:
‘An emotional state characterized by indecision, restlessness, uncertainty and tension resulting from incompatible inner needs or drives of comparable intensity.’
Keats.
‘Both certainties and uncertainties are fundamental types of knowledge.’
Pelling.
May we discuss this reasoning in relation to the Voynich Manuscript. It might make for interesting reading.
petebowes: there’s a difference between the restless pursuit of difficult knowledge and trolling, and I’m not sure you’ve yet grasped it.
I’m slowly grasping your inability to answer a question based on your published beliefs.
Petebowes: from the evidence of the taunting, sneering, know-nothing blog entry you just published and deleted on the same subject, my judgement is that I’d be completely wasting my time.
Pearls before swine etc.
As I said, you are unable to defend your own words. The best you can do is deflect mine.
Best you get back to your debate then, you have Einstein and Hawking to deal with, idiots that they are, in your view.
Petebowes: defending my dissertation against someone who can’t even grasp its title would seem to be an exercise in masochistic futility at best.
Still, you always have Occam’s Razor to fall back on. Comfy.
Another thing, I would think the author had an interest and deep knowledge of ciphers before ever starting work on the manuscript. I am inclined towards the view that when someone has interest in or knowledge of something they are more likely to use that skill even if not wholly necessary.
I don’t believe the author thought, right I am going to write this manuscript which really must be secret, so I am going to have to learn about ciphers in order to do so.
Of course this is speculation like my opinion vis a vis the author’s paranoia which both come from my doubt that the manuscript really merited the effort made to encipher it.
Don’t get me wrong I sincerely hope the contents of the Voynich are as important as would require the effort taken to encipher the manuscript. If this is so one could argue it could be the most important medieval manuscript in existence which for any Voynich enthusiast would be wonderful. However unfortunately I just don’t believe this to be the case.
Nick: When it comes to Occam’s razor we will have to agree to disagree. It is worth stating that there are biologists who question its usefulness such Crick who was responsible for discovering the structure of DNA.
I am and have for a long time been a strong supporter of it in all areas of thought. However I respect your dissent. I think dissent is often, though of course not always, a good thing.
Mark: I don’t mind dissent about Occam’s Razor, as long as you realize the simplest explanation for it is that you’re wrong. :-p
One definite fact that we can say about the VMs is that it has low entropy, or low “information density”. I remember some researcher mentioned it before, and its also apparent just by looking at its repetitive words.
So, from this we can infer that the plaintext is shorter than the ciphertext, which means that either:
1. Voynich “words” encode really short plaintext bits (like, 1 or 2 characters long) or
2. The spaces are fake (either meaningless or act as another cipher symbol.
The second explanation is more probable, as even this blog mentioned a few times that at least some spaces seem to be fake.
This theory fits in fine with what we know, except for one thing that doesnt make sense: the labels. If we apply logic to labels, all of them are actually only 1 or 2 letters long in plaintext. Unless, of course, the labels are encoded in a totally different way than the main text.
Neither option (1 or 2) is likely to be the right explanation.
The third one is: Voynichese is more efficient than the common plain languages with which it has been compared.
It is more like a numbering (or enumeration) system.
Languages like Latin, English, German use far too many letters to describe a word. The number of different word types in the MS is less than 24 to the power 3 (13,824), which means that every word could be encoded by 3 Greek letters, or Latin letters without using i and v.
Everything longer than that is somehow ‘inefficient’. Of course, languages were not made that way. They somehow represent something pronounceable.
Still, in Latin, English or German text, one can ‘throw away’ a large percentage of the letters in each word, and still maintain their uniqueness.
David T and Rene: well… the fourth one is that Voynichese words are abbreviated (i.e. truncated and/or contracted) in the manner of fifteenth century scribal shorthand. A handful of transposed spaces aside (which I suspect were an experimental feature specifically to make ororor repeat patterns less obvious), words are likely to be words, albeit often with less information in than is easily accounted for by “pure” linguistic accounts.
But then again, I’m sure that there’s a fifth one (that our current transcriptions do not capture all the information in words), and a sixth one, and a seventh one, and… 🙂
Nick & Rene & David:
This is a subject I recently made a post on, so it is nice to have it answered indirectly.
My thinking is very much inline with Nick’s regarding words being truncated. However I do agree with David to some extent as I think it is wise to treat single word isolated labels in a separate way from sentence text. In fact I think there is a strong case that all studies should look independently at both types; that is not to say that I think there is a different method of encryption between the two, although I do believe the encryption method of labels is simpler than that of sentence text and therefore the best place to start to unravel the cipher.
So, yes, my thinking has been very much of a verbose cipher of truncated text. Though like Nick I agree that with the Voynich there is always scope for ideas which we have not yet thought of.
Nick & Rene & Mark
I agree with you guys on most things, however I have to disagree on:
– if spaces do really map to plaintext spaces, then how can we explain words repeating 2 or 3 times (qokeedy qokeedy dal qokeedy qokeedy etc…)? Or sequential words that only differ in 1 character?
– If plaintext words are really truncated, that would mean it’s a “lossy” form of writing, I.e. some abbreviations may be ambiguous to the potential reader. If the book contains really important information, then its unlikely that the author would write it in an ambiguous way. That, and coupled with the truncated text being enciphered on top of it, that would create a whole 2 degrees of potential errors / uncertainty. So its very unlikely.
And regarding labels – I definitely think that labels differ from the normal text, perhaps done using a different encryption or meaningless altogether. I would like to know the statistics on how often (if at all) the labels appear in normal text? If rarely or not at all, then it would prove my point.
There’s a bit of a disconnect here.
My argument is a purely mathematical one.
Whether this is caused by the use of abbreviations, truncations, or something else is another question.
David T: (1) “qokeedy qokeedy dal qokeedy qokeedy” will always be difficult to explain, no matter what the rest of any given explanation looks like. For now, all we can sensibly say is that it is unlikely we are looking at simple language here: something artificial and a little odd is going on.
(2) Your presupposition about what is or isn’t likely isn’t a disproof. The famous historian Marc Bloch talked about intentional and unintentional documents, where the latter were only meant to be read by one or two people – in Bloch’s terms, you are presupposing that what we are looking at is an intentional document, whereas a heavily-scribally-abbreviated document would arguably be readable only by a small number of people, and hence much closer to an unintentional document.
(3) Voynichse labels seem closer to me to a stylized subset of normal Voynichese text, rather than a completely separate language. This may well be an artefact of the way normal text was encrypted on a page, i.e. label text wasn’t suitable for mechanism X for technical reason Y. I don’t have stats for this, though.
Rene Zandbergen:
I totally agree that it’s possible that plaintext words are encrypted in Voynichese words via a 1-to-1 enumeration mapping. But would it be practical?
To keep such a mapping, you would need a table of about 13,824 plaintext+ciphertext word pairs, and the encrypter would need to reference this impractically long table every time they want to write a new word. Such a table would be as long as the VMs itself.
So, it’s most likely that the text is encoded letter-by-letter, as opposed to word-by-word.
Hello David T,
that wasn’t what I was trying to explain.
Dear all, A comment on Hawking’s opus. For me the take home message that I found stunning in its apparent simplicity is that in the absence of matter, the concept of time has no meaning. If you cannot measure it with e.g. sand in an hour glass, marked candles, etc. you cannot measure time and if it cannot be measured, the concept has no meaning, i.e. in the absence of matter, time does not exist. This stunner was in his preface.
Someone has commented on the fact that the nymphs have no clothing and wonders what would they look like with clothing. This ignores the fact that many of the tubbed nymphs in Ares or Taurus do have clothing. If headware be considered then most of the tubbed nymphs have beret-like caps, even broad -brimmed hats and in the bathing section, many sport “head bands”. I plan a more detailed study of these and will report anon. Most of the tubbed nymphs have head ware of some kind, evidently to prevent the baleful effects of the sun. I have argued, with support from Marco Polo, that the tubbed nymphs are likely in the Hormuz region of Persia.
Some miscellaneous comments on the zodiac folios. It first appeared to me that in the usual layout (see that provided by Bax) that the zodiac signs are not in the usual order but seem randomly laid out. But a simple operation that Nick and others may already have noticed and done, makes them fall into the usual sequence. In the discussion that follows, “dk” is dark; “lt” is light.
A bi-folio that proceeds from pisces (f72v2)->ares(dk)(f70v)->verso non zodiac material; single folio ares (lt) (f71r)/taurus(lt)(f71v); tri-fold,running left to right, taurus (dk)(72r1)->gemini(f72r2)->cancer(f72r3); verso side running from rt to left: leo(f72v3)->virgo(f72v2)->libra(f72v1); single folio “scorpio”(73r)/sagittarius(f73v). As pointed out by Nick (Curse p21), capricorn and aquarius are missing, likely having been removed. So the trick is reading the tifolio L->R on the recto side and R->L on the verso side. Everything is in order except for two points: 1) scorpio appears not to be a scorpion as it is crunching an infant between its teeth and looks much more like a crocodile. and 2) a hole exists in the trifolio with libra/taurus(dk) that shows up as a dark spot on libra/ light on taurus(dk) and there is no dark image on f71v (taurus). I conclude something existed between f71v and the trifolio, that is now gone.
Back to the crock. I think the rondel for November has a crocodile. The likely candidate is the marsh croc (Crocodylus palustries) whose range is as far north as mid Pakistan in the Lahore area. The Hindu word for this animal is “Makara” and meant “sea dragon” or “water monster” and has become anglicized as the “Mugger” crocodile. In the Sanskrit zodiac, it is the tenth sign, replacing our capricorn. The VM has it as the 11th sign. The rest of that zodiac is the same as the western one. The croc appears elsewhere in the VM, occurring on f 79v where a bathing nymph is in the process of being gobbled up by a giant fish that might have been hearsay for the appearance and behavior of the croc. The male Mugger is up to 10 feet in length but generally does not attack adults despite a very wide alligator-like mouth. I think two small crocs (also f79v) are more accurate depictions and might have been added later. These are shown with one on land and one in the water. The horse is added for scale.
BTW, a minor punctillio: In “Curse”, p22; “December” should be f73v, not f72v.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, I think the dark spot detected in the photograph of the libra zodiac in libra / taurus (dk) folio pf the trifolio can be explained most simply by assuming that the intervening zodiac bifolio with pisces (f72v2) / aries(dk)(f70v1) AND the folio: aries (lt ) / taurus (lt) =71r/71v were removed before and readded after the photography. This allows a view from the libra side to see a deep blue-black spot on the non-Zodiac folio f79v and from the taurus (dk) hole to see a tiny portion of f71v, the putative “croc” [November]. This is applying the principle underlying Occam’s razor to propose a simpler explanation for an observation that otherwise would have to be explained by the insertion of a mystery folio before the trifolio and photography, then its removal or shifting elsewhere in the VM. I could find no other VM folio that had a dark spot in exactly the same position seen in libra (f72v1) except that of f79v. This argument implies that the VM folios were manipulated during the photography, perhaps to allow the photographed folios to lie flatter? Incidentally, the libra spot appears darker in the facsimile than in the Bax depiction of the VM, although in general, the folio images of the facsimile appear to my eyes anyway, as not much darker than the Bax photocopy. The libra hole is on the binding side as, of course, is the hole in the taurus (dk) zodiac. That is made clear in the facsimile. Cheers, Tom
Hi. Since this is my first post I’d like to introduce myself and then talk a little about what drew me into this site. I must admit that it has taken me the better part of one day to read through all the posts. I was, before I retired, a professional scientist spending much of my time in court as an expert witness. Through time I have authored several books that cover a broad gambit of subjects. As an intelligence officer in the Army I learned about cipher codes and how to deal with them. In graduate school I had to take linguistics classes as a part of the Anthropology requirements, a subject I had little use for until now. So, what do I have to offer? So let’s dive into what I’ve done. As a mathematician I realized that it would be possible to statistically analyze the various solutions to the script in the Voynich Manuscript. I took all the known solutions to the manuscript, a half dozen or so, and subject them to scrutiny by using frequency analysis, that is how often something occurred. Most returned results slightly better than you would expect from randomly generated character sets. There were, however, two that stood above the rest. They were the result of Stephen Bax’s work and a solution known as Volder Z. The Bax work returned a confidence level of about 30%. A vast improvement over the earlier solutions. When I applied the Volder Z solution that confidence level jumped to about 50%. The question remains as to how I did it. Well, I took each character set and applied it to the first page of the Voynich Manuscript. Then I ran the results through Google Translate to get a general idea of the number of correct returns. I did this for each character set and that helped me generate my statistics. Volder Z returned the most identifiable words. Since that time I have identified 22 characters that all work well when fed through the succeeding pages of the manuscript. So far I have worked through the next seven pages of the VM and am returning just shy of 70% of the distinct word groups. What did I learn? Well, the base language appears to be Hindi. The rest is a dukes mixture of Latin and Baltic area words. I use and have at my disposal over 100 different dictionaries and one thing is clear. The Voynich characters are phonetic in nature and multicultural, which is what is causing all the grief when anyone attempts to decipher it. I didn’t do this alone, I worked off the results of others and then used Applied Linguistics to solve the rest. Now it is becoming easier to identify a new character. For those who are interested I have tentatively translated the first three words as “Learned man from Ur.” The first page goes on to describe the destruction of Ur and how the information of that society came into the hands of the authors of the Voynich Manuscript. As a check in the work I decoded the first plant page and it refers to the plant as the “string drill plant.” A reference to the bow drill of antiquity. Turns out the bow drill cordage was made from Stinging Nettle. There are references to “Knights” shade and its uses. There are other things in the text that are fun that I can talk about in the future if you are interested. Let me know. As an aside I took the character set I have developed and applied it to the last page of text and returned 62% of the words on the page. They still hovered around Hindi as the main language, with Latin and Arabic thrown in. Thanks for reading. Wayne. PS, I am willing to publish my character set as it stands now. It isn’t complete or carved in stone. It hasn’t been refereed or checked by a secondary scholar. Well anyway, thanks for listening.
Wayne: given that Stephen Bax’s so-called solution fits Voynichese no better than English or French, and comes at the penalty of mapping a number of Voynich shapes onto the same supposed plaintext symbol, your calculation of a 30% fit seems quite a long way off.
I would suggest that you look again at your calculations here, as this seems wide of the mark.
I don’t recall Volder Z’s decryption: do you have a link?
Nick: I stumbled upon the following:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-manuscripts-are-dna-smorgasbord-180964252/
which fits well with my previous speculations as to how technological advances will affect our understanding of the Voynich.
I would think it highly likely that, if the Voynich is not deciphered by then, in coming decades science will be able to tell us the geographical area from which the Voynich manuscript originates, conceivably to within 100 miles or less. Again I would not be surprised if we are able to greatly narrow down the time frame over which the manuscript was written. Extracting author(s) DNA and other biological reminents could tell us a lot about their ethnicity, gender, physical features and be used for determining whether they are related to other individuals whose DNA we already have a record of. This could be for example to determine if Leonardo Da Vinci was the author or any individual whose DNA could be extracted. We might be able to get a good idea as to questions of the diet and age of the author.
Chemical reminents might give us an insight into the surroundings in which the manuscript was produced. The number of distinct DNA profiles of the authors could lead us to determine how many authors or scribes there were and who wrote which parts of the manuscript.
Advances in artificial intelligence decryption or general techniques and increases in processing power could make a big difference in decipherment.
In short, if we don’t figure it out, advances in technology over the next couple of decades will most likely take us a lot closer to a solution. I think we have to admit that the carbon dating of the manuscript is the most significant achievement since Voynich first rediscovered the manuscript and so the core role technology has to play.
Nick: I should add that obviously one of the most significant advances in the understanding of the Voynich is the existence of the internet. So I think where possible and appropriate, Yale University permitting, the application of emerging techniques to the Voynich should be taken very seriously.
YOUR DONE FUCKING WITH MY BOOK…….
IM SERIOUS IF HAVENT BEEN LISTENING. YOUR GOING TO GO TO PRISON IF YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO THE FUCKING PERSON RIGHT NOW THAT IS TELLING YOU IT……..
Dear all, I have pasted below, an alleged “Voynich code cracking” by Nicholas Gibbs, reported in Arstechnica of Sept 8, 2017:
[—and the Cipher Mysteries moderator has deleted the text, because it is too boring for words—]
Seems to me a rehash of earlier hypotheses. I am astonished that in a few days, 162 readers comments have been reported. Cheers, Tom
Nick: I am sure someone has suggested this before, but I was wondering to what extent the drawings are part of the cipher; by this I mean whether some drawings were deliberately obscure to make it difficult for the reader to determine what they represent.
Mark: some diagrams have definitely been obfuscated, e.g.
http://ciphermysteries.com/2014/12/30/voynich-block-3-magic-circles
You can see broadly the same thing on the nine rosette page.
Nick: Thanks for the comment. This is obviously a slightly dangerous road to go down as it could easily lead one to say that:
I identify drawing X as corresponding to Y, but the reason these two don’t look alike is, because the author deliberately tried to confuse the reader by making them look different.
This could work as a convenient excuse for an incorrect identification.
Obviously stylistic choices, quick crude drawings and just drawing errors or drawing inability can also account for discrepancies, but I nevertheless wonder if the author made a conscious effort to make the manscript drawings hard to identify without one being able to read the text.
On the 9 rosette page, that so much research I have done has been based on, there are a couple of obvious things which I think you will probably be sympathetic with, the steep cliffs on either side of the castle and the walls on either side of two of the causeways. IF the city is Milan, and I am always open to the possibility as with everything else that it may not be, then one can hardly argue that the steep cliffs have any kind of close relationship to reality. These cliffs could represent an exagerration of the steep sides of the moat made for stylistic reasons to emphasise the causeway or there could be some element if trying to confuse the reader.
There are a couple of other areas, where if my analysis is correct, I wonder if the author may have drawn things in a certain way to make it less obvious the location that the drawing refers to or whether these were more likely to be mistakes in planning than attempts to obscure.
Mark: to my eyes, the layering on the nine rosette page is fairly obvious as two different types of ink (and a slightly sharper nib for the second layer). Look around the edge of the central rosette and you should get attuned pretty quickly as to what I’m talking about.
Nick: That is an interesting observation. I will have to think about the general consequences of that. I was thinking along slightly different lines. I think there has to be a strong case for saying that the causeway connecting the top right and top centre rosette was drawn prior to the drawing of the top centre rosette itself. The overlap between the causeway drawing and the circle of text around the top centre rosette makes me think that. It is possible that the rosette was drawn first then the causeway then the circle of text, however that seems unlikely to me.
Similarily I would argue that it is more likely that the top centre rosette was drawn prior to the drawing of the causeway between the top centre and top left rosette.
I also think it more likely that the bottom left rosette was drawn prior to the causeway between the bottom right and bottom centre rosettes.
This would fit with the ideas that map was filled in moving from rosette to causeway in an anti-clockwise manner.
I think that the first rosette to be filled in was the bottom right, ignoring the question of whether the central rosette was filled in before or not. I cannot prove or disprove that assertion.
Whilst my analysis is not fundamentally dependent on the process of the drawing of the page it is nevertheless relevant.
My writeup is now over 30 pages long, ugh, and hopefully nearing completion. This includes the exploration of the implications of my 9 nine rosette analysis and plans for when I go to Italy to follow up on my theory. Obviously I have no idea if my Italian research will prove inconclusive or conclusive one way or the other. My fantasy is that further research will give me insight to the cipher probably through the discovery of a specific document in some religious institution, but this is really a lot to ask given the Abbey that I am interested in had, in the Napoleonic era, all its records moved, if I am lucky, or destroyed. However I hope, at least, I will be able to find some correspondence with the Abbey elsewhere, such as the vatican archives, during that period. I have quite a few ideas where to look.
Nick: Having only recently, due to my shameful ignorance, become aware that there even is a language called Occitan and that Voynich contains writing in old Occitan. I continue to wonder what I am not familiar with about the Voynich.
Specifically I know there are a variety of geographical markers such as:
The Crossbow Man’s clothing style and design style of his crossbow
The architectural specifics on the 9 rosette foldout
From what I vaguely understand from your research, links to manuscript from Southern Germany and German Switzerland
The dying man and German “Muss Mel” or whatever it says
Now the writing in the Occitan language
I don’t know what other geographical markers there are in the Voynich, but I would be fascinated to know.
It seems that we are dealing with overlapping or nearby geographical areas, so it would be interesting to see a map with each area marked somehow in a different colour. Maybe I will produce one once I am aware of all the geographical markers.
It seems to imply that author was quite well travelled or at least broadly educated in languages and culture from different areas.
It also intrigues me that despite what seems to be my ignorance of so many things Voynich, my research, whether right or wrong, seems to chug on quite happily without being aware of many of these facts. Which makes me wonder whether in some way the length of Voynich and the sheer number of distinct details can sometimes serve, paradoxically, as a disadvantage leaving us not seeing the wood for the trees. Again maybe , paradoxically, if we had fewer pages of the Voynich to work with we might have made more progress.
Mark: even though the zodiac month hand appears to be writing in Occitan, it is a very different hand to everything else in the Voynich. The fragments of marginalia that have been claimed to be in German seem very optimistic readings of text that has been emended: no proper codicological close analysis has been carried out to try to identify and isolate the ‘alpha’ (original) state of these marks.
Nick: Very useful to know.
Thanks a lot for the info, really appreciated.
One thing this makes in wonder about again, is whether if we can get hold of some kind of enthusiastic handwriting expert, probably a criminal expert since they must be the best given that people go to prison on the basis of their testimony.
I am not doubting your or anyone else’s comments on the difference or similarity of different handwriting in the Voynich. Nevertheless I do wonder if a handwriting expert could give us even more insight.
In addition we have a timespan between the time from which the Voynich dates and the time at which we can say it makes it first know appearance, Emperor Rudolf etc. Are we saying it was passed around Europe and through many hand over this time?
Mark: what we lack is not expertise, but very high resolution images (preferably multispectral or Raman) of the marginalia handwriting for one or more handwriting experts to work with.
I have spent much of the last decade trying to reconstruct the timeline “between vellum and Prague”: and yes, it was passed around Europe and probably through a number of hands over this time. In short, the most likely sequence involves being owned by a Swiss monastic library during the fifteenth century, before being ‘liberated’ around the time of the Swiss Reformation.
Nick: Yes, I have some awareness of your thorough and meticulous, as always, line of research. I just wonder, are we saying the manuscript travelled via Provence or the far west of Italy?
My line of thought is that we are talking about a period of 150 years or less from the date at which the manuscript left the author’s hand, probably as a result of his or her death, and its first appearance, I wonder how far and through how many hands the manuscript could have realistically passed through in this historical period. Your guy died in 1469, mine in 1466. I would have thought that is the earliest the manuscript may have begun to enter circulation.
Another question, which I daresay you have at least touched on before, but I still think worth asking: What the possibility that the author was ambidextrous and so responsible for two distinct handwritings?
Is there a program to persuade Yale to allow for the production of these kinds of very high resolution multi-spectral images of the manuscript? How would we best get them to do that? (Email campaign, petition or what??) Obviously the more we can use the latest technology to provide us with information about the Voynich the better.
Has a handwriting expert already made an examination of the manuscript, so far I have only heard of the opinions of laymen?
@Mark
My favorite was once the Aosta Valley in the Western Alps. Some hints suggest, but as Nick has already written you can not rely on it alone. I must also include the migration of peoples and their dialects. Especially after the great plague of 1350 many things have changed.
But when I look at the German-written, I come back to the Eastern Alps. There are also many references.
When I throw it all together, I am back in Ticino. I can not believe this myself.
Before arriving at a dialect, hold on to the base. (Latin). It is contained in all dialects south of the Alps.
I still forgot
Look at the L at (leber 116v) and (aller f17r), and compare it to April and July.
Then write your opinion.
Peter: You seem to be moving towards my theory or maybe Nick’s theory.
Mark: I should add that I haven’t been tied to “my guy” for many years. The difficulty with the Voynich is finding any kind of historical evidence that stands up to scrutiny for more than a New York second: and I had pretty much exhausted the Averlino avenue by 2006.
Peter: not conclusive enough re April and July, sorry. It might be part of an argument that the Voynich never travelled very far, but even that is probably a little bit stronger than the evidence can comfortably support. 🙁
Nick: As far as am I concerned Averlino is a far more plausible candidate for the author of the Voynich than any other I am aware of except for, from my perspective, my candidate.
I think you make a good point about a theory standing up to scrutiny, so it may be the case that the only way to definitively establish authorship will only come once a full decipherment is made.
I will continue to plough my furrow until I have come to a conclusion or it is or I am exhausted. So far there appears to be plenty to look into for me, especially in Italy, and I am still learning more relevant details. However until you have proof positive this theory, as do others, remains speculation. I can’t say I won’t saying that the evidence is inconclusive at the end.
One bonus I have become aware of is that whilst I have disparaged the entertaining story in favour of the more prosaic it turns out that there is a family story of my author that is full of political power, rebellions, bounties, imprisonment, forgiveness, an affair with the Duchess of Milan and more, so making the narractive far more gripping than I expected.
@Nick
I really mean the differences in (L). One is round, the others are rather square. It actually looks like there were 2 different people.
The question, who was first? There is still the (s), once the old, and once the new one.
The same also applies to (b and h), the one is always angular, the others rather round. Thus, 2 persons, 2 places and 2 different dialects are possible.
WHOA THERE!!!
THERE ARE TWO ARIES FOR A REASON ONE TO PROVE WHATS ON THAT BACK PAGE AND THE OTHER IS CYPHER WHEEL ARIES SPELLING UPWARD
S ⭕️
E ⭕️
I ⭕️
R ⭕️
A ⭕️
ITS TOO BAD YOUR DEALING WITH MY BOOK AND LYIN LIKE THIS……. I HOPE YOU MEET YOUR MAKER SO HE CAN TELL YOU TO YOUR FACE I MADE IT!!!!
I HAVE BEEN TELLING YOU THE ⭕️ ARE ASTROLOGY SYMBOLS…. THE LETTERS ARE PLACED IN EACH WHEEL… THEN YOU TRANSLATE IT….. DAMN IS IT THAT HARD…..
THE REJECTION OVER FACTS ABOUT ME MAKING THE [pointless expletive deleted] THING!
Nick: Are you comfortable doing what I mentioned in my email? Given theories by the likes of Big Jim Finn there I thought my own would not be untoward. I am keen to put it out there with as little fanfare as possible as I do not feel I have reached a state of incontrovertible proof. Nevertheless I feel that I have taken my theory to a point where I would like it somewhere in the public space even if almost unnoticed as I am not claiming a complete solution. Do tell me your thoughts.
Mark: I’ve been thinking a lot about the Voynich Theories page in the last few days, and I’m not currently sure what I should do about it. Since I last updated the page, there have been approximately a hundred new theories put forward, no less than ninety-nine of which are (of course) wrong. The idea of updating it to include them all (or even most of them) is quite a daunting prospect. 🙁
Nick: You are right the sheer number of theories presents a problem and it probably would not be fair to include some and not others. Personally I am keen to get the basic core of my theory out there as I have spent a significant amount of time developing it to a stage where I, from my perspective, think it has real merit to it, though I acknowledge that it could be wrong. However I have not provided a complete decipherment so I am not keen to trump it up as something it is not as some do, though with very good fortune I may take to that point in the future.
I almost wonder if there should be a standard set of questions any claimed decipherer or translator should be given which could be used to make an initial assessment of that decryption or translation, as ploughing through the different theories is pretty arduous.
YOU TWOARE REALLY STUPID ABOUT IT!
IT PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT HAD ME LOCKED UP DECODING MY OWN BOOK….. YOU NEED TO FACE THE FACTS I WROTE IT…. AND YOU NEED TO DECIPHER THE REST JUST LIKE I SHOWED YOU…. AND STOP TRYING TO PULL IRRELEVANT IRRATIONAL THEROIES ABOUT WHAT I MADE!!! YOU WONT LISTEN TO ME THE AUTHOR YOUR JUST GOING TO LOOK STUPID ABOUT IT…..
DO YOU WANT FAME FROM IT…. DECODE IT ARIES, PIECES, LIBRA, SCORPIO, LYNX, GEMINI, LIBRA, SAGGITARUS….. YOU WILL SEE HOW MANY CIRCLES PER LETTER… YOUL SEE LETTER PER CODE YOULL SEE CODE PER PLANT….. YOU DONT GET IT…. I MADE IT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL…. I AM AN COMPUTER ENGINEER…. YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT!!!!
ITS TOO BAD YOU WONT ALLOW LINKS OR PICTURES…. PROVES YOUR DISINFORMATION…… YOU BETTER RECOGNIZE A DOCTORATE IN LINGUISTICS WHEN YOU SEE US BITCH AT YOU ABOUT IT…….
Charles: why post here? The Illuminati wouldn’t have me as a member.
Nick: Is there somewhere else, maybe another website, you suggest putting the kind of statement I mentioned as I am not familiar with all the Voynich websites?
Mark: I suggested the idea of a guest post here, but given that it would take you less than ten minutes to start up your own WordPress blog, that too is a perfectly OK option. All you’d need to do is ask the Voynich.ninja moderators to include it on their blogosphere and people would immediately start to drop by after any post you make.
Nick: I really appreciated your very kind suggestion. I think you are absolutely right I should wait until I have gotten my writeup in a nice and tidy form to be included as a guest post. I must confess I have been torn as of late between the somewhat tedious job of editing my very long 9 rosette analysis writeup and my further research following from my previous analysis. However I should finish my writeup as, even if it wrong overall, I think it could be food for thought for others; certainly I think I have employed a distinctive and different approach. If you are curious I can email you my writeup in its slightly messy, but very readable state; however you probably have other priorities with your limited time.
I don’t really want create my own blog as there are plenty enough out there already. I think you have a really great site here and I have no inclination to compete with it.
My research has moved into a very different phase which involves searching for and following up source material; this is something I have no experience of so I am finding it slightly difficult and my lack of Italian makes everything harder. Despite this I have made some progress though I am stuck in the place of not knowing what documentary information is out there and where to find it. Having said that outside of the excellent Caldera book I have barely scratched the surface and have a huge number of avenues I could explore.
EXPECT A KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR TODAY SINCE YOU WANT TO JOIN US WITH A LIE!!!!
I ALREADY DEALT WITH CROW LIES RIPPER NOW IM DEALING WITH YOUR DENIAL NICK…. DENIAL OF FACTS…. REJECTION OF TRUTH…. WE DONT WANT YOU IN THE ILLUMINATTI…. IF YOU CANT FOLLOW SIMPLE DIRECTIONS……
WANT TO KNOW THE SECRET…. OVER AND OVER AGAIN YOU SAY YOU WANT TO BE A MEMBER OF ILLUMINATI….. THANKS FOR TELLING THE REST OF ILLUMINATI MEMBERSHIP WHAT WE KNOW YOU DO ALREADY….. WANT TO JOIN US???? LEARN TO WRITE A SONG. WE ARE AWARE OF YOU…. THATS WHY I HAVE PERMISSON TO COME HERE….. TO TELL YOU OFF ABOUT MY BOOK!!! THATS WHY I POST HERE…. YOU CAUSED FRICTION ABOUT IT IN THE FUTURE!!! DO YOU STILL WANT TO JOIN US????? NOT WITH A LIE LIKE YOURS!!!!
IF YOU WANT TO SEE HOW I MADE THE BOOK…. WHY DONT ASK…. WHY DO YOU INSIST ON FOLLOWING CROW LIES WAY…… YOU DONT EVEN KNOW ME TO KNOW I MADE IT…. THEY BROUGHT ME HERE TO YOU TO TELL YOU IT TO YOUR FACE….. EXPECT SOME COMPANY TODAY TELLING YOU TO YOUR FACE ABOUT IT…..
Nick: I have emailed it over to you. Including my full analysis as to why, contrary to Rene’s stated opinion, for which he seems to have presented virtually no argument, the 9 rosette foldout is a map or more precisely a map of a journey.
Mark.
Just fyi. As I’ve recently found the details – the late Tim Rayhel whose pen-name was Glen Claston appears to be the first person to state it as his opinion – gained as a result of his prior research – that folio-86v-as-was is a map. In every other case, what we find are bits of day-dreaming, guesswork, hypothesising and so forth, none of it supported before or after by any effort to investigate or support the notion by research. I wasn’t aware of that opinion when I reached the same conclusion myself, and I do not agree with Claston’s description of it as ‘a meteorological mappamundi’. I think he believed ‘mappamundi’ to mean little more than ‘a medieval map’, but it is a technical description and one with no point of connection to the map we have, neither in general nor in particular.
However, the person to credit for first concluding *from his own research* that the drawing was a map is Tim Rayhel/Glen Claston. The first detailed analysis of the map was mine, a substantial part of the research published online from 2011 onwards.
The later efforts to replicate the method or results began during my year’s sabbatical, if I recall – which lasted from late 2013 through most of 2014.
The point being that you are not the first to believe it a map – which is a good thing in serious research – and it might be a good thing too to read some of the (now many) expositions along those lines.
As I read Rene’s comments, it seems to me that he is not claiming to have himself undertaken any original research here, but is providing us with a summary of the impressions he has received on reading various persons’ writings, discussions, and conversations online (and perhaps offline). So I should think the persons to argue with are his sources – whoever they might be.
D: Rene’s contention as best I understand it is that:
1) He has never seen a map from this period represented using a series of circles.
2) He points to a drawing from John Bunyan’s “Pilgrims Progress” as having a resemblance to the top right rosette. Given that the drawing in Pilgrim’s Progress is fantastical then he argues that the drawing on the 9 rosette foldout may similarly be fantastical.
The problems I see with this argument are:
1) Rene may not have seen maps from that period represented that way, but has he seen non-maps from that period that more closely resemble that page. Given the huge variety of representations of maps of the time, I can provide images, the Voynich “map” seems not unusual. However it has many features only seen in maps of that period, specifically the distributed drawings of distinct relatively crudely drawn buildings as seen in maps of that period and to the best of my knowledge in no non-maps. There are of course other features which fit with the map interpretation which are probably too long to list here.
2) Pilgrims Progress was written in a completely different era, 250 years after the Voynich, so one could easily similarly compare the Voynich map with a map of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…
(and sigh).
I though that I had been very clear, but it seems not.
(1) I don’t know whether the drawings on the rosettes page (f85v+f86r) represent a map or not. It could be.
(2) I am, however, not convinced by any arguments that it is, as a whole, definitely a map.
(3) Parts of it look like a map.
No need for anyone to speak for me. Just remember the above.
Now more in general:
The opinion that it is a map is very widespread. It has been proposed by scores of people.
What I remember very well is that, when Diane joined the old mailing list, she started claiming to be the first to call this drawing a map.
Since this was one of the going opinions already, among others by Nick, this claim received considerable criticism. That pointless discussion went on for quite a while.
And it seems that now, 10 or so years later, this is still going on.
Anyone claiming to apply scholarly or even academic standards of research should know that one has to back up ones arguments with solid evidence.
How does one provide evidence for being the first to say this or that??
When did GC say it is a map? (I don’t know but really it is not relevant).
How can one demonstrate that nobody argued it before?
With a google search?
Come on….
Rene: I have never, to the best of my knowledge, claimed to be the first to call it a map. I have merely presented an argument why it is a map which if true I think is of great significance.
I would claim only priority to my very specific analysis of this page, some of which I have explained elsewhere, as I am not aware of anyone who produced the same overall analysis.
I have tackled the question of whether parts of it constitute maps, but the overall page is not a map. However I will present it here:
Submaps Argument->
Given the distributed buildings as well as other features it seems reasonable to view the following as representing maps or submaps.
The causeways between the following Rosettes
Top Right and Top Centre
Top Centre and Top Left
Centre Right and Top Right
Bottom Right and Bottom Centre
And
Top Right Rosette
If one accepts that these causeways represent maps then why not view every causeway as a map?
If the causeway from the Centre Right to Top Right, the Top Right Rosette and the Causeway from the Top Right to the Top Centre are all submaps it seems hard to view them as not representing a submap in their totality as they flow into ine another.
Connected Causeways make the pieces fit together as a map not a series of submaps though it should be noted that the central rosette is unconnected to anything else.
To some extent we can get into semantics here as to what we mean by the word “map”. In my case I don’t view the Central Rosette as being part of the “map”. I view the Rosettes in the centre of each side as representing specific locations rather than being maps in their own right, I would probably put the Top Left rosette in that category as well.
The scale of the “map” varies throughout the page, but that is common of maps of that period.
Technically I describe my interpretation as being a “map of a journey”.
I would contest that if you produced two sets of documents from that period: the set of maps and any subset of the set of non-maps that you wish, then the 9 rosette foldout much more closely resembles the elements of the set of maps.
In fact the probability a document from that period exhiibiting crudely drawn distributed buildings and drawings of other geographical features is a map is pretty certain. If you can show me any documents from that period that are not maps that exhibit those features I would be very happy to look at them.
@Mark
If I’m honest, I do not see any map. On the other hand, the word card may also be the cause. It should rather be seen as directions.
I take the novel “The Ninth Porte”, it is not a map, but a description to the goal. (Maybe the rosette was the inspiration for this novel, but who knows.)
I have already seen similar with 7 circles, 6 outside and one in the middle. These were described as pure meditation aids.
If I go back to the base of the book actually, (herbs, medicine, medical science) seems to me a map not really fit into the picture. Maybe I should consider the whole thing differently.
For me the rosette is so interesting that it tells me where the book “not” comes from.
If I would look like this today, my first thought would be …. who had a really long telephone conversation.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…
(and sigh).
So why is it important that the 9 rosette foldout page is a “map” or not?
Because if it is map the question then moves to: where is it a map of?
If one can identify where it is a map of then there are very potentially very many useful insights to be gained from that such as:
1) The language(s) the author used.
2) The kinds of plants they might be familiar with.
3) The astrological perspectives and documents that may have influenced the author.
4) The cultural aspects whiich overall influenced the writing of the Voynich.
5) If one is very lucky one might be able to identify precisely where the author lived and on the basis make a guess at the author. Obviously knowledge of authorship whilst not a decipherment as such would represent a real game changer.
And more reasons…
It also can put the rest of the analysis of the Voynich within a geographical framework.
This explains one reason why I, personally, have been so preoccupied by this page of the Voynich.
Peter: When you say “directions” and “a description to a goal” I am not sure precisely what you mean by that if you mean “a map if a journey” as I have described it. I understand in the past you have associated elements of this page with geographical locations.
I think I have seen the mediation diagram that you refer to, but in case I haven’t do give me a link to it.
I believe that I emailed Rene a copy of the diagram and we both agreed that it bore only a slight resemblance to the “map” page though I would be prepared to reconsider.
Hello Mark,
I know of course that you make no claims to be the first to argue that this could be a map.
You have a working hypothesis that it is a map of a certain area, made by a certain person, which you are following up, and that is perfectly fine as an approach.
RENÉ IS NOT A GUY…. SEE WHY NICKS NOT AROUND….. YOU SHOULDNT BE LYING ABOUT MY BOOK…. I WILL HAVE THE REST OF YOU PICKED UP IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS ALSO!!!!
ITS A FORM OF ENIGMA….. WITH THE TRANSLATION IN IT….. WAS STOLEN FROM ME IN PARKER…… YOU WILL GET BUSTED IF YOU CONTINUE TO DWELL ON A LIE….. I WILL CATCH YOUR [unnecessary sweary Nazi stuff deleted here] MAKE EVERYONE BELEAVE A LIE ABOUT A PERSON AND IT MAKES IT A FACT!!! MEIN KEMPF…. AND IM A BLACK DUDE!!! MOUSEY……
Rene: Sorry for my rudeness, I have endeavoured to be thorough and rigourous in my analysis as far as it is reasonably possible and I can get a little annoyed by the implication that I have not.
I think I can say that like so much of the Voynich the 9 rosette foldout page has no precise parallel amongst documents of that period. As you point out there is no map made up of 9 circles connected by “causeways”, but of course as I point out there is no other kind of document that fits that description. So we can conclude it a unique document in its own right.
Having said that as I have pointed out there are maps of that period which had they not readable labels would look less like a map than the 9 rosette page, so unique map features are not unusual, unlike modern maps which are of course pretty homogenous though with exceptions like the London Underground map.
I have also seen no document of that kind comprised of maps and non-maps together.
In short despite its peculiarities I think it fits much more neatly into the map box than the non-map box.
Hello Mark,
I didn’t think you were rude.
While nobody has yet found a good parallel to the 9 rosettes foldout, there are other complex drawings in medieval manuscripts that are also unusual or unique (or both). Some of these are maps, while others aren’t.
Rene: I think we are mistaken to expect there to be precise parallels to documents. The author of the manuscript was I think, we can say, a highly intelligent and creative person and so quite capable of thinking up his/her own way of representing something just as people now are able to. I think we can be in danger of viewing the author like an automaton reproducing, blindly, other’s drawings or designs and so devoid of imagination; I do not think that is the kind of person that we are dealing with. There is no reason to believe that people were any less capable of producing unique things than people today.
Rene: In addition to the drawings of buildings there are drawings of cliffs, water and walls amongst other features consistent with a map interpretation.
Whilst things are unique in their own right they can exhibit similarities to other things. This page bears lots of similarities to maps of that period and very few similarites to other documents.
As humans we put things into groups of objects with perceived commonalities; every apple is unique, but they have commonalities that allow us to classify them as apples.
I have never heard of any alternative hypothesis that does not only claim to explain a small portion of this page. So, as we can describe it, my working hypothesis seems to be a not unreasonable one though conceivably false; I must admit that for me, personally, it appears quite close to certain.
Mark,
there are certainly plausible alternative explanations.
Now I am not trying to argue whether this one or the other one is more likely, but already many years ago, in the old mailing list, it was proposed that this figure represents an overview of the elements, the states and/or the humours.
Of course, one of the four or five classical elements is ‘earth’, and this was not rarely represented in illustrations by a piece of land with some nature or some buildings.
The page is also full of elements that could represent heat, water, air, etc.
Now Juergen Wastl suggests that such a drawing could also be considered a ‘map’. However, I believe that all proponents of the idea that this is a map are more specifically thinking of a map in the geographical sense, and I believe you do too.
Rene,
That’s very interesting. It would be good to see some kind of example or reference for that. Whilst I, myself, am pretty close to certain it is a map, it is important I explore any alternative hypotheses that exist for reasons of thoroughness.
Rene,
Juergen Wastl’s analysis, from what I have seen of it, views the 9 Rosette Foldout as a map with non-map parts, so he identifies Europe, Africa, Asia, the Antipodes and Jerusalem as corresponding to the corner and central rosettes. The difference is that he identifies the rosettes at the centre of each side with the 4 elements. He also identifies some of the buildings. So his analysis is that the page corresponds to a map in the geographical sense that I and others use the term which contains some non-map features.
Mark,
I was referring to a comment that Juergen made to a thread I started in the Ninja forum, that was labelled: “Why the rosettes image may not be a map at all”.
He wrote on 24/07/2016:
> That raises the question: What is (the definition of) a ‘map’? I find the
> definition of ‘map’ by Harley & Woodward (in their preface to ‘The history of
> cartography’ ) to be an excellent and widely acclaimed one:
>
> ‘Maps are graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding
> of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world.’
He also adds about his own work:
> It is not a map in the sense of a geographic travel map. It may have features
> of it, or at some time during its construction and life it was conceived as one,
> but I agree it is a more abstract one and, as Marco rightly points out, ours
> is more an Elements based climate diagram highlighting the climate and its
> characteristics (hot/cold/dry/moist) per continent.
Rene,
Yes I can see there was a long discussion. I will read through it all and then give my thoughts.
A few things which are of note about my analysis:
1) All other people who have interpreted this page as a map, as far as I am aware, have viewed this as being some kind of “Mappa Mundi” My analysis views the map as operating on a significantly smaller scale; just covering a part of northern Italy and most of Switzerland.
2) From what I know my analysis of this page is much more detailed than that produced by anyone else. I would expect that I have spent significantly more time studying this very detailed page than anyone else. Neither of these facts make my analysis correct, but they are indicative of the seriousness with which I have taken my analysis. (I hope to make my full and long analysis publicly available at some stage.)
Dear all, No new hypotheses at the moment and I don’t want to interpose myself in the middle of some food fight.
i wish to alert the membership to a technique for determining the DNA of scribes or those who’ve handled folios of parchment in old books. The latest issue of “Archaeology” (Nov, Dec. 2017) details the use of white plastic erasers (commonly used by artists involved in drawing) to rub across the surface of old parchment documents. It was applied to the York gospels (written in 990 and could determine that 1) the parchment, in the main was female calfskin and 2) certain pages involved in church rituals at Yorkminster that been handled a lot had the DNA of many.
What could we learn if these erasers were applied to the Voynich manuscript?
Unfortunately, I have seen photos showing ms pages being handled by “readers” without gloves, so there will be a record of these. BUT, we might by rubbing the folios done by the looser-writing scribe and the tighter enscriber deduce the ethnicity of the scribes in addition to the origin and identity of the calfskin, goatskin or sheepskin. The York gospels had a gathering of sheepskin added at the end in the 14thC that dealt with property owned by the church. It was pointed out in the Archaeology article “From the Trenches”(pp 9-10). Sheepskin was picked for legal documents as it would disintegrate when an attempt was made to change what was written on it. Now DNA testing is getting so cheap that I think a tip could be taken from the article and rubbing a plastic eraser over selected folios of the Voynich. It is virtually non-destructive. No text is lost and whatever of the surface is affected, is not discernible. Cheers, Tom.
Dear all,
To me, the really fundamental questions that should be answered before the language of the Voynich MS can be approached are:
1) Was the iron gall ink applied soon after the parchment was made? Seems likely BUT that common assumption needs confirmation.
2) In what part of the world were the two scribes working and making their enscriptions: Europe or Asia or both?
3) what role is played by the “gallows” glyphs? They vary widely in frequency between the two scribes.
4) I have been out of the loop for a long time due to finishing up some chemistry BUT do we even know for certain what animal(s) provided the parchment? This question may have been answered but is it a likelihood or a certainty?
The DNA technique (using a white plastic eraser) if conducted by the Beinecke VMS curators might provide definitive answers to the ethnicity of the scribes which very probably coincides the the venue of the writing of the VMS. This is not a certainty as good scribes such as those who wrote the VMS might have been employed from an region other than where ink was applied to parchment.
The DNA-eraser technique should give the identity and even sex of the animal supplying the parchment.
Ink diffusion as discussed at length earlier, could provide a rough estimate of whether ink was applied to parchment early after its manufacture of whether the parchment sat idle for a time before being enscribed.
That article from Archaeology referred to above, also mentions adventitious bacteria being detected on the calfskin parchment of the Yorkminster Gospels. If such bacteria were to show up on the VMS and are unusual to the New England area where the Voynich manuscript has resided (since at least 1969) it might shed light also on the venue where it was stored before that time. Certainly Europe (Italy, London, Prague) but maybe some locale East of Suez (India?).
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
Can we learn anything using DNA analysis when applied to the iron-gall inks used by the VMS scribes? Maybe. DNA can be applied only to living things like the galls from which tannins were extracted that form an insoluble complex with iron ions in the +2 oxidation state. Incidentally, on exposure to air, the iron changes to a +3 oxidation state. Unfortunately for the analysis, the gall wood (e.g. oak, pistachio), is not present in the ink, evidently not even in traces as the precipitation is considered a total purification step.
Because the iron gall ink has not etched the VMS parchment, it likely has had its pH adjusted from the usual acidic range (pH ca. 2-5) to neutrality (ca. pH 7). Ground egg shells were commonly used in preparing iron-gall inks. Here is where proteinaceous material and DNA could be found in the ink. The procedure using the white plastic eraser that was described in the Nov/Dec issue of Archaeology uses a routine process that separates protein and DNA. If eggshell were used to adjust the pH of ink used in the VMS and useful amounts of undegraded DNA could be recovered, we might learn the animal source of the egg.
Some wooden sources of dyestuffs were often to darken or tint the iron gall inks: logwood and brazilwood were sometimes used. These could have DNA-associated with them.
The biggie in my opinion would be the source of the gum arabic likely used as a binder according to McCrone Assoc. The source of this gum (Acacia senegal L.; family Fabaceae) is obtained by tapping, (in the manner of obtaining latex rubber) the acacia tree and these occur mainly in Africa, chiefly Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda. Great genetic variation has been reported for the gum. The gum was undoubtedly an article of commerce but still it would be useful to verify that gum arabic was used as an emulsifier and binding adhesive in preparing the iron gall inks used in the VMS and which African country was the origin.
The gist of the above is that, using the white plastic eraser DNA sampling procedure might aid us in establishing the contents of the iron gall inks used in the VMS that contain components derived from living things: eggshell, wood-derived dyestuffs, and gum arabic.
It would be most useful to obtain samples from each scribe to see whether they shared the same “ink pot” or independently prepared their inks. The ink used in the line drawings of the botanical specimens should also be examined. Maybe these were done by one of the scribes or a non-scribe artist did both the drawings and the coloration.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A punctillio. Although McCrone Assoc. when examining the VMS pigments, picked samples that had likely been retinted several times so their results may not reflect the original coloration. There is on nearly every page of the botanicals, traces of original coloration.
What stuck out to me, was the absence of lapis lazuri, a deep permanent blue, bur that had been used by Italian artists since the late 14th Century. It could have found application for the blues of the VMS. Instead the unstable copper mineral azurite (converts slowly to malachite) was used for blue. Lapis lazuri is mainly obtained in Afghanistan but deposits occur in Italy, Angola, Pakistan, the New World (US, Canada and Argentina). What fascinated me about lapis lazuri is that the intense color is due to trapped a radical anion (S3) in the ground up lazurite crystals.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
Some time ago I prepared comments on the clothing and headgear worn by some of the “nude” nymphs; chiefly to answer one comment that all lacked clothing. The clothed nymphs are all under the following zodiac signs: 1) pisces, 2) aries, and 3) taurus.
1) Pisces (Feb. 19-Mar. 20): All nymphs are tubbed or emerging from tipped tubs: 19 in the outer ring; 10 in the inner ring (tipped tubs; two seem emerging from the same tub) and one fish has a leash, accounting for 30 days connected to 6-7 pointed stars probably representing the daily sun. Many nymphs have snood-like head gear sometimes blue tinted. None have clothing Some tipped barrels also have residue of blue tinting) I think it makes sense that one counts from the inner ring where tubs are being prepared or only in temporary use while the nymphs are fully in their tubs keeping cool in the outer ring. [Marco Polo writes of the incredible heat the local have to endure in the Hormuz region of Persia, mainly from hot desert winds], So the heat becomes more intense in the month of March.
2) Aries (Mar. 21-April 19): The zodiac sign for Aries in the VMS is split into one with a dark goat rondel and a light goat rondel. Each have 10 nymphs in the outer ring; 5 in the inner ring. All are tubbed In the dark zodiac symbol, with 6 in the outer ring having a gown-like dress; 3 in the inner ring have these gowns. So 9 total are clothes. Only 1 tub has color detected although many have designs. The lighter goat zodiac symbol has all the nymphs clothed in the outer ring, and two wear broad brimmed peaked hats (called “Smokey Bear” hats in the US). In the inner loop, 4 of the 5 nymphs are clothed, two with Smokey Bear hats. So in Mar to April, 12 are clothed in gowns. I speculate that these might work like wicks to draw up water that would cool by evaporation, like a water-bag canteen.
3) Taurus (April 20-May 20): The light bull in the Taurus rondel has, like Aries, 10 nymphs in the outer ring, 5 in the inner. All are tubbed. In the outer ring,, 6 are clothed and 4 have snood-like head gear. The dark bull in the other Taurus rondel has in the zodiac circle, 10 unclothed, untubbed nymphs in the outer ring. In the inner circle, the five nymphs are tubbed but unclothed. Four, possibly five, have head gear. Again, this makes sense with the inner loop commencing in early May when it is still hot while later in May, the desert winds decline and temps are tolerable without immersing the body in a tub of water. Clothing in the inner ring is dispensed with also as the temps begin to moderate. The water bag effect is now not necessary.
In Gemini (May 21-June 20), all nymphs are standing. 5 stand at the top, one with a cap, 16 stand in the outer ring (one is clearly male, a “nymph chaser”) and in the inner loop, nine nymphs are standing. All are untubbed BUT three have clothing,
The head gear topic requires more commentary and that will follow in a separate post. I conclude that the clothing worn by nymphs in 65 hot days between mid-March and early May served the function, and the tubs of water in wicking up water by capillary attraction and would cool the sitter. Broad brimmed hats would have also helped to keep the head cooler. So, in my opinion the clothing was strictly functional and not for show. Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
I point out, maybe not the first to do so, that the bathing nymphs are wearing a adornment of their hair, with headware that appears to resemble a decorated head band. This is most clearly seen with the nymph on the lower left of f77v.
Following are the most obvious examples: f75r, center pool, 2 with head bands; bottom pool, 2 with head bands. one dipping a toe into the pool shown in the right margin has a head band.
f75v, center pool, 2 with head bands, lower pool, 3 have head bands.
f76v, one in the left margin is another good example.
f77r, another head band wearer in the left margin.
f78r, two skinny dippers in the bottom pool are wearing head bands.
f78v, 4 or 5 bathers are wearing head bands.
f80r, rt margin has a head band wearing head bands.
f80v, three nymphs are wearing head bands in the left margin.
f81v, three nymphs are wearing head bands in the bottom pool.
f82r, upper left standing nymph displays a good example of a head band.
lower left and lower right both sport head bands.
f84r, 5 nymphs in the upper pool and two in the center clearly have head bands.
Incidentally,nymphs are shown floating in the pools (see f75r, f78r) indicating that the water is mineral rich.
I have just indicated clear cut examples of head bands being worn by nymphs, but there are likely many more that are not clear cut.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
A brief post that I will expand on in the future. Elaborate, beaded head bands are worn by the light skinned women of the Kalash people of the Chitral district of Khyber Pakkhtumkhwa, a province of Pakistan. Most of the valley people were forced to convert to Islam but those living on the steep hillsides were not bothered and kept their individual religions, some Hindus, some Animist. The population is declining at the present time but is protected by the Pakistan government. Marco Polo visited the Chitral region and I will comment in the future on the blond, blue eyed people he heard about. It was argued at one time that these people were descendants of Alexander the Great but DNA indicates they originated in Southern Euro-Asia. More anon. Cheers, Tom
Rene: I have just read your timely and well researched on line Voynich Manuscript treatise, intended for enthusiasts and we novices alike I suspect. I find your dedication and dilligence towards the subject, most remarkable indeed. With an easy to follow lay out and as enthralling a plot as any New York best seller. You are quite obviously an enthusiastic student of unresolved world mysteries, but moreso a great patient teacher and intuitive true crime detective, along with the very best. Thanks for your generous sharing gesture.
Well, thank you very much!
I should perhaps add that, apart from a passing interest in the Dorabella cipher, the Voynich MS is really the only “unresolved world mystery” that I am interested in.
Dear all, Are there any out here in Pelling-land that think that the botoanicals are not only weird but might just reflect some underlying, implicit principle or philosophy? I have argued for years that the philosophy is that underlying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) or Yin-Yang and reflect female vs male conditions or uses, respectively. The Hindus claim to have originated this dualism (ca. 6K BC) with its yoni-linga (Sanskrit (or shakti-shiva)) for the female-male principles although the Hindu uses get heavily into human reproduction. As part of yin-yang symbology or iconography, we see 1) a very limited color palate with red/brown/yellow representing the earth or female (yin principle) while blue represents the sky or male principle; 2) obvious directionality of leaves or roots representing one or the other. Here is where the Hindu and Chinese (TCM) diverge. Directionality in the Chinese system is based on the concept of the Emperor facing south with his left hand directed toward the East where the sun rises and reflects yang whereas the right hand is positioned to the west where the sun sets and darkness (yin) begins. The Hindus view the right as male (sun channel) and left as female (moon channel). The overall concepts are the same, llght and dark for yang and yin respectively, but in TCM, the emperor comes into the picture as a pointer. What has this to do with the VMS? I think it could underlie or explain some of the botanical weirdnesses (or maybe just mine!).
I have done a cursory survey of the VMS full page botanicals for color and directionality. I find that a small number (ca 16) of plant depictions (I have argued that most are spices from the Malabar coast of SW India) are red blossoms over a blue bud; sometimes a yellow or orange flower over a blue bud or complex multi-colored bud (e.g. f15r, 32r, 46v, 48v, 54r). I propose that such plants are used by either females or males. An even lesser number (4) are shown that have a blue flower over a red bud (f40v, 47v, 49r, 55r). Blue flowers, either simple, complex (e.g. multiple) dominate by far, the VMS botanicals with n=57, implying preferentially a male (yang) use. Red flowers. leaves or berries are seen for a total of 19 plant depictions or primarily for female (yin) use.
It should be noted that blue flowers are not common in Nature, with some examples being lobelia, vinca minor or bachelor’s buttons in the New World.
On directionality, we find some plants (e.g. f34v, 40r, 55r) that have a left branch with left directed leaves and a right branch with right-directed leaves and sometimes a center plant stem having leaves facing both directions. Some plants are simple with all leaves right (f46r) and this plant could be a “tell” as the blossom centers being yellow indicate a yin use associated with the right direction (setting sun, night coming on). This indicates a TCM interpretation. Some plants have leaves and blossoms on opposite sides of the leaf stems. e.g. f31r has leaves left, blossoms right whereas the verso side has leaves right, flowers (blue) left. I think that the one brown leaf indicates the leaves are used medicinally, likely dried, but the blue flowers indicate a yang use for the plant leaves so the conclusion reached by f46r indicating a Chinese use is not necessarily the case with f31v.
Roots also have directionality as with f42r and f44r, Both are left directed but f42r has an embedded clue with the small plant to the right of the main plant that has 3 deep red leaves. So left may in this case reflect a yin use for the plant i.e. the Hindu usage.
I plan to get further into directionality in another post and maybe even numerology in the counting of leaves and/or blossoms. So there you have it, an attempt to explain some of the weirdnesses of the botanicals. I think one additional complication is that many of the blossoms completely lack color or have just traces of yellow remaining. I think the original yellow used in the VMS might be fugative in many cases.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: please be extremely careful when trying to
firmform chains of reasoning that involve colour and the Voynich manuscript. The heavy blue colour is very likely to be a later addition, which would be problematic for theories that rely on its being original. :-/Nick, Point well taken. It seems to me though that the later blue color might well have been applied over an earlier blue? I think faint original blue can be discerned mixed with a more intense later application on the following VMS pages: f15r, 24v, 31v, 40v and 43v,
Incidentally, five yang symbols are clearly seen on the fern-like plant depicted on f38r. I think there were six originally but one has been scraped off creating a tear. This might imply that a leaf was sufficient to treat five males for something or other, but not six as might have been originally thought?
Cheers, Tom
Thomas: I don’t recall seeing evidence of any earlier blue layer, but I’ll take a close look at the pages you list this evening, see what I can find.
Nick, During your search for original blue, check out:
f4v-interior of flower
f9v-topmost flower
f17r-flower interiors
f18r- one petal on left
f21v-bottommost flower part on left stem
f23v-inner circle of flower
f26r-some flowers on rt. stem
f26v-calcx of one (or 2?) flowers
f27v-top leaves
f30r 3rd blossom down on right
f32v-inside of flowers
f35r-edges of several petals
f38v-bottom of flower
f39r-back part of flower, although might just be lighter tinting?
f49r-edges of one right petal on topmost flower
f54v-several blossoms at top of stem where leaves end
f55v-berries might all be original blue
f56r-tips of several “leaves”
f57r-interiors of two blossoms, one lowermost flower is all original blue [may be best example of original blue coloration?]
f87r-blossom petals of uppermost flower and one below it.
This is a rapid, cursory search by me. Some light blue might be just lighter tinting at a later date so some of these examples may not be definitive. Still I think enough original color remains to defend the argument that the later more intense blue was applied over a faded, lighter original blue.
Cheers, Tom
Nick,
I missed a pretty obvious example in the sole blossom of f52r where most of the blossom is, to my eye, original blue.
Cheers again, Tom
Nick, this is the first time I read that the dark blue may not be original, it’s an interesting suggestion. Why do you think this is the case? Because it’s so thick that it looks like it’s meant to cover stuff up?
Koen: there are a number of paints which don’t look to have been original to the Voynich Manuscript, the dark blue is just one of them – the blue contact transfers to the opposite pages seem to have happened after a much later binding. But this is neither a new suggestion nor even mine: it was first proposed 20-odd years ago by Jorge Stolfi. If you search for “heavy painter” and Voynich, you should find plenty to entertain you. 🙂
Nick,
the blue paint must have been applied before the last binding (of which we have no date….).
It would also have been ‘not long’ before.
See for example a the bit of the drawing on f33v that disappears under the binding and is visible on f40r, and print-offs of the blue paint on both of the facing pages.
Rene: have you seen underneath the fold on the f33/f40 bifolio? Was the blue paint all the way underneath?
If it extends all the way underneath, then because of the contact transfers on both sides, the blue paint must surely have been applied (as you say) within days of the binding.
Dear Nick and Rene,
Paul Zyats, et al. in their commentary of conservation work on the VMS comment that the paper padding used in the binding might be contemporaneous with the final binding. Perhaps this paper could be carbon-14 dated? Early paper usually had watermarks, Is Paula holding out on us? Anyway, if I read your comments on f33/f40 correctly, the blue overpainting is likely fairly old also and was done on the VMS in the (last) unbound state? This seems to me an important deduction!
If one or both of you accept the observation that many pages of the VMS have original blue pigment, then it seems to me that this raises another question: why wasn’t ALL the original blue overpainted? Why was the blossom in the lower right of f57r left with (maybe) original blue coloration?
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
An interpretation of the bead like structure on the roots of f14r. I count a total of 27 beads, 12 on the left, 15 on the right. That plant had a blue bulb and red flower, indicating in the yin/yang symbology, use by both male and females. Interesting, to me anyway, is a 27-beaded “rudraksha” prayer beads (mala or japamala) used by devotees of Siva in Hindu India. The rudaksha is a tree whose seed pods comprise the prayer necklace oramulet.
More on f33, In addition to deduction by Rene and commentary by Nick, on the traces of color transferred from the flower on f33v to the binding or an adjacent page, I think the flip side, f33r conveys an important yin/yang usage. Close examination with a hand lens of my facsimile of the little faces at the end of the roots, reveals in addition to the shape of the faces, hints of curls above hair represented by parallel hatching on the face at the left. The face on the right has only parallel hatching for the male hair. This plant, I think conveys a plant use for bladder care and benefits both sexes. So we have a female on the left and male on the right, following Hindu usage. The flower bulbs are badly faded and the green- petaled flowers are not consistent with the usual blue for males, red or orange for female use.
Cheers, Tom
ps. Galen of Pergamon (Greek Turkey) knew in 200 AD that urine formed in the kidneys and was collected in the bladder. Depictions of the bladder showed two entry points. There are other bladder-like leaves depicted in the VMS. Two more are f17v and f54v.
Dear all,
Following up on the bladde-like leaves of f17v and f54v, I wonder if the plants depicted don’t indicate bladder or even urethral problems? Even though “cutting for the stone” is an ancient example of surgery (see “The History of Urinary Stones: in Parallel with Civilization” Ahmed Tefekh and Fatin Cezayir, US Nat Libr of Medicine. Nat. Insts. of Health,, 2013. ), I believe plant products, in these cases. berries, could be used “When there is no Doctor”.
The plant illustrated on f17v has both root and berries pointing left, indicating female use in Hinduism. The light brown root protuberances, three in number, seem to have tiny quills. I don’t think they are hairs as they don’t droop but more or less stick out from the root lumps. The two channels above the root might indicate the berries can help clear urethral blockages.
The plant shown in f54v, has many blue buds (some I think showing original blue coloration), extending to the right as well as a darker brown root with 5 knobs, extending to the right. Here, I think, the berries are for male (yang) usage following Hindu yin/yang directionality.
Incidentally, the Indian subcontinent boasted a giant in early surgery, Sushruta, who described 300 surgical procedures ca. 600 BC, one of which was perineal lithomy.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, Two more observations on yin/yang symbology that I think appears in the VMS. Consider the leaves of the plant shown on f39v. Every leaf is shown with spaces that resemble a rotated yang symbol, (or possibly a yin symbol, since they are mirror images). I opt for yang as yin are usually darker. So if the yang symbol is rotated by 90 degrees, most of the leaf gaps match that symbol. There are roughly 8 gaps on each side; some are distorted due to careless overpainting. This criticism might be weakening my argument but I think it is clear from the lowest twig on the right and the left that the symbols are rendered unclear. I think the blue flowers indicate a yang or male use.
There are several cases of an plant roots (e.g. f28r, 51r) leaving a suspicious looking inclusion that might have started life as a yin or yang symbol but are now just a gap. One however,(f13r) shows a perfect little yang symbol and the blue buds of the plant indicate a male use for some medical condition.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
Two VMS botanicals that might depict human anatomy are those of f42v and f96v. The former has a large single leaf that could be that of the bladder with the little red-leaved plant to the right provide a clue indicating that that this might be for yin or female use.
The leaves of f96v are, I think, heart-shaped and the berries on both sides of the plant stalk likely indicate the berries are for both male and female use in help for the heart.
Incidentally, the first human dissection in Europe was supposedly performed in Italy at the Univ. of Bologna by a de Luzzi. Earlier dissections used pigs or monkeys as subjects.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
Likely, I am the last to be aware of the arguments posited by Sukhwant Singh that the VMS is a mix of Sindhi languages (currently the Punjab region of Pakistan), all of which are descendant from the mother Landa tongue. The principal one, used by some Roma people, is the Khojki language. The languages are abugida where vowels do not stand alone but modify vowels and amount to syllables. What I found interesting is that one of the gallows (double legged, loop at top of left ascender) appears in the Khojki as “ba”. Khojki script uses diacritcs but to my eye, not a lot of the VMS glyphs appear in Khojki. Where many more appear is in the Khudabadi script. Both language creations, Khojki and Khudabadi appear in the early 15th or mid 16th C, respectively. The dating of the later appears problematic to me as it was introduced by Sindh traders who had left home and used the invented language to “write home” and also to conceal business transactions. A date of circa 1550 is proposed but seems to me that there must be a range of dates. Another issue with Khudabadi is that about a dozen scripts have been uncovered using it. Many involve glyphs that closely resemble those seen in the VMS, but any gallows appear to be single-legged and the reverse of the two of those of the VMS.
A link to Singh’s main essay can be found in an abstract that appeared in a blog: “grahamhancock.com.” dated 5-5-14.
If the arguments of Singh are accepted, then the VMS is considered the have dealt chiefly with religious or liturgical matters or optimum heavenly signs for making trades.
A useful link to the Khudabadi script directs one to an essay provided by Rakesh Lakani: This includes two charts showing roughly a dozen script variations seen in writing Khudabadi. No diacritics are used in Khudabadi. Among Khudabadi glyphs are a “c” . by itself, or with an extension going to the left or right of the top of the “c”; two linked “c” s; a mirror image of “S” with a smaller top arc; a “4”; a tipped “2” that resembles a question mark; a “2” and an “m”.
Cheers, Tom
Certain shapes are easy to find in many alphabets,. The shapes “c” “p” “r” and “9” were common in many western and eastern alphabets. There are 4 or 5 medieval Indic glyphs that can be likened to VMS shapes, but one can also find parallels to them in Greek and Latin. Parallels from other scripts are so few that it’s hard to know if they are parallels or coincidences, the proportion in Latin is much higher.
What they mean (or how they sound, if this is a human language) is a whole other subject, but interpreting them in the various languages that use these shapes doesn’t appear to result in intelligible words or grammar any more than it does in some of the western languages.
On a possibly related subject…
There was an influx of troubadours into southern France in the early middle ages who brought with them not only entertainment but some interesting cultural differences in color and aesthetics that appear to be from other regions and which may have influenced manuscript illustrators, but whether anyone tried to record their language(s) at the time isn’t well documented.
Dear all,
Oops. I mistakenly wrote in my post of Dec. 10, that in an abugida language, the vowels modify vowels. I should have written that vowels modify consonants, forming what essentially are syllables.
I agree with Petersen’s point above, that many languages, including the several Sindhi languages, use some of the same glyphs as used in western languages. I think also that some Armenian glyphs appear in the VMS (such as the ampersand-like character that is romanized as an “f’ , as well as the repeated “8” and “9” that stand for “e” and “t” respectively when Armenian is laid out from “a to z” and the characters are numbered with “a=1, b=2, etc.) and then romanized. So “89” is equivalent to the Latin “et” or “and” in English. Using letters for numbers was common in many older languages, like Hebrew and Coptic.
What seems to me unique to the Sindhi languages particularly Khojki and Khudabadi is the appearance of one of the gallows glyphs in the former and the many variations on “c” that appear in the latter and that exist no where else. except the VMS, that I am aware of.
I like India as a venue for the VMS and have argued in the past that 1) many of the botanicals are spices from the Malabar (SW) coast; 2) the appearance of an illustration (f86v) that dovetails with observations of Marco Polo on the retrieval of diamonds by birds from snake-infested ravines in an area on the eastern coast of India, and 3) the appearance of fair-skinned blue-eyed people in the north of Pakistan (the Kalash) from the Chitral valley that Polo also visited and even commented on the fair-skinned people he encountered.
The tubbed-women in three of the “calendar wheels” (could represent the intense heat of the Hormuz region in March through May that Polo mentions, the Kalash people in what is now the SWAT region of Pakistan also encountered by Polo and finally glyphs used in Asia, particularly Korea (the Hangul language), leads me to view the VMS as a travelogue “in the steps of Marco Polo”. Maybe not tracing his path directly, but passing through some of the regions he visited.
A hand-drawn map of the Chitral valley can be viewed (p 4) in the Ph. D. thesis of Gregory R. Cooper, Dec. 2005.
Cheers, Tom
Merry Christmas to one and all!
May all your Voynich and other cipher dreams come true! (In so far as they do not contradict my own Voynich dreams)
Dear all,
Mark adds a note of civility and fellowship sometimes absent from this blog site.
What is that hedgehog-like critter in the left-hand margin of f80v? I have argued that, because the scales are so prominent, that is likely to be the pangolin, also known as the “Indian Pangolin” or scaly anteater. If that ID is so, it has its own Wiki entry, the “Indian Pangolin” ( Manis crassicaudata, family Manidae). Although the above Wiki discussion indicates the Manis genus to have only one representative, i.e. is a mono-type, the Wiki entry for “Pangolin” alone indicates the family has three genera, with a total of 8 species, four in Asia, four in Africa. The M. crassicauta species covers all of India up to high elevations in the Sindh and Punjab region in the North and is also found in Sri Lanka. It is a toothless, nocturnal animal feeding on termites and ants.
The scales of the animal on f80v, considered to be those of a pangolin, are clearly drawn. These are known to consist mainly of collagen (same protein as in human skin and nails) and have many uses in traditional Indian and Chinese medicine, including the induction of lactation in women and having the properties of an aphrodisiac. I think the nymph just below the pangolin is holding a pangolin scale in her left hand.
Note that the nymph at the upper left margin of f80v, is sporting a head band. More on those anon. Cheers and Happy New Year to the readership!
Tom
Dear all,
Some additional commentary and expansion on the above post follows: I think the thickness and shortness of the pangolin’s tail depicted in the left margin of f80v rules out a Pangolin species found in Central Western Africa that has a tail exceeding its own body length.
All pangolins secrete, when disturbed,, a strong musky-smelling yellowish oil from anal glands that serves as a deterrent against predation. I propose that the uppermost nymph in the left margin of f80v, holds in her left hand, a glass vessel that might contain a sample of this substance and that it might serve as a base for perfumes, similar to ambergris (sperm whale gut substance), civet (civet cat excretion), castoreum (beaver), musk deer, etc.
It turns out that, at least, in present day India, that another pangolin species is present in minor numbers, the Chinese species, M. pentadactyl.
The large pangolin armor-like scales are an article of brisk commerce and has led to the near extinction of the three pangolin species found in China and the major one found in India (M. crassicaudata). One-fifth to one-quarter of the total weight of the Indian pangolin is the weight of its yellowish-brown scales purported to have a variety of medicinal uses, including treating asthma as well as those mentioned in my post of 12-26.
The scales while related to collagen are more properly characterized as being comprised of keratin, found also in animal horn, human nails and hair.
Enough for the moment on the Indian pangolin. In conclusion, I think this animal depiction, one of only a few that exist in the VMS, provides a clear link between this manuscript and an Indian venue.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
Suppose an illustration on one of the pages of the VMS, currently cryptic to many, if not all of the readership of this blog site, just might have a historical interpretation advanced, might we not then have a topic for an exchange of ideas on these pages as to the likelihood of that proposal and perhaps the stimulation of such discussions might ultimately provide a clue into a possible venue for that depiction? I throw out one such illustration, that of f86v3, as showing graphically an event that is, I think, dealt with in detail in Book III, Chapter XIX of “The Travels of Marco Polo”. It is my suspicion that f86v3 depicts practices occurring in Eastern India in the Madras district at the time of Polo’s visit and where he actually set foot on the subcontinent, although there is no evidence that he actually witnessed the strange proceedings he described.
For those who lack a copy of “The Travels…”, I have pasted the relevant details in the conversational, detailed (often exaggerated) style of that account.
The Travels of Marco Polo, Book III, Chapter XIX. [kingdom of Mutfill, ca. 1K miles north of Maabar]; “It is in this kingdom that diamonds are got; and I will tell you how. There are certain lofty mountains in these parts; and when the winter rains fall, which are very heavy; the waters come roaring down the mountains in great torrents. When the rains are over, and the waters from the mountains have ceased to flow, they search the beds of the torrents and find plenty of diamonds. In summer also there are plenty to be found in the mountains, but the heat of the sun is so great that it is scarcely possible to go thither, nor is there a drop of water to be found. Moreover in those mountains great serpents are rife to a marvelous degree; besides other vermin , and this owing to the great heat. The serpents are also the most venomous in existence, in so much that any one going to that region runs fearful peril, for many have been destroyed by these evil reptiles.
Now among these mountains there are certain great and deep valleys, to the bottom of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who go in search of diamonds take with them pieces of flesh as lean as they can get, and these they cast into the bottom of a valley. Now there are numbers of white eagles that haunt these mountains and feed upon these serpents. When the eagles see the meat thrown down they pounce upon it and carry it up to some rocky hill-top where they begin to rend it. But there are men on the watch and as soon as they see the eagles have settled they raise a loud shouting to drive them away! And when the eagles are thus frightened away the men recover the pieces of meat and find them full of diamonds which have stuck to the meat down in the bottom. For the abundance of diamonds down there in the depths of the valleys is astonishing but nobody can get down; and if one could it would only to be incontinently devoured by the serpents which are rife there.
There is another way of getting the diamonds. The people go to the nests of these white eagles,of which there are many, and in their droppings they find plenty of diamonds which the birds have swallowed in devouring the meat that was cast into the valleys. And when the eagles themselves are taken, diamonds are found in their stomachs. So now I have told you of three different ways in which these stones are taken.”
The depictions on f86v3 consist essentially of two halves, the left side featuring a man involved in throwing down something in the top left and watching in partial concealment in the lower left. Although the thrown object is just discernible, I think it could represent a morsel of meat. This little blob may have suffered some bleed across that has been overpainted in green on f87r. I think the spray to the right of that “meat” is rain containing blue dots representing diamonds washed down from stylized mountains. On the lower left, the partly concealed man is reaching for the diamonds that I think have been dropped by a very fuzzily-outlined bird. On the right side of f86v3, we see an unpainted bird (white eagle?) immersed in a more powerful spray of rain and diamonds. In the bottom right, we see the “eagle” in its nest with the rain having stopped. I think it has been noted by others, that of all the illustrations of the VMS, the image of f86v3, is the only one that depicts a bird.
In conclusion, I propose, for discussion, that this image depicts the obtaining of diamonds in Eastern India as described by Marco Polo, The illustration has unfortunately suffered some “scribbling” and “pen trials” and an “inverted T” that might have been planned to form some kind of grid? This page also marks the end of a quire. It should be noted that Nick has advanced the idea in “Curse” (p. 139) that f86v3 pertains to bee-keeping with the birds presumably gobbling up bees.
Cheers, Tom
Dear All, Happy 2018!
The classic Indian chakra (wheel) known most widely is that in the central white band of the Indian flag of 1947, a blue wheel with 24 spokes. Each spoke of the “Ashoka dharma chakra” represents a virtue, e.g. Love, Courage, Patience, etc. When researching chakras, which I think are depicted in at least 11 clear cut examples in the VMS, I spotted two that I think are worth commenting on. One (f68v2) represents the 8-fold path that Buddhists attempt to follow, and is shown in the form of 8 petals at the center of a chakra, which are often used instead of spokes. An 8-spoked small circle lies at the center of f69v that has 28 spokes of alternating lengths. I think these are represented in medieval Hindu astrology (see Wiki), in their lunar calendar where each spoke stands for one of the “mansions” or nakshatras. These represent constellations (asterisms), and usually include elements of the western zodiac and consist of star groups (but may also include individual stars themselves) that the moon passes through in the earth’s ecliptic during the year. Modern Hindu astrology has 27, not 28, nakshatras, one “Abhijit (victorious)” having been deleted. It included stars of the Vega constellation. The attarvaveda asterisms cycle is considered to start with Krittika (the Pleiades).
Classical and modern Chinese astrology has 28 star groups arranged in a wheel with four quadrants that are also identified with season, direction and real or mystical animals. These are North (winter, black tortoise), West (fall, tiger), South (summer, vermillion bird), and East (spring, azure dragon). Each quadrant had seven lunar constellations.
Indian and Chinese astrology influenced one another and it is possible that f69v is of Chinese, not Indian origin.
Cheers, Tom
Dear All,
A few miscellaneous observations on that presumed astrological chakra of f69v: Of the notations opposite the 28 spokes, 22 have either an “o” or “9” followed by a double stemmed gallows glyph (2 or 2′); there are no single-stemmed gallows glyphs (1 or 1′) among them. There are two sets of repeated notations, If one numbers the spokes starting with the shorter spoke with “9(double looped-double stemmed glyph (2′)) o89”, i.e. 9-2′-089, then moves clockwise around the wheel, three repeats (o-2-co8) are seen at #5, 9, and 18 and two repeats (o-2-co89) at #20 and 24.
The six notations that don’t involve an “o” or “9” followed by a double-stemmed gallows (2 or 2′) occur at spokes # 10, 11, 18. 22, 24, and 27. Spoke 24 ends, however, with a double-looped, double-stemmed gallows (2′) glyph. None are repeats.
Kṛttikā (the Pleiades)
Rohinī (Aldebaran)
Mrigashīrsha
Ārdrā (Betelgeuse)
Punarvasu
Pushya
Asleshā
Maghā (Regulus)
Purva phalguni
Uttara phalguni (Denebola)
Hasta
Chitrā (Spica)
Svāti (Arcturus)
Vishākhā
Anurādhā
Jyeshthā
Mūla
Purva ashadha
Uttara ashadha
Shravana
Dhanishta
Satabhishak (Sadachbia)
Purva bhadrapada
Uttara bhadrapada
Revati
Ashvini
Bharani
The modern Hindu nakshtra (taken from Wiki), that omits that of “abhijit” of medieval astrology, is included above. I hoped to find entries (i.e spokes) that might be duplicates such as an adumbrated “ashadha” or “bhadrapada” but these, even allowing this possible permutation, do not fall in the appropriate region of the astrological chakra.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
I think the wheels (chakras) seen in the range of f67r-69v2 of the VMS reflect Buddhism’s focus on the 8-fold path. The chakras usually have 8 segments. Some like f69v2 are clear-cut with 8 petals, others are sub-divided into 8 segments.
Among the botanicals, two, f16v, 7r, have respectively, either an 8-petaled blossom or 8-leaves from a central leaf stem.
The illustration on f68r3 is interesting in showing among the 8 segments that have stars, alternating with a few (2, 3, 4) and many (11, 14, 18 and 18), a clear depiction of the Pleiades constellation (Krittika in Indian astrology) of a tiny cluster of 7 stars in the seventh segment, along with an isolated larger star. The numbering of the segments begins with the segment having two stars and proceeds clockwise with the following order: 2-18-3-14-4-11-(1+7)-16. Incidentally, the Pleiades, originally part of Greek mythology, are important in Hindu mythology, being associated with Rudra/Skandu, the war god. The are located as a star group that is part of the constellation Taurus and appears in the November sky over India from dusk to dawn. I think this might be the only constellation depicted in the VMS.
At the moment the sequence of segments with alternating few and many stars is cryptic. It is noted that those segments with a few stars only have those stars named; those with many are unlabeled. A guess is that the named stars arise at certain times of night (or the year?) and the names were those of stars known to Indian astrologers.
One last Hindu link that might be pointed out is the possible appearance of the Indian deity represented by the elephant Ganesh that might appear in f55v (root on bottom right) and f99v (lower right).
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
Why are the calendar-based chakras of the VMS made deliberately cryptic and using several methods of accomplishing this as following examples might illustrate? I think the importance of a faithful and reliable calendar and its importance in business and other aspects of one’s personal life (like births, deaths or marriages) has been emphasized in “The Travels of Marco Polo”. A really reliable lunar calendar would give one a leg up on the business competition and would preferably be disguised by encryption for one’s eyes only.
I cite two passages that appear in Book III, chapter XX in the section dealing with India: “To every day of the week, they assign an augury of this sort [i.e. as follows]. Suppose that there is some purchase in hand, he who proposes to buy when he gets ujp in the morning, takes note of his shadow in the sun, which he says ought to be on that day, of such and such a length; and if his shadow be of the proper length for the day, he completes the purchase; if not, he will under no account do so, but waits till his shadow corresponds with that prescribed. For there is a length established for the shadow for every individual day of the week; and the merchant will complete no business unless he finds his shadow set down for that particular day. [Also to each day in the week they assign one unlucky hour, which they term Choiach. For example, on Monday, the hour of Half-tierce, on Tuesday that of Tierce, on Wednesday Nones and so on.]” (These times are taken from the canonical hours of prayer and were also accepted by Moslems). In one of the related annotations/commentaries, we read “Hindu astrologers teach that there is an unlucky hour in every day of the month, i.e. during the period of the moon in every nakshatra of ‘lunar mansion’ throughout the lunation”. Further discussion deals with these inauspicious (or rejected) hours that can occur during the day or night. Incidentally the mean length of that hour is 1 hour, 36 minutes in European time.
The medieval lunar calendar used in India had 12 months, each starting with a new moon. There were consecutively 6 months of 30 days each followed by 6 months of 31 days, each. The lunar calendar shown in the VMS on f67r2 differs in two significant ways: There are 6 months starting with a full moon but another 6 commencing with a waxing crescent moon (I have interpreted the red part of the moon models as being the illuminated part). These two types alternate with two exceptions where two months beginning with new moons and are followed by two starting with a crescent moon. There are roughly two days between a new and a waxing crescent moon. So between a new (N) and crescent (C) moon there would be 29+2 =31 days while N-N or C-C would have 29 days. Thus the lunar year with this model would have 31 x 10= 310 days + 29 x 2 = 368 days. Note that the days between a new moon and waxing crescent was estimated at 2 days and this was a rough estimate. Still this lunar model is fairly close to the Julian lunar calendar (365 days).
The rondel at the center of this calendar depiction has 8 spokes suggesting a Buddhist origin.
Another lunar chakra that shows a full moon at the top and bottom (f68r1) indicates 29 days between them, in agreement with conventional observation. When two occur in the same month, the second is called a “blue moon”.
An initial glimpse at the 12-spoked chakra of f67r suggests it might represent the zodiac but a number of questions arise with that interpretation such as: 1) why are the spokes bi-colored,a major part blue, a minor part red, 2) why are the blue parts of the spokes associated with stars (perhaps representing night), and 3) why are there two zones opposite each spoke point, one with one or two stars, one with a logo of some sort. It think the face in the disc at the center might represent the sun.
I suggest that this image depicts a thirty-day month. I think the one or two stars in the 12-peripheral zones play the role multipliers. Those with a single star are counted once for a total of 12; those with two stars (12-3=9) are counted twice, i.e. 9×2=18. So in summary, the illustration of f67r represents 12 +18 or a 30-day month.
I think the chakra on f67v2 that has 16 spokes and 17 segments depicts a 31-day month. Summing the stars (= days), one obtains 38 but I think the green stars indicate stars in those segments that need to be ignored, i.e. subtracted. These amount to three segments of 7 stars. Thus 38-7= 31. This chakra might be considered heliocentric as a depiction of the sun lies at the center.
I think a green operator is also seen with f68r in the chakra centered on a Buddhist influenced 8-petals where 2 of the 8 segments contain green stars. The total of all stars in the chakra is 39, but when the segments containing a green-star that total 9 stars are subtracted, a 30-day lunar month results.
Some of the chakras are still beyond such decryptions as those above but one last one I think can be cracked, f68r2. There are in the periphery on the left, a total of 11 stars (days), while 12 stars are seen on the right periphery. Enclosed by the left and right peripheral stars are 35 stars. If one assumes a 30-day month per star on the left, one would arrive at 11 x 30 or 330 days for a lunar period of 11 months. If the last month (the 12th star on the right semicircle) were 35 days, a lunar year of 330 + 35 = 365 days results or the accepted number of days in the Julian calendar. It remained for Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to accept reforms to the Julian lunar calendar that resulted in a solar calendar that remains in effect today.
I think it might be argued that the Indian calendar research as indicated in the chakras depicted in the VMS might have ended up at the Villa Mondragone, a summer residence of the calendar-reforming Pope, as reference materials. More on this anon,
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
I think the calendar chakras of the VMS might account for its being found among a Jesuit library at the Villa Mondragone in Italy.
Incidentally, the heraldry of this Pope was a dragon, accounting for the name given to this papal retreat in the Alban hills. The villa was actually owned by a cardinal Alltemps but on a permanent loan to the Pope. It was here that the papal bull “inter gravissimas” was promulgated, reforming the Julian calendar which had fallen out of sync with the vernal equinox upon which the dating of Easter is based. Tycho Brahe had also noted this problem. The solution: ten days were subtracted in the month of October in 1582 to accomplish an immediate realignment and the number of leap years were decreased to prevent future discrepancies. Gregory relied on earlier work (beginning as early as 1545) of Italian astronomers such as Benedetti and Moleto and the mathematician Lillius. The final calendar was formulated under the guidance of Christopher Clavius and is a solar calendar as it coincides, as closely as human ingenuity can devise, to the exact time of the annual path of the earth around the sun. Incidentally, it does appear that several of the VMS chakras are heliocentric.
I think the VMS might have had a sojourn of indeterminate time with one of the Thomasite churches in south east India, likely in the Madras area, where a shrine venerating the body of St. Thomas is located. Marco Polo comments (Book III, chapter XVIII) on the small congregation of Christians he meets and miracles attributed to believers. Incidentally, Christianity is currently the third largest religion in India, behind Hinduism and Islam.
I think it can be argued that the two occurrences of Christian cross iconography that one finds in the VMS (f75v, f79v) were added at some time after the original enscription. For example, the cross of f79v is just plopped onto the open left hand of the nymph in the upper left margin. It is not gripped.
Portuguese and other Jesuits were in India in the early 16th C , and could have noted the many lunar calendar depictions of the VMS? They might have argued for and succeeded in sending the VMS to calendar reformers employed by popes starting with Paul III and ending with Gregory XIII, where it might have served as research material?
Cheers, Tom
Dear Tom,
the evidence that the Voynich MS was at Villa Mondragone is rather thin.
It is true that this was announced to be the place by Hans P. Kraus in the early 1960’s, and as a result this has been propagated in all literature.
However, Kraus deduced this provenance himself, from material he obtained at the time he bought the Voynich MS from Anne Nill. His sources are two-fold:
– The letter of ELV, where she says: “(in a castle?) at Frascati”
– The letterhead of one letter by Joseph Strickland, which has “Convitto di Mondragone Frascati”
The second point says that Strickland was at Mondragone, but not necessarily that also the books were there.
There are no records confirming the Mondragone, as reported by Jesuits historians who have searched the archives of the Society of Jesus.
It is a reasonable conclusion from Kraus, but far from certain.
Another large collection of books was hidden by the Jesuits in a villa in Castelgandolfo, which is not far from Frascati.
Nick,
Have you ever seen an explanation from the Beinecke librarians for their apparently deciding to set aside the opinion of all the earlier independent and non-theory driven evaluations; the opinion given by Panofsky about the pigments; the evaluation of the inks and pigments by McCrone AND the radiocarbon dating by the University of Arizona.. all of which agree that the manuscript is no older than the fifteenth century and presents as one earlier, and so forth.
I’m bewildered by their still having on their website the dates ca. 1401-1599?
How did they come to think the range could be extended from c.1438 to the threshold of the seventeenth century?
Diane: the text describing the Voynich Manuscript on the Beinecke’s website and manuscript catalogue is out of date and badly in need of an update. However, I suspect it is also one of those things that nobody there wants to touch for fear of being washed away by a tidal wave of Voynich crank commentary. *sigh*
Dear Rene,
Your cautionary comments on the VMS’s link with the Villa Mondragone may make my hypothesis less likely, i.e. the calendar information in the pages of the VMS, might have been used by calendar reformers who had contact with the summer residence used by Pope Gregory XIII, and where the VMS was deposited when the calendar work was finished. My hypothesis really had no factual underpinnings, but only a presumed linkage of overlapping studies on lunar calendars. Now if the pope’s sometime summer residence is NOT where the VMS was found by Voynich, my weak hypothesis is further weakened.
Still, it is by proposing hypotheses that are either shot down or accepted (even in parts) that any progress will be made in understanding the venue, purpose and content of the VMS.
So then the question arises: where in God’s name was the VMS found? Were Jesuits even involved in the transmission of the VMS from where it was created? Here I am seemingly alone in holding to an East Indian origin.
Could Tycho Brahe have been involved as a conduit to HRE Rudolph II, where he served as court astronomer from 1600-1601 (but was in contact with him from 1597) ? Brahe was aware of the problems with the Julian lunar calendar.
I submit this guess as a possible route to an answer to the query you raise in your essay in the VMS facsimile: “…the name of whoever sold it to the Emperor remains a mystery.” Brahe certainly was not in need of funds at any time, being independently wealthy, but still could have seen to it that the VMS ended in the Emperor’s lap? You suggest in the same essay, that the court records of Rudolph should be scrutinized for the seller [and maybe whether Rudolph actually did part with 600 ducats? ]. Perhaps also diaries of Brahe could be examined?
Thanks for taking the time to read my rambling post,
Cheers, Tom
Dear all,
I think that f68v3 with its 16-spoked chakra can be interpreted by noting and distinguishing between 6- and 7-pointed stars.
Starting with the topmost sector and proceeding in a clockwise manner, the following sequence of 7-pointed stars can be observed, sector by sector: 2 + 3 + 5 + 5 + 2 + 6 + 4 + 3 = 30 stars, i.e. 30 days. This chakra is heliocentric with a female face shown for the sun. Incidentally, the 6-pointed stars, summing sectors in the manner above are 5, 4, 3, 4, 7, 2, 3, and 5, totaling 33 days.
I am re-examining chakra pages of the VMS featuring stars and note that not only are 6- and 7-pointed stars shown but a few 8-pointed stars are seen. Many are named and likely refer to the name of the star. The medieval Indian lunar Dharma-chakra with its 28 spokes has some spokes that are identified with important stars, in addition to constellations or parts of constellations. These individual stars might be also refer to the name of a day. Some individual stars are Alderbaran, Betelgeus, Regulus, Orionis, Denebola, Spica, Arcturus and Sadachbia (see Nakshatra in Wiki). At the moment, I think that the more points the star has, the brighter in the night sky, that star is. They would have to be visible in the night sky at or above the ecliptic in the Northern Hemisphere.
Cheers, Tom
Nick,
So there’s no rational explanation for the “1599(?)” . ?
A library need say nothing speculative about any manuscript’s contents and only need track the list of owners as far as the documentation allows. So the conservative approach would be to cut everything but the codicological details; radiocarbon dates with attribution; and the list of owners as far as Wilfrid.
I’m sure that doing so would make some people cranky, but why should the library care?
That it was ever sold to the emperor has not been fully substantiated, the often-repeated sum of 600 ducats could have been paid for something else, but I think it’s highly likely that the VMS was transported through Jesuits, as is documented in the various letters.
Hello Tom,
we know certain things with various different levels of (un)certainty.
We should not suspect any link between the meaning of the MS and its final hiding place. It was hidden as one of at least 300 manuscripts.
It was also sent from Prague to Rome as a singleton, so the collection(s) it was in since 1665 is equally irrelevant for the meaning and origin of the MS.
The magnitude of the problem in identifying the seller of the MS to Rudolf can be illustrated as follows.
If you go to this page:
http://documenta.rudolphina.org/
And click on the box ‘Personen’ you get an alphabetical index of names of people related with the court of Rudolf.
Not all of them are ‘candidate sellers’ of course, but even one percent of this list is still a prohibitively large number.
Tycho Brahe is there, too, of course, as is his opponent astronomer Raymarus Ursus. The books of Ursus were sold to Rudolf by Ursus’ widow, but no sign of a list of titles…
With respect to JKP’s message, I had understood Tom’s point about the Jesuits to be related to bringing it from its original place to Prague. For this, there is no evidence, and I see it as possible, but not particularly preferable.
Note also, that Prague (or more generally, Bohemia) is also on the list of possible origins of the MS.
With respect to the dates 1400-1599 on the Beinecke web page, this is certainly a reflection of the printed catalogue of manuscripts in the Beinecke library by Barbara Shailor (1984), which says:
” s. XV^^ex-XVI [?] ”
and which is of course superseded by the recently published Yale photo facsimile.
This book has been available on-line for many years, until about one year ago. I have been told that it should be back relatively soon.
That the web site has not yet been updated, I consider an issue of time and priorities.
Keep in mind always that the most ruthless and cunning fraudsters prey on egos of those most ignorant, compliant or gullible to their unscrupulous plottings and meticulously constructed webs of deception. On a brighter note, I seem to recall awhile back that if one needed to gain proof of claimed scholastic achievements, there were certain universities in Trump’s great state of Arizona, for instance, that for a reasonable donation, could fit the bill most handsomely; although I’m not sure whether their carbon dating or protein component experts were up to speed back then.
john sanders: it is a fallacy that confidence tricksters and fraudsters are necessarily insanely “ruthless and cunning” people. In fact, all they need to be is fractionally cleverer than their victim, which is usually not that great a challenge. 😉
Rene & Tom: given that a librarian in a Swiss monastery [without any real doubt] added quire numbers to the manuscript at least fifty years before the Jesuit order was founded, I think any notion of a Jesuit origin can be safely excluded, even with any “old vellum” scenarios.
Nick, I don’t doubt for a second that the MS predates the existence of the Society of Jesus.
They could have been involved in bringing the MS to Prague, but there are simply too many candidates.
Nick,
Please don’t read this as an antagonistic question, but when you say ” a librarian in a Swiss monastery [without any real doubt] added quire numbers to the manuscript”…
I could in theory accept that if the quire numbers are quire numbers (which you yourself have said is not certain). I could even accept that the hand which wrote them was probably that taught in a monastic order and/or in a pedagogic tradition within what is now Switzerland, but I cannot see that this proves the writer of those (supposed) quire numbers was a librarian or… even imagining that he was a librarian… that he could have written them no-where but in Switzerland.
We have manuscripts from England half-written in an English hand and half in an Italian hand, and in any case by the early fifteenth century the old monastic-scribal tradition was rapidly being replaced by the atelier. Even in the late fourteenth century, the Papal court in Avignon recruited religious and non-religious scribes from as far as modern Switzerland and so on.
So maybe they are quire-numbers, and maybe they are written by a hand trained in Switzerland. Maybe the hand was that of a monk, or maybe not. But how can you argue his profession or locality from the primary evidence?
It all hangs nicely as a theory, but I cannot see that the evidence permits so much.
Diane: what I have said is that the quire numbers do not all appear to have been written by the same hand, with 19 and 20 in particular apparently added by a later hand. However, the inferences (a) that the preceding quire numbers are genuine 15th century additions to the manuscript (added for the express purpose of binding the quires together), (b) that they were added in the same Swiss monastic environment as all the similar examples we have, and (c) that the manuscript was clearly being looked after in a librarian-like way at the time all seem so extraordinarily likely to me that I think “[without any real doubt]” should stand.
Yes, doubt remains: but doubt always remains, regardless of what you happen to be talking about. Doubts are like epistemological rats – you can’t get rid of them all, but you do the best you can. 🙂
Ethel for the archaic language skills and zest for nonsensical music scores, mother Mary for the algebraic and homeopathic herbal input and Wilfred for his masterly vision, salesmanship and audacity. Of course I took license with ‘ruthlessness’ and I’m sorry for that, if it turns out not to have been a contributing factor. Why did they send the manuscript all the way down to Pheonix; doesn’t Princeton have the means to undertake simple carbon dating tests these days; they certainly did when I was there……Sorry Nick, I can’t manage sighs and snide yellow faces on my antiquated equipment.
Good morning, y’all !
@Nick: I recommend a very coherent book (written by Jason Goodwin) : “Lords of the Horizons — A History of the Ottoman Empire”. I am referring this book (which is NOT a fairy tale) nor does it discuss gardens in particular. There is some discussion o f Busbecq and Lord Byron. There is also some discussion of the ‘tulip’. Also the ‘trellises of every sort’……. An Ottoman Chronology …..
No mention of a Mr. Voynich.
bd
John, if you know anything at all about paleography and forgery, you would know that it would have been extremely difficult for Ethel Boole to have forged dead-accurate hands for Jacobi de Tepenecz, plus the hand in the right-hand column on the first page, and the marginalia on the zodiac-symbol circles, and the marginalia on the last page in a different hand from the zodiac symbols, all of which are morphologically and temporally accurate renditions of Italic/Humanist (1r), and Gothic hands.
I’ve seen no evidence that she has this rare and very specialized skill, nor that she had access to enough information to reconstruct them so they were accurate as to time periods as well.
Also, if she forged a very accurate rendition of Jacobi’s signature on the first page, why would it have been removed? Books with old Ex Libris markings such as this one are worth more than those which have been defaced. Also, how would Ethel have known about Jacobi’s cataloging system? There is very little information on this even now and it would certainly not have been easy to obtain in the early 20th century or to choose a credible number.
Dear Rene,
Because I am convinced and remain so, that the venue for the creation of the VMS is India, I have a bit of a hill to climb to get the VMS to Italy. I embraced the idea that common interests such as calendar reform or maybe astrology or astronomy might be responsible for its transit from India to Italy. Your doubts as to whether the papal Villa Mondragone had the library where Voynich secured the manuscript bearing his name was a downer in the context of the sharing of calendar information. However your suggestion of Castelgandolfo as a possible depository for the VMS struck me as a good idea, particularly as a papal observatory exists there and the commonality of interests might have been astronomy. Unfortunately that observatory was not created until 1891. However, further reading on papal observatories turned up the interesting fact that the calendar reformer, Pope Gregory XIII, had his own observatory (“The Tower of Winds”) in Vatican City which he founded in 1578, four years before his calendar reform. That observatory may be among the oldest in the world and was manned by Jesuits.
Is it possible that the VMS made trips back and forth between the Vatican City and the Villa Mondragone? Is it possible that its allegedly being found in the Jesuit library at the Villa was not accidental? It may have avoided being packed off to the Vatican Library because of some presumed use both by the Vatican City observatory and studies at the Villa, beginning with Gregory but perhaps involving other later popes?
Cheers, Tom
Nick and Rene,
I have not argued for any specific time line for the transit of the VMS from India to Italy, only that it might have been of use in the calendar reform studies that the Roman Catholic church begun in 1545. The Jesuit order was created in 1534 and it could still be possible that the VMS was conveyed from India to Italy by the S.J. This is only one of many possibilities ; Jesuits are not essential in my speculations.
Cheers, Tom
J.K. Petersen: Not to mention the four hundred year old buffalo calf vellum, although I’m not totally convinced that those crafty old Victorian era proponents of the homeopathic dark arts didn’t devise a secret recipe for erasing, sanitising and rebirthing old preloved materials, preporitory for contriving such a masterpiece as the VM; so as to baffle the antequarian book freaks for all eternity. My experience is limited to mundane unsophisticed modern day paper forgeries which I was once tasked to investigate and prosecute in a criminal juristiction; this involving mere handwriting comparisons and the like. I have no knowledge whatsover of what it might have involved to produce a document like the VM hoax, if infact that is what it proves to be. I’d certainly like to add however, that I like to follow all the, at times, no holds barred combative interactions that transpire on the various Voynich Man. threads. I trust that I’m picking up something useful from you more enlightened folk and hope that my ignorance is not too obvious.
– You will understand, I’m sure that I most enjoy playing the devil’s advocate just to encourage the competitive spirit in you hardliners; in reallity I don’t have particular leanings towards one theory or another. In saying that, i’d certainly like someone to introduce meaningful discussion about the so called immediate post Hussite Moravian Brethren movement. This was the one promulgated after an unpopular settlement with the Vatican about 1430 by disgruntled adherants to Gregory the Patriot teachings as practised by his mixed group of Jesus flower children followers in Bohemia. These included the Adamites whose habits and rituals seem to have been quite consistant with pictorgrams displayed in your Voynich Manuscript. So if you could give this some consideration I would be most appreciative and thanks for your tutorials.
–
Didn’t go to yale either for that matter though I’m certain that old lux et veritas medieval campus would have had methodology for dating vellum parchment, after insuring that the titanium infused ink was dry enough to prevent smudging.
Lots is written about the radio-carbon dating of the Voynich MS by people who have no understanding of this. Just for the record:
– the Voynich MS was not sent to Arizona, but only the very small samples that were cut from it
– it wasn’t Phoenix but Tucson
– the measurement of Carbon-14 content of any sample is a highly complicated process requiring special facilities
– As far as I am aware, Princeton are not “into” radio-carbon dating and have no such facilities. I take this from the list of authors and their affiliations of some key publications on radio-carbon dating (and yes, Arizona is on that list, near the top).
On the last bullet I am (a bit) less than 100% certain. The question remains what it would take for Yale to ask support from Princeton, but that is a very different (and admittedly tongue-in-cheek) question…
Dear all, I did my graduate work (organic chemistry) at Princeton Univ. and so far as the chemistry dept was concerned, no carbon-dating work was being done there at that time, nor was I aware of any that had been done in the past. I think Rene is 100% correct in his above post.
The chemistry department was heavily weighted toward physical chemistry and in particular the study of the kinetics of chemical explosions. One mishap bent one of the steel structural girders supporting the Frick chemistry building but luckily, the students performing the experiment were not hurt.
Princeton had roughly the same number of undergraduate students as Yale or Harvard but Princeton is unusual in having only a tiny graduate school (a thousand or so when I was there in the ’60s), unlike Harvard with over 20K. Some departments at Princeton had just a handful of students, like art history. Also Princeton had no theology dept, medical faculty or law school, usually associated with Universities.
Princeton’s graduate school housing was isolated from the main campus by half a mile or so and was built around the English College quad system with entries, consequently was popular with Brits, who felt right at home. Incidentally, it was a squabble over having isolated graduate school housing that led to the departure of the president of Princeton, Woodrow Wilson, who became governor of NJ, then president of the US. Students at P.U. got mail delivered to their rooms as an amenity provided by Wilson as president of the US.
Incidentally, because iron gall inks such as used in the VMS likely had gum arabic admixed, and this derives from the acacia trees (largely of central Africa), it would in theory be possible to carbon date this ink component and consequently the ink.
Cheers, Tom
Dear John,
In your post of today (1-13-18) you mention “buffalo calf vellum”. I’d be interested in learning the source of the characterization of the VMS vellum as coming from buffaloes, presumably water buffaloes?
One of the most remarkable characteristics of the VMS is the incredibly few errors encountered in the enscription. I think most Voynichers accept the idea that it is a careful copy by two scribes from an original coded (or uncoded) plaintext, that has been lost. To argue that the VMS as we now find it, is a palimpsest prepared by some arcane process, is pushing devil’s advocacy to its limits. Much easier to argue that early 15th C vellum quires sat pristine for 500 years before being written on!
To drive a stake permanently through this idea, we need some way of dating the ink, either by diffusion into the vellum with age or carbon-dating some organic, former living component, of the ink, like a plant gum or grape-based wine (see Zyats, et al. in their essay to the facsimile).
Nick has done pioneering work (see “Curse”) by examining content and techniques seen in the VMS, like parallel hatching, swallow-tailed merlons, and number styles. Still, good forgers might have used this knowledge.
I think Voynichers should applaud anyone who is willing to go up against “received wisdom” with a rational attack. This questioning attitude lies at the heart of the scientific method as it will reveal where weaknesses lie in hypotheses . So go for it.
Cheers, Tom
Rene: Would I be correct in assuming that the fragment samples submitted for analysis, represented each of the four separate ategories contained within the 240 remaining pages of the original manuscript. If so, were they selected by a fairly convened random method to accord with a uncontentious acceptable definition in the spirit of fairness. Also when doing radio carbon dating, would a control sample have been necessary for a date range confirmation or does it not work that way. From my experience, if one were hoping to successfully prosecute an alleged forgery of a similar set of bound composite documents in any properly constituted court of law, it goes without saying that it would be an essential part of the ingredient proofs, that each and every page would have to be individually tested whether they were disputed or not. I think you might be prepared to conceed that any lesser degree of proof, such as the assumed manner of testing undertaken in Tucson would not satisfy the criteria I have just outlined. Just for the record I’m not suggesting malpractice by any stretch and to be equally fair, what more could have been done by scientific means to achieve better results; but the law is the law even though to may at times seem like an ass. I guess that is why in most of to-day’s debate, the 1404 to 1438 date range is not the only cause for discussion and dissention amongst the not always so humble, protagonistic though immaculately credentialed assemlee of Voynich theorists.
I’m thinking that if we can manage to account for the seemingly credible dating and set it to one side; then we can get down to the hat of the matter and try to aggressively attack what may appear as being obvious differences in both format, artistic quality and components of the subject matter. I have only given cursory attention to the doings of one of the two scribes/calliagraphers, so my view is probably flawed; what I see is a continuous similar repetitious rambling composed of very few vastly different word/letter forms ie. ‘goth….’ The compositer has possibly been distracted during his/her assemblage of meaningless construction and dropped in a little of his/her other known languages for good measure. I would not dispute for a minute that many of the pictogram segments are both authentic and of the correct era, but so what; that doesn’t support authenticity of a manunscript perse and later text inserts might well have been possible. I’m not into quire number formats or other elements as such and anyway no one else seems to agree with their form or correctness. In any case no one that I’m aware of, is contesting the period style of binding, this probably being due to the fact that modern day replication of an earlier period should not have been too difficult to accomplish. No doubt, available period materials and bookbinders skills being somewhat unchanged through the centuries, it might not have created many real authenticity problems for our jesters. So at the end of the day a fairly cleverly done composite hoax should be considered and placed on at least equal footing in terms of likely probability, along with all the others of course. So says an ever wary uncomitted cowardly old fence sitter; for the time being at least.
John,
the samples were selected in order to include the greatest possible variety:
the most different hands (herbal A vs. herbal B), different thicknesses of parchment (i.e. possibly different batches or different suppliers), and one foldout.
Furthermore, the bifolio that has the ex libris of Tepenec was sampled, as this allows a control. It is almost the only datable item in the MS.
The fact that all samples had C14 contents that coincided even more closely than the observation error of the method showed that they were all from the same age. Having four samples from one MS is actually a luxury.
Rene: All would seem to be in order to me; Glad to have put the question to someone so confident with the testing methodology and I’
m satisfied with both the outcome and conclusion reached.
Dear all,
I think all data on the VMS is not of equal value. I think the pigment assay done by McCrone assoc. is of later coloration and not of the original coloration. The original coloration can be discerned by careful inspection, particularly of the botanicals. There the colorist(s) were skillful and stayed within the spice/herb/plant delineations. At least two and maybe more retintings can be observed and unfortunately, all the examples used by McCrone were of later applications of colorants, either water color, gouache.
or perhaps a light oil-based paint such as poster paint.
John, was the buffalo calfskin you mention for real or just spoofing?
Cheers, Tom
John, To say that Hussites were unpopular with the papacy is an understatement. Jan Huss was burned at the stake for advocating mass for all, not just priests. He gets less that due to him for really launching the reformation. That’s how I see it anyway.
Buffalo calf: still waiting!
Cheers, Tom
John, et al.,
Skins of the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) would seem useless for vellum. Two types of buffaloes exist, both originating on the Indian subcontinent and further East in Asia: 1) the river variety and 2) the swamp variety. Although they have differing numbers of chromosomes, they are still considered to be of the same species. Another almost extinct species, the “wild water buffalo” exists (Bubalus arnee) exists for which four subspecies are known. All have skin ranging from SLATE GREY TO BLACK, even at birth. Albinos are known to occur in some populations of the domesticated buffaloes, but are uncommon. Incidentally, a population of B. bubalis was introduced into Italy ca. 600 AD.
It seems to me that to argue that water buffalo vellum was used for the VMS, one would have to argue for albino skins to have been used and this seems improbable but not impossible. DNA analysis of the VMS vellum would put the matter to rest and would take way less material than carbon 14 dating. Perhaps follicle density examination might be possible and might also distinguish between cow and buffalo. That would have the advantage of being non destructive.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: Actually my earlier reference to Buffalo vellum was intended as a jestful barb aimed at iur good friends of the New World VM origin school; perhaps bison would have been a better choice of words. That being said, I think you may have to look closely at the suitability of an indiginous European bovine species ‘Bufala Med. Italiana’ of the dairy variety. Said to have been introduced to the Campania region and others in Roman times as a draught animal, it spread rapidly being rather highly reproductive. Towards the end of the first millenium, mass culling might well have been introduced to keep resulrant feral herds down and if so, it would seem that calf skins may have been in quite an abundant surplus at about the time of our particular interest. I’m sure that attempts would likely have been made to convert the hides to many useful purposes, which wiuld likely have included a form of durable parchment called vellum. In turn such material would not only be useful and cheap to produce, but could assumedly prove useful as an item of commerce with neighboring regions or even further afield. Does this scenario change yiur opinion in any way Tom, or do you still maintain that NO buffalo hide would have been suitable as a potential source of vellum parchment, even if as a lower grade variety, like the quality used in a certain manuscript.?. cheers js.
John, The breed you mention is still a water buffalo and of the river type. It is a good milk producer as you mention and famous in the Campania region for a “Mazzarella di Bufa campana”.
It still seems to me unlikely that its skins would be suitable for vellum as the skin color is just too dark: grey to black, as already mentioned. I have actually never seen a water buffalo in India or Italy (or anywhere for that matter) and have relied on ‘Wiki’ for background.
I did like your idea immediately, as I think India is a likely venue for the VMS creation. Albinoid water buffalo skins could be invoked as a vellum source but this is a stretch. Still, the idea might have occurred to scribes? The animals are huge and this would have been ideal for vellum preparation.
BTW, A few Voynichers do hold out for a New World origin of the VMS (that stupid “sunflower” being one of their chief arguments). I doubt they would detect the teasing humor in your buffalo (bison) remark and would grab at the idea with both hands. Still it would be useful to have the DNA of the VMS vellum determined to prove the origin of the vellum, once and for all!
Cheers, Tom
Tom: In so far as physical appearance goes, our two varieties, the Mediteranean and the typical river variety of India & Asia, they most assuredly seem to derive from a common ancestor. I’m fortunate to have near access to some of the latter type which I actually see on my morning outings most days. Less than an our ago I was privy to be close up to a young mum and her almost full grown calf, both animals displaying hides of a mid – tone greyish hue, not dark at all. The youngster in particular is very light grey and seemingly hairless for much of it’s hind quarter rump area and apart from the fairly pronounced horn protrusion, it may as well be any old poddy calf. I was’nt able to talk to the farmer, who is usually in close proximity, however I’d be prepared to say (with wiki help) that new born buffs can come in all colour configurations including pinkish brown and even white with no albino gene; many also have distinctly white hocks. Whether this information tends to help or hinder the proposition for a VM Indian subcontinental origin, who’s to know; points for and agin I’d guess, but one thing well worth noting is that we can sure come up with some diverse and most interesting discussion points. cheers, js
John, Since you’ve actually seen calves of the Mediterranean type and note that they are light grey and your research indicates that even lighter skin colors can be found, I will defer to your observations/research. What topics did you research on Wiki?
I think that your observations really stress the importance of DNA analysis of the VMS vellum to settle what I think all would agree is an important point.
It would also be interesting to know whether the grey color is on the surface only or penetrates throughout the thickness of the skin. If on the surface, then maybe bleaching by exposure to sunlight or chemicals or scraping could produce the light cream color of the VMS?
Have you by chance, any knowledge of fetal buffalo calves? Often unborn animals (goats, sheep, cows) provided the most prized skins for parchments. Maybe unborn buffalo calves are really light in color?
Cheers, Tom
Tom: My observations were actually of the Sth East Asian working variety. I had been thinking along the same lines as yourself about unborn calves and also the depth of hide penetration of colour. My research has been rather scant I’m afraid but I’ll certainly give the matter more attention. cheers, js
Rene: I understand that the sampling material would have theoretically had a common derivation comprised of treated animal skins, presumably of a bovine nature similar to the control item which was of an known historical age. Post mortem treatment of the VM vellum parchment would have necessitated introduction of various carbon based chemical compounds of both vegetable and mineral types, thereaby creating an end product of a composite nature. How then would the radio carbon dating proceedure be able to discriminate between the age of the harvest hide in it’s original form and that following the tanning process with materials obtained from sources of a different age. I guess the same could be said for the control’s own make up, which was possibly treated by a different process yet again. Over the years the manuscript was most likely subjected to various forms of insect based infestation which likely went unchecked until fairly recent times; yet another element necessary to identify and discriminate to ensure accuracy of the dating process. I’m not disputing the results by any stretch, just inquisitive in my old untutored non scienticic mind that’s all.
Would any one like to3 comment as to why we still have no reliable identification for our vellum hide species or geographical region associated with it’s historical migrations or introduction to domesticity.
John, et al., The usual calf skin can be bleached by exposure to lime and sunlight. Perhaps water buffalo skins would respond the same way and light grey (the lightest skin shade I ran across) could end up the mellow tan or creme color of the VMS?
I note that water buffaloes of all species have sparce hair, sometimes close to bare. It would seem profitable to examine closely the VMS vellum for a follicle count per square cm. This data may exist and maybe Rene is aware of it?
Cheers, Tom
Is there any reason why we should not be discussing the entirely credible possibility of latter day forgery and subsequent cleverly orchestrated utterance using a doctored process of converting period vellum/parchment using the palimpsest process of rebirthing original materiel for facilitation thereof. Considering that we don’t seem to have made any real progress on identifying the pigment/ink application materials or their age, I’m now even more suspicious. Mary Boole Everest and her two close relatives Ethel and Wilfred Voynich may just have pulled an old Irish reparterical blarney hoax upon us all. No ulterior motives other than to get one back on dumb ass intellegencia would have been sufficient reward; an hillarious means of payback for years of contempt shown by their highbrow critics, relating to otherwise creditable achievements in their various fields of endeavour.
Tom: Yes I can see now that not too many heavy metal substances like tanning alum to worry us, although the possibilty of certain non descript sulphides might prove bothersom depending. It does seem that our ubiquitous humble water buffalo does indeed take many historical forms which would tend to aid regional identification if necessary. With regard to hair; from my not too many interactions with our Can Tho Delta variety, it does seem that the calves do have quite an abundance at birth and they’re the ones we would be most interested in apart of course from stillborns and fetals. The habit of scraping and rolling in dry mud is obviously a reason for apparent hair sparcity in adults, so I’d say that hair follicles could prove to be deceptively high.
John, In my humble opinion, you are embarked on a mighty hill to climb to prove that the whole VMS is a huge palimpsest. The would mean scraping BOTH sides of every page and leaving no trace visible by eye or spectroscopy. Recall the work by Rene to show up that Tepenec ex libris annotation? I think there may be a few palimpsests visible in the VMS and the most visible is that of f38r where one yang symbol has been scraped off. It is my guess that the fern like plant shown has some male use (aphrodisiac?) and that a conscientious delineator has excised one yang, leaving five. One fern leaf was good for five doses of something or other but not six. During the palimpsest operation, a tear was created (seen most clearly on f38v) and the effort to recolor the fern was inferior to the original.
Recall also the famous Archimedes palimpsest that I think Bill Gates owns. The original, visible only with UV dealt with flotation as I recall but was covered by some medieval prayer, added much later. When writing on vellum is done, the skin fibers are disturbed and, even after scraping, the depressed vellum outlining the original text iremains visible by UV. You would have to posit some really unusual arcane process to prepare a palimpsest that would evade spectroscopy.
I suppose the question does remain and that is why a palimpsest wasn’t done of some prized vellum that dated to the early 15th C and dealt with weird topics that defied understanding and was written in a language that no one has been able to read?
Cheers, Tom
John, et al., If you have the annotated facsimile (that are approaching the status/price of a remaindered book), I recommend you buy one. It includes essays, one of which is the essay by Zyats and coworkers, that indicates that the vellum hasn’t been subjected to a DNA analysis. However this essay indicates that an amino acid sequence of the vellum protein has been done and this indicates the vellum is from cow calves. Water buffalo skins do remain a possibility until it can be shown that an amino acid sequencing of their hides differs from that of the VMS vellum.
I think your point on follicle density is well taken and even nearly bald water buffalo skin will have a high density,
On the treatment of the VMS vellum, it was NOT subjected to tanning agents (as it wasn’t intended for leather uses; this would not apply however to the later VMS leather cover) but only quicklime and water, producing “slaked” lime or Ca(OH)2. Then scraping to remove the alkalinized surface layer. Evidently the surface does remain slightly alkaline as I have not seen procedures for neutralization, like exposure to acids.
The preparation of the VMS samples, that Rene has described above, would NOT have used organic solvents that had originated from once living organisms. Garden variety solvents of reagent grade like hexane, ethyl acetate, acetone, etc. would likely have been used to wash off all skin oils from handling (like those from Umberto Ecco’s fingers!) and the traces remaining in the vellum, after evaporation and preparation for carbon-14 analysis that would surely have involved exposure to additional high vacuum. Zyats et al, should have indicated which organic solvent(s) was/were used. If I were involved in solvents used to prepare the VMS vellum,I would have used a freon. The solvent chemicals COULD have involved once-living organisms if petrochemicals had been involved and impure mixtures. But, many industrial chemicals could have involved the calcium carbide route, i.e. Ca(CO3) –>(heat)—> CaC—>H2O—>Ca(OH)2 + acetylene. A complete chemistry has been developed from acetylene (Reppe in WW1 Germany). Calcium carbonate is available from CO2 +CaO. Simply exposure of a solution of Ca(OH)2 to air forms CaCO3. Carbon dioxide in the air would have traces of C-14 as it is steadily being produced in the upper atmosphere. but this would have been used as a control by the Univ. of AZ.
I think another palimpsest appears in the VMS on f55v where two small zones have been scraped. One can see clearly two applications of color, particularly visible along the plant stem.
Cheers, Tom
John, et al., What I should also have mentioned is that any residual Ca(OH)2 left in the vellum of the VMS gets converted from CO2 in the air to CaCO3 and this would have a useful buffering effect against acids. Cheers, Tom
Tom: Just the sort of responses I was hoping to elicit from one who has my sought information on tap. My most rudimentary knowledge of old mediaeval anything stands out I’m certain, though I am a little further advanced with matters relating to animal husbandry with my farming background. Back to the hoax theory, it is well documented that Mary Boole was into herbal remedies and a homeopath to boot, with a big chip on her shoulder towards the inintelligencia of her time. What is little known is that Sir George Everest, Surveyor General of India was her favorite uncle and would certainly have plied her with stories about his forty years in the Himalayan valleys with Shangri La style enchanted village scenes and quaint contented diminuitive inhabitants; just like those portrayed in VM.
It was based on a solvent series comprised of hexane, ethanol, methanol, and water, to remove lipids and oils that might have accumulated in the parchment from handling. Then: a standard chemical treatment (known as acid –base-acid or ABA) consisting of sequential extractions with mineral acids and bases. This was to remove acid and base soluble contaminants using carbon-free reagents.
(Paraphrasing the unpublished report).
Rene, Thanks for the detail on the solvents and acid-base treatment of the VMS vellum that were used to prepare it for carbon 14 dating. I am guessing that hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide would have been the A and B? Because ethanol is easily made by fermentation of sugar and this could be from a recently harvested source like sugar cane and methanol could be made from reduction of formaldehyde. Methanol would be volatile and easily removed by evaporation and any last trace removed by azeotroping with water. In short, the concerns of John Sanders over the solvents interfering with accurate carbon-14 dating seem answered and of no consequence.
Cheers, Tom
John, Your account of Sir George Everest’s accounts that Voynich’s wife would have heard is a useful bit of information and I thank you for it. I am working on the hypothesis that the Kalash people of northern Pakistan could be the models for the bathing and zodiac nymphs. These people are pale-skinned, often blonde and blue-eyed. DNA indicates these are NOT related to the Greeks as claimed by the conventional belief that these people were left behind by Alexander the Great. They are instead migrants from South Central Europe.
There are heated mineral water pools in the Himalayas that even have crocodiles (see f79v for what I think is a croc (the horse is included for scale)). I think the croc was added later and the large fish devouring a nymph was based on hearsay of some giant fish capable of eating a human. The Kalash women wear very elaborate head bands, decorated with beads and I think are shown many places in the VMS. More on this topic anon.
How have you ascertained that the VMS nymphs are of diminutive size?
Cheers, Tom
Tom: I seem to recall there been ample evidence of several kinds of large fish of the large scaled grass carp and goonch varieties, as well as giant salamanders and at least two varieties of crocodilus species that were reported to be man eating by inhabitants of those regions nestled along the Himalayan river run offs. Obviously some of the stories would be legendary accounts and others at least fanciful to a degree, yet that really doesn’t matter in the context that Voynich creatures don’t necessarilly have to be based on absolutely factual beasts as can readilly be seen in some of the more outlandish form. Whilst not having any particular knowledge of the distinctive characteristics of the Kalash people, I understand that this certainly been commented on since at least British East India Co. early years of exploring the northern regions of the eastern Indus valley. Philanthropists have further commented on the proposition of likely dual migration patterns between peoples of central Europe and these regions. My diminuitive comment regarding the majority of the nyphs, merely refers to their rather comical short bow legged body type, their elfin features and their relationship in size to the proportionately larger things in their sphere of movement, which of course could well be deceptive. Cheers js.
John, et al.,
All of the calendar/zodiac depictions of the VMS are of the standard type, e.g. Sagittarius, Gemini etc. EXCEPT one, and that one is Oct -Nov where there should be a scorpion in the center rondel (see f73r). Instead there appears to be a fairly decent rendering of a crocodile. Few have commented on this as though it could be some kind of scorpion (4 legs?).
If one examines the ecliptic with the constellations around it, the scorpion barely makes it. Only one star (beta) of its head lies on the ecliptic, all the other stars are way below the ecliptic. Another constellation that is unusual in being of two parts, serpens caput and sepens cauda (serpent head and tail, respectively) intrudes on the scorpio space, along with a star or two from Ophiuchis, the serpent attacker.
I propose that non-European astrologers have inserted an animal that certainly looks to me like a crocodile into the rondel that should have had a scorpion.
Incidentally, that Himalayan croc. (Crocodylus paustrus) is interesting in that it is smaller (6-7 ft max) and tends to resemble the New World alligator. The Hindi word for crocodile is “magar” which became anglicized as “muggar”,so the trivial name “muggar crocodile” is used in the West. The crocs are found in the Hindu Kush thermal springs (temps are ca. 29 Celsius) in a side valley (Lotkoh) from the main Chitral Valley in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Attacks on adults are rare. See also “Hot Soaks of the Himalayas” as well as the blog (brianglynwilliams.com) of Brian G. Williams based upon his thesis of Oct. 15, 2015 .
Marco Polo or annotators have commented on the fair-skinned people of northern India (see Book 1, chapter XVIII, pp 98-101) and the Chitral valley (chapter XXXI, pp 165-166) in what is now Pakistan. suggesting they result from from a Tatar or European father and an Indian or Mongol mother. These people were called Caraonas and were considered to be bandits, or bare minimum to have been dodgy in business transactions.
John, I hope you can put forward more convincing proof for the diminutive size of the VMS nymphs. If you can really prove this, and I remain unconvinced, this could be a lead to the venue where the VMS originated. Bow legs and elfin features doesn’t do it for me!
Cheers, Tom
Thomas wrote: “I propose that non-European astrologers have inserted an animal that certainly looks to me like a crocodile into the rondel that should have had a scorpion.”
I have documented the “lizard” Scorpios in a couple of blogs (including a map to show where they originated), and they appear to me to have originated in northern France (possibly inspired by one in Spain, but possibly also an independent invention) sometime around the 11th century. There are also a few “turtle” Scorpios (see Von Bingen) and a couple of frog Scorpios.
The word Scorpio is used to describe a certain lizard in central Europe and the name was also quickly applied by early colonists to a lizard endemic to eastern North America.
In England, they adapted a dragon-Scorpius which looks a bit like the lizard Scorpio but can be distinguished fairly well as a dragon (sometimes wings and usually two legs or four legs plus wings).
The “lizard” Scorpius shows up in various media (not just astrology-related manuscripts) between the 11th and 16th centuries, and while it is not very common, it does appear to be part of a minor European tradition, especially in parts of Europe where most people have never seen a scorpion.
John, There is also a constellation “Lacerta” (the lizard) but it is way off the ecliptic and more directly overhead. It is also of recent creation.
The question naturally arises: Why adopt all the known constellations of the ancient zodiac but NOT a scorpion? Your argument that it was a creature unknown to most Europeans seems a reach to me. Some like the bow-drawing centaur used for Sagittarius are mythological yet still appear in most depictions of the zodiac, although a cross-bowman was used in the VMS. So the fundamental element of the zodiac image involving a drawn bow is still used.
If the creature in the rondel for Nov. is supposed to be a familiar lizard, it is poorly depicted with a massive body and tail, not flatish with legs more splayed out to the sides.
Why on earth bring in eastern North America, which had not been discovered until many decades after the time the VMS vellum was prepared?
I am open to argument and would appreciate links to the blogs you mention.
Cheers, Tom
Tom, I brought in eastern North America, because the colonists BROUGHT THE NAME SCORPIO from the European lizard and applied it to the eastern North American lizard. It is an example of how the word “scorpio”, in their minds, was associated with a lizard.
How they drew and sculpted it in medieval Europe is variable, sometimes more dragon-like, sometimes more tarask-like, sometimes more amphibian-like… these are medieval drawings where horses are drawn like dogs, ants are drawn like bears, beavers are drawn like boars and bears, rams are drawn like horses, and mythological creatures like serpents and dragons abound and often influence the way real fauna are drawn.
You are proposing a crocodile from a distant land. That’s fine. But why dismiss the fact that the word “scorpio” was in general use by Europeans to describe a lizard (both in Europe and in North America once they migrated there), and that they used a lizardy creature to represent Scorpius in zodiacs in church friezes, stained glass, manuscripts, and mosaics, mostly in northern France and central Europe beginning around the 11th century? There’s a selection of pictures of them on my blog if you don’t believe me.
Tom, what kind of animal does this look like to you? An odd drawing of a dog? An overhead view of a kangaroo?
BVMM Montpellier H 437 page 9 (sorry, Nick’s blog wouldn’t let me post links)
Despite the fact that it’s drawn like a fairly beefy mammal, it’s clearly identified in the text as “salemandres” (salamander)—an amphibian.
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In the same text, Scorpius is a lizardy creature (I hadn’t seen this zodiac at the time I wrote the blog, I believe it was brought to our attention by MarcoP):
BVMM Montpellier H 437 page 15 (zodiac rota)
Something else I noticed when studying the zodiac in Montpellier H437 is that Capricorn has lines on its back similar to the critter on the last page of the VMS and the hooves are rounded like paws (also like the VMS). I have searched thousands of manuscripts trying to find hoofs-like-paws and they are definitely in the minority.
Tom: Obviously you are most familiar with stories of the lost children of Alexander, the light skinned Kalash goat worshiper/herders of Tsiam, who eventually put down roots in the Chitral region of the Hindu Kush valley by the end of the first milenium AD. I think Robertson? was the main authority, though a number of more recent authors have given views on the customs and philanthropy of these interesting mysterious peoples. It would be quite interesting to ascertain possible reasons for replacing a scorpion with a lizard (or salamander) in the VM zodiac roundel. All I’m able too come up with would be along the lines of religious tabus prohibiting its use in that it had deity status in many of the Eastern religion rites. I’ll need to give some more thought to my ‘diminutive’ remark and attempt to come up with something more logic based for consideration. By the way Tom, your last comment should have been directed to J.K. Petersen. Cheers js
John and JK, et al.,
Two points. A quick search of “Scorpion Wikipedia” indicates the taxonomy is pretty complex with 13 known families, a bunch of subfamilies and over 1750 species. All are arachnids, eight legs with a tail, usually curved over its back and a stinger that is venomous to a lesser or greater degree. The front two legs are transformed to crab-like pincers. According to Wiki, they are found on every continent except Antarctica and prefer a sub tropical or tropical habitat, ideally between 23 and 38 degrees of north latitude. They abound in India right up to the Himalayas but are also found in southern Italy as well.
I cannot see a scorpion in the Oct-Nov zodiac rondel but to me, the four-legged beast shown there most closely resembles a crocodile. If it were a lizard depiction for that rondel critter, where are the characteristic legs that would be splayed out to the sides from a flatish body? Instead we see four legs more or less under a rounder body with a huge tail. I think on really close examination with a hand lens,this creature has the body of a small child in its jaws but this part of the image becomes difficult to see clearly as a result of a careless job of coloration.
I have some problems also with this zodiac creature as I am leaning to India as a venue for the VMS creation and scorpions were well known in India, so why not use it? I suspect that the Indian astrologers, who were advanced and sophisticated, knew that scorpio barely made the ecliptic and chose to fill the gap instead with a croc., known from the Hindu-Kush area. As John opines, maybe a religious reason lay behind replacing scorpio with something else like a croc.? Or a salamander, might fit as JK argues. The European Fire Salamander has toxins but not venoms. A venom is defined as a toxin that is injected.
I’ll just quickly lay out my thinking on the pale-skinned nymphs and how they can coexist with the usual darker skinned Indians. I simply did a search for blonde blue-eyed Hindu females and got an absolute avalanche of soft porn. But on close examination of some of the hits, I got a bingo and was led to the Kalash people of northern Pakistan in the Hindu-Kush (past the Swat region into the Chitral valley). This turned up the additional factoid that many young women wore head bands, fashioned with gems and beads, that I think are depicted in the VMS, particularly sported by the bathing nymphs. I checked my well-thumbed “Travels of Marco Polo” and found that he does comment on fair- skinned offspring of a European or Tatar father and an Indian or Mongol mother. I think these people (now an endangered people protected by the Pakistan government) are offspring of migrants from South Central Europe and have nothing to do with Alexander the Great’s leaving troops behind to control the region. Initially DNA evidence seemed to support a Greek background for the Kalash people but more definitive DNA analysis rules this out. The Kalash people who live on the steep hillsides of valleys in the Chitral area, never converted to Islam, but practice Hinduism mixed with Animism. Some of their doorposts resemble closely some Hindu chakras that I think are seen in the VMS (see f68v1 with a 16-spoked wheel). These and ram’s heads may serve as tribal totems? (speculation of Brian G. Williams “The Lost Children of Alexander the Great: a Journey to the Pagan Kalash People of Pakistan” that includes some useful photographs). One would have to extrapolate back in time to the early 15th C, but these people might have been more numerous. Islamic warriors swept though the region in the 8th C but didn’t bother the hill side dwellers.
On John’s guess that the nymphs of the VMS were diminutive, I have searched the VMS for some way to scale the bathers and i can find only one possibility, and that is f84r. It might serve if we assume the “arch-like” depictions are roughly 10 feet or so in height, i.e. twice the height of a five-foot tall bather? That is a weak argument however as it makes an assumption that could be unjustified. Still, I think this could be an important point if John can find more convincing evidence for the nymph heights. If short, then it seems to me, we move north to places like Nepal and Tibet although again extrapolating to what the heights were in the 15th C as depicted in the VMS would be tricky.
JK,, Can you cite the illustration in the VMS (“the last page”?) where you are looking at some animal’s hooves? You have really labored mightily on this topic!!
Cheers, Tom
Thomas, did you look at the salamander in Montpellier H437 that I mentioned above?
It looks like a cross between a kangaroo, a dog, and a crocodile. It is a salamander. It is labeled as a salamander (and I’ve seen many other medieval salamanders and lizards that look just like it, along with ants that look like bears and beavers that look like deer-dogs).
Did you look at the scorpios on my blog that look like lizards? The ones on the map??
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You keep saying it looks like a crocodile, but that’s how they DREW lizards and salamanders (and a number of other creatures) in the Middle Ages.
Tom: You’ll no doubt be aware that in many cultures, their deities forbid the replication of images of certain animals with Godlike status, depending on the depiction and its position within a certain scene. For instance a scorpion would not work within a zodiac roundel for some adherents of a particular order, hence simply changing it to some like form such as a crayfish (cherax) which by default might then be mistaken as representing the cancer zodiac by some latter day examiner. Others may get away with disguising a sacred animal by altering leg counts for certain arachnids to suggest a tortoise for instance and other such means, hence making it difficult to obtain an identification at all. On another matter which does still relate to deity law; it seems that water buffalo never enjoyed the same sacred rites status as the brahmin cow, for instance, so it could be slaughtered, aborted or skinned alive as deemed appropriate for its somewhat heavy duty parchment paper. No wonder we don’t hear too much about Hindustani brahmin calf vellum these days. Cheers js
John and JK, et al.,
John, I agree that religious sensibilities might preclude some or even ALL living things as possible objects of veneration or worship. Judaism and Islam would come to mind. Both ban even plants. And disguising an animal such as subtracting legs from a scorpion to create some make-believe creature might still allow that animal a public use, such as in a zodiac. But the question then naturally arises, why have a fairly good representation (in the VMS) of fish, a goat, bull, lion or a crab. The crab, it has to be admitted, is a bit strange because 1) it is found paired (as with the zodiac symbol) and in this case also light and dark ) and 2) it has 4 legs per side; the front legs not serving as claws. It has been noted (Wiki) that sometimes crayfish (as you also comment) or lobsters were used for cancer. I suppose it could be argued that the crabs have been disguised either for religious reasons or (I think) lack of familiarity.
I think all will agree that the zodiac representations in the VMS are idiosyncratic, light and dark sections for the goat and bull for example. Anyway, John, I accept your point that some zodiac creatures might have been disguised for religious reasons and because they represent non-existent animals passed muster. Still, that rondel for November that I think is a croc is a fairly decent replica of the real thing although I would admit, the legs are too much under the animal and not directed outward. Am I the only viewer who sees the body of a baby between its jaws, little head downward, rest of body above the jaws? The facsimile which has been slightly enlarged from the original photocopies online, makes this, to my eyes anyway, more clear-cut.
You raise the topic of whether cow skin hide would be possible in India where the cow is held as a holy animal. Good point! If we assume on the basis of amino acid analyses, that the VMS does use cowhide, then assuming India was the source does pose a problem. To skirt this point, one could argue that the vellum was imported from a source outside India but I would admit it does weaken the argument for an Indian venue for the VMS.
J.K., I will take your word and accept your research that the rondel for November represents a salamander. But if I am correct that it has a human baby between its jaws (note above comments to John), it would argue that it is a croc. drawn to resemble a salamander. If it really is a croc, then I think the animal is non-European. Richard Freeman “Crocodiles in Europe” concludes that they might have occupied swampy land in Spain in antiquity but are not found in contemporary Europe. This, to me, is the importance of identifying to the satisfaction of all, whether the rondel for November depicts an unusual animal, like a croc., not found in Europe.
The VMS illustration at the bottom of f79v, depicts, I think two crocs, one in the pool of water and one on land with a presumably normal-sized horse drawn for scale. If that ID is correct, then the size of the croc-salamander would be huge.
Cheers, Tom
Nick,
BTW, here is the link to the scientific paper by Dr. Greg Kondrak that I mentioned in previous post. (Or just google `Decoding Anagrammed Texts Written in an Unknown Language and Script`)
https://www.transacl.org/ojs/index.php/tacl/article/view/821/174
Dear all,
Oops. In my post above (Jan. 24 ,2018) I referred to goats being represented among the zodiac animals of the VMS. This was an error. The month identified as Aries (April) uses a dark (f70v1) and light (f71r) RAM (male sheep) in the two rondels of 15 days each that comprise the month,, NOT a light and dark goat. The goat was reserved for Capricorn (Jan), and has been removed from the VMS along with Aquarius (water bearer, Feb) ; these two have been missing from the VMS, likely since the early 17th C (see “Curse”. p 21).
Sorry for misleading, Tom
Tom: Yes I can see what appears to be a newborn babe in swaddling wraps, though whether it’s actually in the jaws of the creature you rather generously refer to as being a crocodile is difficult to fathom. It would seem to depend on if one depicts the jaws as being fully visible or if the lower jaw be concealed by the childs body in its grasp. Actually, if it be a saurine reptile, the give away protruding eyes look more cayman like in appearance than old world crocodile, which would be troubling to some of us I guess. Of course the babylike object may be something else altogether, perhaps merely a root formation of the accompanying flower form upon which the animal is superimposed. On another point, I’m fairly satified that most of the nymphs depicted, are merely rosy cheeked pleasantly plump, pre pubiscent girls in good health, having a great time together in the pool. You’ll note the flushed rosy cheeks, the lack of pubic hair and smallish firm breasts in particular. In one scene a male child of similar age can be seen joining in the fun without causing a fuss, then in another, an older girl interloper with longish braids is being ejected by a supervisory adult. There is yet one more female of somewhat older appearance seemingly having her period well away from the pool scene and also one other who is possibly in labor, being attended by a nurse. I have other related things to add which may not be well received by some, but these can keep for a more opportune time. Cheers js
John,
First off, I concur that the nymphs are more girl-like than woman-like, an idea that, in addition to your detailed anatomical observations and believable narrative, I think is supported by head-bands worn by young women of the Kalash people of what is now Northern Pakistan. Head bands are observed on nymphs seen on f75v, 80r, 80v, 81r, 81v, 82r,84r and 84v. These are seen mainly in the balynological section where the pools are evidently shallow mineral springs as indicated by the occasional floating nymph cf.. f75r, 78r) and the waters being knee- to hip-deep only. I think it is likely they are thermal as well indicated by the green tint. The temperature evidently can be adjusted by the addition of cold fresh water, (blue water in bucket) as seen in f84r. Some hot water (small red tub? ) may also be added for a fine tuning of the water temps?
The Himalayan muggar croc (Crocodylus paustrus) is described as more like the New World alligator than the Old World crocodile, although smaller. It lives in the same thermal springs as used by people, and coexists, not bothering adults but children can be at risk. Perhaps f79v indicates that some pool creatures are not benign?
Back to the zodiac: I think the November rondel does show a croc.-salamander munching on a luckless infant but I’d admit that the image is problematical on that point and the depiction of the croc. as well. I can accept that the drawing was based on hearsay and am willing to accept J.K.’s point that a salamander depiction and name for crocs. was common in Europe. Still, if we accept that its jaws are clamped on a baby, that would represent a challenge for any salamander.
We need the technological visualization skills of Zandbergen to shed more light on this hypothesis!
John, I am not certain what you mean by “a root formation of the accompanying flower form”. I think the “flower form” is a star representing a day, and like those always held by the zodiac nymphs and in some other rondels (see Virgo and Pisces), so it represents another day. Thus, that calendar month has 31 days. Four days indicated by the nymphs at the top, 16 in the outer ring and 10 jammed into the inner ring (note the poor spacing) and one more day held by the croc.-salamander. I think each zodiac nymph represents a depiction of “mother earth” and is equivalent to one day. Each day is named.
Finally, you have astutely picked out the occasional male frolicking with the girls. I think there are one or two in the zodiacs but will have to go over my notes again on that point. I have puzzled over what appears to be a male among the “mother earths”??
Cheers, Tom
I would love to know what Nick or others on this forum think about the findings reported by Hauer and Kondrak in the scientific paper I mentioned in the previous post. (With AlphaGo/AlphaZero making such progress in Chess and Go in such short time, perhaps AI can be a useful tool for learning more about the VM). A short summary of the paper was given in one of our local Canadian newspapers as such:
“The first step is to try and find out what the language is. He and his co-author Bradley Hauer took the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and translated it into 380 languages. Using powerful Artificial Intelligence, and a series of complex statistical procedures and algorithms, they were able to get a computer to identify the correct language up to 97 per cent of the time.
Then they went after the Voynich code. Putting the manuscript through the same statistical procedure yielded the hypothesis that it was written in Medieval Hebrew. The letters in each word, they found, had been reordered. Vowels had been dropped.
Its complete first sentence, according to computer algorithms, is “She made recommendations to the priest, man of the house and me and people.” “
Rene, Could you apply the same kind of expertise you used to uncover the name of the one-time owner of the VMS, Terpenecz, to the rondel for November,(f73r) with that curious croc-like (maybe salamander) creature? Not only do I think it is chomping down on some hapless infant that you might be able to see more clearly BUT I wonder if the “Scorpio” that should have been in the rondel for Nov. has been excised by a palmipsest. We may be seeing the second iteration of the original zodiac animal? The area surrounding the “croc.-salamander” looks very smudgy. It surrounds the animal like an aura but it appears not as intense as “foxing”. Cheers, Tom
Maziar Badii: in general, AI is an awesomely productive tool for generating overfitted false positives – and Hauer and Kondrak look to be offering no obvious exception to this rule, Voynich-wise. They write: “The results presented in this section could be interpreted either as tantalizing clues for Hebrew as the source language of the VMS, or simply as artifacts of the combinatorial power of anagramming and language models.” Errrm… I’d agree wholeheartedly with the latter half of this, but not at all with the first half, sorry.
Tom: One man’s star, another’s flower (centre); a girl’s headband for you and a daisy chain for me; then there’s the mugger croc as opposed to the mythical, giant salamander, which would be to the Kalesh, what the wicked troll represented to kids of medieval western culture perhaps. What we can agree on is that the woman being devoured by a goonch, has strayed from the enclosed safe pond to a part of the river where nasty beasts abound, so depicts the need for extreme caution when bathing alone, such as would be accompanied by period isolation or perhaps by a similar call to nature.
There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that the ornate cannon-like tubes, four of which are represented in VM, are in fact de-commissioned cannons which have been rendered unserviceable by blown or flowered barrels. This is evidenced by peeling of the muzzle ends on two of the examples caused by separation of the tube strips in front of the pressure band, a fairly common occurrence in this earlier composite pre cast type. They have the appearance of being of Ottoman origin as used during the Bayezid 1 reign from the late 14th to early 15th centuries. As to how our VM subjects aquired them and to what alternate use they were put, I can’t imagine unless they were left behind at the battle of Ankara and collected as war trophies by his Turko-Mongol conquerors or maybe even post war nomads.
Tom: I and others have looked closely at the physical pages for any faint glimmer of erased text beneath the Voynichese, but have to date failed to find so much as a hint. 🙁
Tom: The Kalash may have gotten hold of their war surplus cannon from Tibur, when he was held up crossing the Indus River into Northern Pakistan in 1398, on his way down to Delhi for it’s timely sacking on December 17th. He apparently had experienced some problems up north in September with the locals under the handy Mughul warlord Meerut, so may have left some spiked tubes behind for the locals to souvenir.
Dear Tom,
I haven’t done any image enhancing processing to bring out hidden text.
As JKP already mentioned, and I can confirm from my own much less intensive observations, the creature in the centre is not at all unusual or out of place for an illustration of Scorpio. I have seen worse.
A general question, and probably due to my ignorance about AI technology, but why are the selected texts always modern and usually late modern American English such as the Declaration of Independence or the Declaration of Human Rights?
Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to take some text widely known and translated before the sixteenth century?
The book of Genesis, perhaps, or a slab from Dioscorides or something. Or doesn’t it matter what text is used?
john sanders: didn’t goonch play for Essex?
Since Middle English and modern English are distinctly different, and the same goes for most languages, I would think it makes quite a bit of difference which versions of these languages are fed into the software.
I suspect it’s done for expediency. If they can get something working, and get it written up, then they can tweak it (i.e., add more languages). if they don’t get it written up, someone else beats them to it.
Nick: He may have, the name is vaguely familiar, though I believe it was Jerome Wade and not Graham that oened for Essex in 1432 or thereabouts; though I’m just fishing.
“Using powerful Artificial Intelligence, and a series of complex statistical procedures and algorithms, they were able to get a computer to identify the correct language up to 97 per cent of the time.”
So…3% below what competent humans could have managed, then.
SirHubert: to be fair, they were actually trying to identify the plaintext lanagueg of mangled texts rather than of unmangled texts. But that presupposes that the Voynichese corpus is a text written in a language that had been mangled in the very specific ways that they were looking for… which it plainly isn’t.
We’ve certainly come a way since the 1940s. Imagine how thrilled Friedman would have been if his punch-cards had said ‘anagrammed Hebrew’ – and no-one would have rolled their eyes either – no more than they did at Wilfrid or O’Neill or Brumbaugh or..
we still can’t read a word of it, but that’s by-the-bye.
John, Regarding zodiac rondels with stars. Note that TWO exist on the pisces rondel (see f70v2). If one counts the nymphs in the circles, one gets 19 in the outer; 10 in the inner for a total of 29. If the two stars in the rondel serve as days, one arrives at 31. Virgo (f72v2) has, like scorpio, a star in the rondel, giving 18+12+1, another 31 day month, in this case for Sept. These stars, I’m convinced are meant to be counted as days, and NOT some kind of flower. Counting nymphs as days and allowing the stars in the rondels for pisces, virgo, and scorpio to count for days, one arrives at seven months of 30 days each and three at 31 each or a total of 303 days. The two missing months, capricorn and aquarious (Jan. and Feb., respectively) are likely to have 31 days each for a grand total of 365 days. I think this simple arithmatical exercise confirms those rondel stars are meant to be counted as days. Note that a male is seen at ca. 1 o’clock in cancer f72r3).
John, As I have no clue as to the imagery you report for cannons rendered useless, I will defer to you on that point. I think, though, that head bands are depictions of the real thing however and no “daisy chain” whatever you mean by that.
On the language front. Suppose the VMS has a mix, of Armenian and an invented Sindh language like Khudabadi, could this be fed into the Canadian program for any possible translation of Voynichesse? Can that algorithm handle mixtures of languages? Khudabadi was invented in the middle 16th C. The origins are known but not the precise period when it first appeared. It has all the elements that make linguist’s lives difficult such as abbreviations and coded words as it was used in Sindh businessmen to disguise transactions from nosy competitors.
I propose some Armenian in Voynichese as this language explains some unusual glyphs like the ampersand-like letter ‘&’ that I propose is Armenian for the romanized “f” and the numbers 8 and 9 that I think are romanized Armenian for e and t, respectively. So “8a’&”” = (l)eaf. I propose that Armenian is being used to translate Latin in some cases and the “89” is simply “et” but also, to complicate matters, the true ampersand is also used leading to a redundancy here.
Rene and Nick,, Thanks for your replies on that pesky (to me anyway) scorpio rondel. I was not looking for any scraped text but rather an enhancement of what the devil is in the mouth of the representation for scorpio? With my hand lens, it looks like a child being devoured but this might turn out to be a wil’ o’ the wisp. Also I was hoping that the scorpio representation might have covered an earlier image that had been scraped off.
One last point on the zodiac-based calendar as laid out in the VMS. Note that pisces (March) falls between the dark and light 15-day portions of Aries (April) and another out of order calendar is that based on Libra (Oct.) that comes after leo (July). As others have noted from the get-go. the zodiac-based (chakra-like) wheels of the VMS are really calendar months and not the usual zodiac representations. Consult “Curse” for the likely origins of the month derivations.
Also note the weird cross-topped crown worn by the nymph at 12 o’clock on Libra. I think this could have been a later addition to “Christianize” the VMS, as it sits on the nymph’s head at an unusual angle; maybe the crown-wearing nymph at 3 o’clock in the inner circle of cancer was modified as well. Perhaps, since every day is named, these corresponded to days marking special occasions such as festivals?
Cheers, Tom
I don’t see a child being devoured. I see an open mouth with a “string” coming out of it attached to a star-shape. There might be three small teeth in there (one top, two bottom), and there’s a dot in the middle where it’s unpainted, but it takes a bit of imagination to see it as a child.
If you are puzzling over what appears to be a dragon — you are not far from (maybe) identifying a ‘monitor lizard’ (native to desert regions of the United States and Mexico — Fray Sahagun’s territory). I beg your pardon, Diane. The first five years of my life, our parents were desert wanderers — looking for semi-precious stones. We often encountered lizards (blue-belly — but poisonous) if anyone was able to capture it.
Recently, my sister sent to me, my mother’s bracelets which she had attached tiny semi-precious stones : the Mojave (pronounced mo-ha-ve). Dried flash-flood rivulets were often visited by various lizards and snakes — and people also visiting the (alkali regions of the desert — for the borax mines and Mule Team soap). I still remember my mother firmly telling me that I could not ride those horses — and to stay away from their rear ends !
bd
J.K. Well, the star lash does get into the way of a clear view of what I think is an infant, head down with eyes facing the viewer and two legs above the head of the croc.-salamander. I seem alone (maybe with John also) in discerning this as a child but I am not willing to bet any kind of farm on this!
Imagination probably plays a big role in formulating hypotheses that might play a role in driving a wedge into the Voynich mystery. I am willing to suspend disbelief however that the critter in the November rondel started life as a scorpion and accept this as some kind of approximation. A question does remain: why is this rondel so crudely done when all the other zodiac depictions are more skillfully rendered?
Cheers, Tom
I’m wondering whether Ethel could have left us a cryptic message in the pool, eg. ‘Form Up behind Lilly’ or words to that effect. Looks sort of obvious in my half blind mind’s eye, though I’m surely ‘seeing things’. At the time of discovery, I had been ruminating over how the two greatest hoaxs of all time might have both come to being in 1912, the year of the Titanic is an easy one to remember…Anyone heard of Piltdown (Essex) man and its creator Charles Dawson who got away scot free, though he couldn’t escape the curse.
John, FYI. Conan Doyle is also a candidate for the fraudster. Cheers, Tom
Tom: Both Messrs. A.C.Doyle and G.B. Shaw apparently get guernsies in the Piltdown fraud theories and I’m sure Doyle was rumored to have been behind a hoax letter in the strange Marie Celeste case. Cheers, js
Dear All,
I think I am likely expatiating on the obvious, but here goes anyway! Why would a VMS calendar intended for a European reader start with March (Pisces)? The missing calendar folio for January (Capricorn, goat) and February (Aquarius, water bearer) cannot have been inserted ahead of March as that month (fv2) is on the verso of 70r1, 70r2, thus there is no room for a contiguous two months ahead of March.
Another problem I have is: why excise a single VMS folio (f74r, 74v) that had Capricorn (Jan.) and Aquarius (Feb.), respectively, and presumably also the 12 th quire number, i.e. unless some part of the bathers also was included? We know that the VMS page 74 was pulled out AFTER the pages had been numbered (since folio 74 is missing) and the bathers pick up with f75r. I am guessing f74v was marked as quire 12. Why lift out just one page? Nick (“Curse”, p 21) guesses that this single page was sent to Kircher by Baresch.
A simple explanation for this calendar month transposition is that the Hindu calendar was used. This begins the year with the spring season, mid-March and runs to mid-May. The Bengali calendar starts spring with mid-Feb. and that season ends with mid-April. As one heads north in India, one encounters the Tamil calendar that commences spring with mid-April and runs to mid-June. All these Indian calendars are based on six seasons: spring, summer, monsoon, autumn, early winter and late winter (prevernal). It might be the case that the some of the VMS calendar, as we now find it, had plans for each month to be split into two 15 day installments to fit the Indian seasons that run from mid-month to mid-month, e.g. March 15-May 14 , but for some reason this was done only for Taurus (Hindu end of spring) and Aries (Tamil start of spring and Bengali end of spring) as perhaps the scribes ran short of vellum?
Cheers, Tom
It is explained very quickly. As the VM is obviously a book of medicinal plants, and in December, January and February it is simply not busy in botany (snow), these months are not necessary either.
Simply explained quickly and logically.
The cancer is certainly a noble cancer. That tells me that the author has not lived on a coast with high levels of vagrancy. Otherwise, the cancer would certainly be round.
We have already talked about scorpion in Europe. (Not in english wiki)
And there’s not much to say about the dragon, it’s all normal. There was even a pharmacy in the Apohekenviertel in Vienna where so called.
Founded around 1460 by an Italian where studied medicine in Italy and later married a Viennese. The house to the green dragon.
I do not think that there is a connection to the VM, but it could have happened. An interesting story in any case.
Unfortunately I could not put the left again
Dear Peter M.,
Your “quick, logical” argument makes a number of assumptions that might be questioned!:
1) A calendar is not useful during the winter season when possibly snow covers the ground and medicinal plants are presumably dormant. So Jan and Feb are just pulled out and dumped and December is of little consequence? And consequently calendar users will just have to “wing it” for social engagements, etc. for three months! Reminds me of the poetic remark that February is the “cruelest” month” so your proposal is just dump it. Who can object?
2) What on earth do the characteristics of the depiction of cancer have to do with coastal vagrancy? Are you implying that the “author” comes from a well-populated coastal area and this has led to a “noble cancer”? The VMS light and dark depictions of two cancer-like creatures certainly do not appear to me like anything “noble” but are poorly drawn with pincers and yet still having the 8-legs of an arachnid. It has to be admitted that they are not anything like “round”; presumably then their slimness indicates a more “noble” critter and implying they do not originate from an area of “high levels of vagrancy”? I assume you are using “vagrancy” in the sense of “human occupation”, a usage that strikes me as uncommon. Anyway, you like the VMS crabs and I would just remark, “no accounting for taste”. Not much of a meal there, however!
Now Peter M., you have really lost me on the “dragon”. Are you implying that “scorpio” is a dragon? That poses no problem for me and I would agree it is sort of “normal”. It merely joins a crocodile, and a salamander as a proposal for the critter in the November rondel.
Are you sure that “green dragon” house in Vienna is not a Chinese restaurant?
Cheers, Tom
I do not believe that there was a Chinese Restaurant around 1362 already. But a pharmacy named Green Dragon certainly.
The crayfish lives in the river, and the one in the VM is 100% one.
Beach crabs are round. That tells me he just does not come from the coast.
(Astacus astacus)
No! A scorpion is not a dragon, but thousands of scorpions live in southern France and Italy. A confusion is difficult.
And I do not want to talk about crocodiles, that’s too stupid for me
Peter M.,
When dealing with the calendar rondels of the VMS, the depictions there are most likely to resemble classical representations of the zodiac that are constellation-based. The crabs representing Cancer, most likely have nothing to do with either crayfish or beach crabs, but some kind of classical depiction. The image for scorpio (November) has inspired some discussion, since to some (me included) its resemblance to a scorpion is hard to see. If the crocodile is too stupid for you, no one is going to force this on you!
The “Chinese restaurant” with the Green Dragon name was meant as a joke!
I think you would have to admit it is a strange name for a pharmacy, whether it was founded in 1362 or 1460.
What would be stupid is to argue that the zodiac-based calendar we find in the VMS doesn’t need the three months, Dec, Jan, Feb. because medicinal plants are dormant during that period. How do you know the VMS was composed in a region with snowy winters?
Cheers, Tom
Peter M wrote: “The crayfish lives in the river, and the one in the VM is 100% one.
Beach crabs are round. That tells me he just does not come from the coast.
(Astacus astacus)”
Many people confuse confuse lobsters and crayfish, and lobsters are marine crustaceans, but I will agree that those who lived on the coasts usually drew a crab rather than a crayfish/lobster shape.
Peter also wrote: “No! A scorpion is not a dragon, but thousands of scorpions live in southern France and Italy. A confusion is difficult.”
Peter, the dragon scorpios are almost entirely from England and the amphibian/lizard scorpios appear to have originated in the NE France/Flanders/Normany region. There is one lizard-like scorpion in the Montpellier library but the manuscript did not necessarily originate in southern France.
Why I know that it is a region with snow? This tells me the architecture where I see in the VM. Houses with a sloping roof (Gibel) are needed to deflect the snow load. Even in the modern design, it is often the case that flat roofs are pushed in.
In contrast to Arab countries where mainly have flat roofs. I found no flat roofs (typically Arabic) in the VM. Take a look at the villages in Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt. You will immediately notice what I mean. It makes no sense if I can use the surface of the roof also.
I give you the guarantee that the VM can not get further than Constantinople in the East.
Everything else we have discussed here before.
I may not understand you correctly. But the difference is actually in the application of the horoscope.
The Latin horoscope includes the scorpion and the Greek the dragon (Lindwurm, Alemanisch)
But I have already explained this in detail here.
The best known kite in Europe is probably in Klagenfurt, Austria.
There are also monks’ jokes that St. George actually tended a snail and not a dragon. Because the old translation means dragon and worm the same thing. 🙂
Nick, How do we know for certain that the Capricorn/Aquarius calendar folio (f74r/ f74v) was PULLED OUT of the VMS. Perhaps it was NEVER ADDED PERMANENTLY to the VMS in the first place? If there is no evidence of it being razored out, logically it seems to me that it might never have been completed and added although a folio and likely even a quire number were supplied? It might have been nearly completed but was being modified, perhaps to adjust the number of nymphs/days, and somehow got separated and failed to rejoin the corpus?
Cheers, Tom
Look carefully at the pool scene with the ten nymphs, eight in line facing the faucet and two coming around to join the queue. There is one at the rear with a red object, one adjusting the faucet and another behind her bending over a bucket with blue water. She, along with the third girl are closer than is really decent, but that’s ok by me, after all they are but innocent babes and all seem to be having lots of fun. What I find most interesting is that their interaction forms a styalised classic upper case ‘F’ and if you can pick that up, simply follow down the line of cuties and you may see, as I ycan on my two inch screen, the additional letters ‘U’ ‘B’ and ‘L’. Now whether these letters represent something like ‘frolicing undressed Bohemian ladies’, something else entirely, or nothing at all, I’ll let others be the judge. If you can’t see what I see, twiddle your fancy gizzmos a bit which might help bring up the contrast for clarity. If still nothing than it’s obviously me cracking up.
J.k.Petersen & Peter M: Actually you are both correct and your calling the tasty crustations crayfish, lobsters or any one of many homegrown names are merely semantics. Of course the depictions of the fore and aft pair we are interested in represent a common medieval substiture for a single crab and are certainly of the non marine variety, which are suggestive of a non coastal habitation. The only thing that our unfamiliar artist gets wrong are the leg placements on the abdomen as opposed to the forward thorax body segment behind the head and beneath the carapace shell. The eight count for legs is correct as the claws are an extra and have a different purpose associated with food collection. Another thing to take into consideration is that these creatures are not represented naturally in Continental Africa or in the New world as far as I’m aware and their natural appearance in East Asia is restricted to parts of North Eastern China and Japan. Madagscar has a variety as does one island in Indonesia, east of the Wallace line which is of the Cherax species.
John, It think you are referring to f84r for those hidden letters? I note that the nymph adjusting the water inflow or whatever, has the area under her left arm unpainted. Likewise, the colorist has neglected to color the same region under the left arm of the sixth nymph in the line starting on the left. With the other bent arms joining the waists, these might be seen as four instances of the letter “P”? Try as I can, I fail to see the letters you have deduced, but then I am working with the facsimile and have no fancy gizmos to twiddle. At any rate, based on your scrutiny searching for meaning in hidden letters, I conclude, you have a rich private life!
Peter M. Consulting “horoscopes” could provide useful information on depictions of the animal used to represent both Scorpio and Cancer. The Cancer animal is paired, as is the zodiac symbol, and maybe drawn inaccurately as several have now observed, but I am willing to call it a crab perhaps even a crayfish, and it is likely drawn away from a beach site. This leaves a lot of venues for the “crab” artist.
What do you mean by “The best known kite in Europe is probably in Klagenfurt, Austria.” By “kite”, I understand a hawk-like bird. No bird is among the conventional zodiac that I am aware of, although zodiacs have varied over time with different cultures.
Where do you find an example or examples of “pitched roofs” in the VMS? The nine rosette fold out is the only VMS folio that I am aware of that has any architecture at all and these “castles” are shown with conical towers and likely FLAT roofs, else why have castellations, in one case swallow-tailed merlons .These would afford protection for archers. One might find conical towers atop minarets all throughout Islam.
BTW, to all, I should included the reference to “seasons” in Wikipedia for the East Indian seasons I made reference to on Jan 28, i.e. those of the Hindu, Bengali and Tamil reckonings.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: Yes you are on the right page; unfortunately you have your eyes firmly set on the chicks and not the green surrounds, which actually make up the four letters. The F is most obvious and is formed by the position of the fawcett girl and the pair engaged in some form of untoward activity behind. So if you can pick it up, the others will then become quite plain to your new set of visual expectations as U B L. At least you are giving it a try and that’s all I dare to ask with such a weird sort of quest.
https://www.wien.gv.at/wiki/index.php?title=Singerstra%C3%9Fe_4
@Nick
Before I could set the links without problems, but now it is not possible anymore. Is that because I have a new laptop and Internet provider and you have to keep me free again?
https://www.wien.gv.at/wiki/index.php?title=Singerstra%C3%9Fe_4
It works again …. thanks 🙂
Unfortunately, not all links work.
Direct links to my image data is not. Just these would be interesting.
Peter: when you want to include links in your comments, please remove the first : and the last . i.e. http//www.googlecom . I will then insert the : and . when I moderate up the comment.
I’m sorry for this inconvenience, but I get a lot of spam comments (393127, according to Akismet, and that’s probably half of the full figure).
This is just a try. So I could place important pictures here as well.
Here is a comparison of one of the headgear.
What would you say? Is it true or not?
If anyone knows, I would be glad to message.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1977529169136394&set=gm.1436364283140035&type=1
or…..what is better ?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1977529169136394&set=gm.1436364283140035&type=3&theater&ifg=1
@Nick
If it works that way, then you can delete the unimportant one.
I’ll send you a new crypto puzzle where few know.
John, OK, I think I can make out an “F”. And sort of a “U” but the “B” and “L” are works in progress.
You are correct in that I was “chick-focused” and looking at arms and legs.
Cheers and thanks for introducing a lighter, less confrontational tone to this blog site. Tom
Dear all, I think that there is a difference intended between the stars of f67v2, some are 6-pointed, most are 7-pointed and a few are even 8-pointed. Each appears to be named and I am guessing the points of the stars relate to their magnitudes, with 8-pointed stars being of the greater intensity in the night sky. The tally for the 29 stars seen between the two full moons are as follows: five are 8-pointed; sixteen are 7-pointed and eight are 6-pointed.
A pity that the calendar with the Capricorn rondel is missing from the VMS. Some astrologies, like that of India, have the image of a “sea monster” or “sea goat” based on Greek mythology (e.g. the god “Pan” jumps into the Nile to escape the wrath of some monster (see Nat. Geographic “The Backyard guide to the Night Sky” Howard Schneider.) See also “Hindu Astrology” (Wiki).
Note that the pasted page from the “Hindu Calendar” (Wiki) corrected the difference between a lunar and solar calendar by inserting an extra month every 2.71 years (32.5 months). The difference between a lunar- and solar- based calendar was 11 days (365 days solar – 354 days lunar = 11 days). Pope Gregory XIII corrected the existing Julian lunar calendar by doing something simpler, just subtracting 10 days from the Julian calendar and fiddling with leap years.
Corrections between lunar and solar months:
The astronomical basis of the Hindu lunar months.
Twelve Hindu mas (māsa, lunar month) are equal to approximately 354 days, while the length of a sidereal (solar) year is about 365 days. This creates a difference of about eleven days, which is offset every (29.53/10.63) = 2.71 years, or approximately every 32.5 months.[30] The twelve months are subdivided into six lunar seasons timed with the agriculture cycles, blooming of natural flowers, fall of leaves, and weather. To account for the mismatch between lunar and solar calendar, the Hindu scholars adopted intercalary months, where a particular month just repeated. The choice of this month was not random, but timed to sync the two calendars to the cycle of agriculture and nature.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: To have found the F & U is ok; reminds me of Country Joe & the Fish with their immortal Vietnam protest number all those years ago. In a previous rather interesting occupation, I was taught to look through things rather than at them, so I do find puzzles like the one I set for you, a little less challenging. You are quite correct in wishing to to interject our arguments with a touch of harmless humour once in a while. Cheers, js
The sea-goat, descended from Greco-Roman traditions, is pretty common to western zodiacs. I’ve collected over 500 zodiacs (up to about the mid-1500s), and 24% of the Capricorn images are sea-goats.
In India, it’s not uncommon to see Capricorn as a mythical animal that looks a bit like a green reptile-fox, or a cross between a green reptile and an antelope (it’s probably based on the Sanscrit makara, which is related to their word magar, for crocodile).
Peter M., Thanks for that link to Singer street, 4 in Vienna. The bas relief stone work depicted there clearly has BIBLICAL connections. I think it shows Mary crushing a SERPENT under her feet in reference to Jesus her son doing that in a metaphorical sense (see Genesis 3:15 and several mentions in Isaiah). That serpent does resemble (to me) a fine crocodile but you can call it a salamander or whatever you wish. It is a great serpent, but not very snake-like. It looks to me, with only a rudimentary knowledge of German, as though the present name (since 1668) of the apothecary (pharmacy) now has nothing to do with a Green Dragon. I interpret “Zur goldenen Krone” as “The Golden Crown”. I assume that the original name was “The Green Dragon” (Grun Lindwurm). Evidently the beast of the stone bas relief, which is splendid, was for some reason called that, sort of ignoring the usual biblical context? I suppose the garden of Eden snake was green but the Singer Street creature is no snake. Perhaps it was painted at one time and the depiction may represent an example of artistic license?
Cheers, Tom
Tom: f84r does appear to be the only pool scene which includes a bucket in the true sense and so I’m thinking that such a lonely little red bucket which seems to also have a handle might represent a very clear clue to something. I have since followed explicit directions given in the F.U.B.L. encription and come up with a very faint word which appears to be English cursive and seems to spell ‘shaft or shafted”. If you think I jest, then just “Focus Under Bucket Lady” and see what you make of it. It is located between the bucket nymph’s left foot and the glyph text, just to the right of one strangely large ‘scaffold’ letter. Whilst being quite easy to make out, the letters are both very faint and likely faded, so that only someone with good kit might bring the word to life.
J.K. Good going on the “sea goat” statistics. On page 126 of a chapter on (East) Indian astronomy (pp. 123-142) in a book “Astronomy before the Telescope” (ed. C. Walker, NY, 1996), is a zodiac that has a strange looking unidentified horned creature with a fish-like tail that follows the classic centaur archer. I have assumed it is a sea-goat but unfortunately there is little discussion on that zodiac. It does have a scorpion but two Hindu deities replace Cancer and Leo. It evidently was a composite dating from the 1830s and was focused more on the deities controlling the zodiac signs. The original is in the British Museum. Incidentally, Diane O’Donovan recommended this to me years ago but only recently have I found a use for it. Anyway the take-home message is that a pretty good scorpion is shown as well as the sea goat. Aries is rendered as a black ram and Taurus as a white bull, evidently not some kind of water buffalo.
John, For once we are on the same (folio) page! I make that word out also although it takes a hand lens and some real patience. That word, or something like it might have started VM life as instructions to the colorist or delineator? Then was partly scraped off? For the deepest water we need Zandbergen!
Cheers, Tom
Tom &ors: Any ideas on how to account for the correlation beween the direct, undeniable acrostic pointer ‘F.U.B.L’ (focus under bucket lady) to the hidden word, whatever it may be, or represent within the VM’s context. It is real and thankfully, i can’t be held to task about my admitted VM ignoramity; simply put I’m merely the well intentioned interpretter of hard fact, whether it be welcome or not. Cheers, js
John, I did a quick check on “bleed through” (from f84v) or “bleed across” (from f83v) and the magic word on f84r seems not to come from either source. I don’t recall seeing text ever do this anyway but who knows, maybe some thin vellum at that spot might allow it. Evidently not.
Maybe you have discovered a new VMS category to add to 1) pen trials and 2) marginalia. Nick might help with terminology for your discovery? I suggest “Sanderscript”? Cheers, Tom
I found the 4 headgear. it is not a beret but a biretta.
If that’s true ?! What does a priest headgear in the VM, and that among naked women? 🙂 Biretta at 1200-1500
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1997124063843571&set=gm.1486847768091686&type=3&theater&ifg=1
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1997124463843531&set=gm.1486850534758076&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Tom: Your personal interest and promotional help is most encouraging and my thanks to your one remaining voice, in this ‘specific ‘ VM thread disaster zone. All our other players seem to have shifted their field of ever increasing hostilities to a less hostile zone of combat; perhaps to avoid having to deal with any new directions, which are quite obviously not consistent with their own unwavering views. I for one, think that the disclosure if proven, may well introduce a fresh approach to what has just become a quagmire of sad old nonproductive argument and at times, rather conceited, all knowing pomposity. ” Sanderscript ” Im lovin it. Cheers, js
Nick: I’m sure Tom was not too serious; would js coincidental VM abberration be a possible alternative.
Peter M, The search for head gear is, I think, a useful avenue for investigation. In addition to a monsignor’s topper, I submit “Lappvett.net” on a felt broad-brimmed hat with a peaked cone. It was dug out of a bog in Scandinavia in 1938 and carbon dated to 1310-1440, with an estimated median of 1400 A.D. Well this is long way from likely venues for the VMS, but medieval trade could bring it into the venue of on’e choice. See also Marie Vibbert, “Headdresses of the 14th and 15th Centuries, SCA monograph 133, Aug, 2006.
I think the head bands worn by many of the bathing nymphs indicate they are being worn by Kalash girls/ women of the Chitral valley of Northern Pakistan.
Cheers, Tom
ps. I misspelled “Lindwurm=Lintwurm” as Landwurm and see that it CAN be a dragon-like serpent (even with wings) and also a reptile.
Thomas F. Spande, I honestly have to admit, I am also a little disappointed with the headgear. I had hoped that it is a regional garment such as costumes. That would have narrowed down the origin (area) of the VM considerably. Did not work.
Look carefully, this cap is only worn by men. they are not all women. The women partly wear a tiara.
The name Lindworm, actually stands for everything that crawls, snake, lizard, worm, snail ….. the name Reptile would probably rather fit. I do not know when you made a kite out of it, but it goes back to Roman times. You probably know the Dragon Legion from the movie, they really existed.
Peter M., Your point that the broad-brimmed peaked hat is worn by men, is one that passed me by. On examination of Aries (April, light ram; f71r), I see that the hats ARE worn by men and that you are correct! There are clear examples at 5 and 7 o’clock on the outer circle and 3 and 8 o’clock on the inner circle.
I have hypothesized that the barrels are real, are filled with water and allowed people to endure the tremendous heat that Marco Polo writes about in the Hormuz area, (Persian gulf) that occurs in March through mid-May.
I picked up “kite” from your post of Jan 29 where you write: “The best known kite in Europe is probably in Klagenfurt, Austria.” I suspect something got “lost in translation”?
The locales where a broad-brimmed peak hat was worn by men, is still worth pursuing, I think. I’m guessing they were worn to keep the head cool under a hot sun, Certainly from my limited research, these were not common in medieval times, although I was looking at women, only.
Cheers, Tom
f84r with its all too obvious locater key and accompanying mystical undocumented notation, is not likely to fade away whilst awaiting comment from those bright folks who might dare to step forward and offer their honest opinion. Any cursory glance will show that the particular image, differs quite appreciably when compared with the other collective nymph bathing scenes, so it most likely stands out for a reason. What could that reason be pray tell?. I’m far too old to take offence, so don’t be backward in coming forward, dare to be as honest and damning as convention permits; and by the way, I didn’t say HOAX.
Dear all,
Consulting “Clothing History-Men’s Hats and Headgear” one finds mention of a medieval hat originating in Thessalonian Greece, called the “pestasos”. The hat is described as having a wide brim of straw or felt and a peaked crown, such as depicted in the VMS on f71r. It was worn by farmers and travelers. Trade did exist between Greeks and Arabs and the Indian sub-continent but I need to do more research on the routes and the periods. At one time a Greco-Indian empire existed but this ended about 10AD.
Cheers, Tom
Apart from the Pristermut, the Scottish cap (Tam o ‘Shanter) probably comes next. Whereby I have to say that there are with ball only since 1700 and without ball 1600th Since the time window does not fit, I have to do without this.
What I mean by that, it has to be more than the optical consistency.
Dear all,
Some miscellany: If one were to connect the five 8-pointed stars on f67v2, a W-shape results that resembles the constellation “c:asseopia”. The vertical orientation would be seen in the northern sky in mid-summer. See p. 24, (midnight July 15) in “Astronomy without a Telescope” by E.W. Maunder, London, 1904.
In an attempt to explain why the calendar zodiac periods Aries (f70v2; 70r) and Taurus (f71v; 72r1) are each split into two 15-day periods but none of the other zodiac-based calendars are split. My guess is that not enough vellum was available for eight more splits and instead circles within circles on single folios were used. Well, why split Aries and Taurus anyway?
I think the six Indian seasons might be advanced as an explanation.
The Hindu seasons are:
mid-March–mid May (spring)
mid May–mid July (summer)
mid July–mid Sept. (monsoon)
mid Sept–mid Nov. (autumn)
mid Nov.–mid Jan. (early winter)
mid Jan.–mid March (prevernal)
The Bengali seasons are also six in number but start with mid Feb–mid April. The Tamil seasons start with mid April–mid June but use the Gregorian calendar for indicating mid month, e.g. April 15–June 14. So the Bengali season would benefit from splitting April (Aries) whereas the Hindu calendar would mesh with mid-May (Taurus). Then one would have to fall back on a rough split of the months for the Hindu calendar. These other months would be: July (Cancer); Sept. (Virgo); Nov. (Scorpio); Jan. (Capricorn); March (Pisces). Extracting halfway points in the zodiac-based calendar by counting nymphs, the following “halfway” dates, in parentheses) are obtained: Cancer, (12); Virgo, (13); Scorpio, (16); Capricorn (missing from the VMS); Pisces, (12). I have gotten specific dates only for the Tamil seasons but only the vague “mid month” for Bengali and Hindu seasons.
“Mid points” for the other zodiac-months are as follows: Gemini (f72r2), (16); Leo (f72v1), (12); Libra (f72v3), (10); Sagittarius (73v), (16).
Note that the Indian seasons all start with spring. For the Hindu seasons, this would be Pisces (March) and I argue that is why this zodiac calendar (f70v1) leads the zodiac-based calendars of the VMS.
One last point on the odd creature in the rondel for November. I think that it is a serpent as has been proposed by Peter M. as the scorpion falls so far below the ecliptic that the closest constellation that would fill the gap is the tail (cauda) of “serpens”. It does look like a croc to me but I’m willing to call it a “serpent”.
The tenth Hindu calendar month (equivalent to the western zodiac-month Capricorn, (missing from the VMS)) is called “Makara” which is translated as “sea dragon” or “water monster”. The crocodile found in the Himalayas became known in English as the “mugger”crocodile after the closely related Hindu word “mugar”.
Lastly, much speculation has dealt with the origin of the zodiac constellations ; most scholars conclude that they originated in the region of the upper Euphrates R, where the zodiac animals were either domestic, hunted or feared.
Cheers, Tom
@ Thomas, to put it right, I did not say that it’s a snake, but a dragon. The meaning Worm or Lindworm can mean one or the other.
The monks knew that already in the Middle Ages and made fun of Saint George, that he did not kill a dragon but a snail. There are some examples 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1977521259137185&set=gm.1436349383141525&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Peter M: …presumably that is where we get the phrase “snail-mail” from. 😉
No ! No ! : Nick and Peter M…. ! Some of the earliest animals which appear in the night sky, served another astronomical purpose : Just how carefully the Egyptian pyramids were aligned in the night sky……
Several years ago, on Nick’s other discussions, I mentioned the use of the huge Egyptian pyramids as astronomy and star-gazing. More than a few years ago, I brought NIck’s attention to a strange gadget — which turned out to be a tiny camera mounted on a tiny ‘caterpillar’ tracked device which could send photograph and camera views back to the surface. The purpose of each of the pyramids (while they were being built) was to guide the Pharaohs to their place in the night skies. They were not successful in trying to break the large stone door. But with the little camera, they were able to see all the way down the corridor until it made an abrupt ‘right turn’. I’m not positive if the guy who built the tiny camera, was successful in seeing anything behind the massive doors and around abrupt right or left corridors….
bd
@ bdid1dr
I also saw this documentation. The bay is about 20x 20 cm aligned to a certain star and at the end a small bronze gate.
Today one knows, this course was created so that the soul of the Pharaoh could leave the Piramide after the sealing.
I would also like to know what was around the corner. But just then the camera was broken, and it was not allowed to ride the gear a second time.
Peter M., et al.,
I interpreted the “serpent” in the light of your post of late Jan. where you included a link to a fine “dragon” that resembled to me a crocodile (but that may be in the eye of the beholder)! Because of the biblical connotation of the bas-relief on Singer Strasse 4 in Vienna, I thought “serpent” could fit. The OT book of Job (chapter 26, verse 13) states “[God] hath formed the crooked serpent” that scholars consider referred to a dragon. I did not mean that the November rondel of the VMS was that of a “snake” but that a constellation that was closer to the ecliptic than the “scorpion” was called “sepens” and was an immense thing with two parts, head and tail. It does seem to have been a snake since Greek poetry on constellations mentions “coils”. We owe much of our understanding of the zodiac constellations to the Greeks, although Indian, Persian and Arabic astronomy, also ancient, adopted most of the same interpretations of star patterns. The ancient Egyptians had many of the same but Ptolemy’s astronomers included a bunch more.
November in the VMS, still, in my opinion does not fit the common depictions of a scorpion or a snake. There is a constellation “Draco” representing the dragon but it is greatly north of the ecliptic (closer to the polar star) and was never in the zodiac which includes only 12 of the 48 currently accepted constellations.
In short, let’s call the November rondel of the VMS, a DRAGON! I can live with that, even though it surely looks more like a crocodile, as does the Viennese creature. The question remains however, why not use a scorpion which was depicted in the constellation as having a stinger-tail and claws near the head and was known in the venues consistent with the creation of the VMS.
A last point: The rondel for November in my facsimile, has a smudgy appearance. The “dragon” is surrounded by a dark aura, unlike ANY of the other VMS rondels. Is this evidence of a palimpsest? Was there originally a different rondel depiction?
Also, I seem alone to detect an infant in the “Dragon’s” jaws. John Sanders seem to perceive this also but this might have been out of politeness? My son has invested in a microscope attachment for his smart phone camera. I plan to have him photograph that November rondel re the infant being munched on as well as that uppermost right-hand city map in the 9-rosette foldout.
Cheers, Tom
When I draw the zodiac, I can draw the Latin scorpion or the Greek dragon at November. Both can be seen in the same place in the sky, 2000 years before the VM.
This has nothing to do with the constellation Dragon in the north, that is something else again.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1931232093766102&set=gm.1313178388791959&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Tom: I’m not generally known for my politeness, so to me a babe in swaddling wrap is still more likely than anything else that comes to mind. Where we must disagree is your suggestion that it is somehow encompassed by the dragon’s jaws, as to me this is clearly not the case. I have seen other similar detachments in the VM pictograms which seem deliberate eg., the nymph holding the cross, which upon closer look she is not. Any way stick by your guns and I’ve got your back. Cheers, js
Tom, why would you photograph it rather than importing the original scan and clipping it, or simply screen snapping it? If you go from image to photo (and then back to computer), you are adding two extra opportunities for distortion.
Dear all,
To emphasize one more time the following point: Why does the zodiac-calendar start with Pisces (f72v2) that is followed by the dark ram of Aries, part 1. Pisces is on the back side of the r-face of folio 72. What is wrong with this is that in the western zodiac, Pisces is PRECEDED by Aquarius, but this zodiac calendar is missing from the VMS, as is Capricorn. I continue to believe that this is not an accident but is putting Pisces (March) in a spot important in the spring season for Hindus.
The summation of days (in parentheses) by nymph-counting in the zodiac-calendars presently appearing in the VMS yields: Pisces (31) from 9+10+2; Aries (dark ram) (15)+Aries (light ram)(15)=30; Taurus (pink bull) (15)+Taurus (red bull) (15)=30; Gemini (30) from 5+16+9; Cancer (30) from 12+11+7; Leo (30) from 18+12; Virgo (31) from 18+12+1; Libra (30) from 20+10; Scorpio (dragon)(31) from 4+16+10+1; Sagittarius (30) from 4+16+10; The grand total of calendar days would be 303 days, necessitating that each of the two missing zodiac calendar months (Aquarius, Capricorn) have 31 days.
The months of the Julian/Gregorian calendar months would differ for Taurus (May); Cancer (July); Leo (Aug.); Virgo (Sept.); Libra (Oct.); Scorpio (Nov.) and Sagittarius (Dec.). Only three of the existing VMS calendar months agree: March, April and June. The question naturally arises: Why? The Julian calendar has been around since antiquity and it would have been natural for the Europeans to follow it. The Gregorian calendar was based on the Julian but had 11 days removed to from Oct. to correct the date for the vernal equinox, important for the observance of the Christian Easter.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: When you get around to making closer scrutiny of your kid eating ‘ogre’ with your son’s new gadget, perhaps you might also like to swing by f84r (F U B L) and see if you can make out anything of the front sign off beneath the red bucket. As anticipated nobody saw fit to make any comment whatsover, apart from my own lad, who without aid, makes out S*of** followed by perhaps the number 21. If that is possible, than it could have been a anomaly noted by Newbold when he examined the manuscript in 1921. Just a guess of course but it’s sure not an optical illusion on both counts and deviates from the usual tendency to make a marginal notation; so just maybe, he was a little worried by something that was going to prove difficult to account for in an historical sense.
John – thanks to you I noticed another line of what seems to be micrography in the Vms. It is inscribed on another folio but appears in the Beinecke scan for f.82r.
I am hesitant to add the personal note to these comments but gratitude was in order.
John,
I’ll add that mysterious script to the list!
J.F. has a point that things like parallax could skew images. Still I would only look for tiny details or presently obscured parts of images that might be made clearer. They would be imported to my computer, it is true, but only for deciphering.
Turning again to the nymph counting. Three zodiac calendar months, have star(s) on a leash held the animal in the rondel. These are two attached to the twin fish of Pisces; one held by Virgo and one held by the “dragon” in November. Again the question arises: why do this when adding one or two nymphs in every case would be possible? There would appear enough room, e.g. at the top on November for another nymph to join the existing quartet. Were these corrections added later to the original calendar days? If that were the case, then Pisces would have had only 29 days before the correction. That might have fit a leap year for February but wouldn’t fit the Julian month of March.
A short note on Hindu astronomy (see Wiki): It was the equal in the 15th C of European astronomy. For example Indian astronomer, Nilakanthan Somayaji, (1444-1544) predated the system of Tycho Brahe (late 16th C) where Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn orbited the sun and that little solar system orbited the earth. His calculated orbits for the planets were used until improved upon by Kepler’s elliptical orbits in the 17th C.
Even a cursory glance at the nymph layouts in the zodiac calendar months indicates a certain apparent carelessness in their positioning. Some areas of their circular placement are crowded, some are thinly populated. Is this because of the naming of the days- some names being lengthier than others? I am clueless at the moment.
Cheers, Tom
Dear all, A really minor punctillio. John has used “swaddling” a couple of times as though it might be a good thing. When Jesus was wrapped in swaddling cloths (not clothes), he was being wrapped in cloths used to wipe down animals. No great thing to be wrapped in!
Cheers, Tom
Years ago, when I was first venturing into Nick’s mysterious realm of mysteries my first bid at identifying any of B-408’s features, figures, languages, garden products were the squash, (orange) with all it’s seeds. The next thing I focused on was the green into orange -colored tomatillo (very small tomato with a sharp taste — excellent with beans, rice and tortillas. And then loaded cobs of corn — some to eat, and some to be ground into corn meal for the tortillas.
Mexicali – Mexico – New Mexico, Lompoc California, Baja, The Andes people with their knotted cord messages. At one time or another, my ‘bump of curiousity’ was always answered by some of the politist, interesting people in the world.
bd
One of the reasons babies were swaddled (both in Europe and many native American cultures) was a misconception that swaddling (restricting the limbs) made the bones straighter. Exactly the opposite is true—limbs need to move (there needs to be resistance) for muscles and bones to grow healthy and strong.
.
And speaking of medieval and Renaissance misconceptions about anatomy and health, Mozart (yes, Amadeus) had this crazy notion that water was better for babies than milk (is it any wonder 5 of his 6 children died in infancy?).
About distortion – it’s irrelevant if the writer is mentioning some detail in the manuscript, or some artefact, or some prior body of work. In each case, anyone with the instinct for fair play will have included links or bibliographic references and those interested enough to whine about dpi should be interested enough to follow those up.
I must say I have had the odd person who cannot bear to admit the material is too difficult for them to absorb just sound off about something like that – but really, it’s just a way not to have to admit they’re not the brightest knife in the block. Others will follow the links or references .. if you give them.
Diane: I guess you are referring to bottom centre under the nymph. I see what appears faintly as M 365 (565 or 555) with a space and X. Could it be an Adelaide phone number I wonder?…
🙂
Dear all,
Nick, in his discussion regarding those queer quire numbers states in “Curse, p.16, that the number shapes for ‘4’, ‘5’ and ‘6’ (see p. 17) are characteristically those used in 15th C Europe. These seemed to me on reading this to be weird, but I did find a link to Hindu-Arabic that was used in 15th C Europe that completely agrees with Nick’s assertion. The system borrows heavily from Arabic, which I was ready to argue for, since the Indo-Arabic numbers for “6” does look like an inverted ‘V’; ‘5’ is not Arabic, however, as this is an ‘o’ but Hindu numbering for ‘5’ looks like a “7” with an upward hook on horizontal stroke of the ‘7’ and the Hindu ‘4’ resembles a cursive ‘q’.
Now there remain a few curiosities that maybe Nick can help clarify:
1) Why is the quire numbering for 16v repeated again on 17v?
2) Has the clear #5 in the lower right hand margin of f57v received any comment by Nick or interested scholars of the VMS. Clearly the ‘marginalianist’ was familiar with the way we now write that number.
3) All the quires end on folio verso sides EXCEPT that of f67r1, which is the recto side of the folio that immediately follows f66v. I think this is the only quire that consists evidently of a single half-folio?
I think Nick has paved the way on a very tricky part of understanding the way the VMS was put together but maybe some nails stick up that need pounding down?
Cheers, Tom
I haven’t read “Curse” (Nick, I promise I will one of these days) but I can certainly confirm that the shapes for the quire numbers 4, 5, and 7 are completely normal for the late 14th and early-to-mid 15th century. This is the Indic-Arabic style that replaced Roman numerals. It was also used, to a limited extent, in compotus manuscripts from about the 12th century onward, but didn’t really catch on for general-purpose tasks like foliation until the late 14th century.
These forms were also used somewhat into the early 16th century, but by c. 1460 this system was quickly fading and being replaced by shapes that are more familiar to us. The 4 and 7 were rotated (counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively), and the number 5 gained a distinctive loop at the bottom. Otherwise, they are essentially the same.
J.K. Thanks for weighing in on the shapes of the quire numbers, 4, 5, and 7, I used the term Hindu-Arabic but Indic-Arabic or Indo-Arabic, I think, must refer to the same number system. I think your description of “shape shifting” of those numbers is spot on and led to what we now refer to “Arabic numerals”. They really derive from India where the concept of zero originated due to the way they used “counting boards” and needed a concept to indicate when nothing was on a certain square. Evidently Roman numeration had the concept but it was rarely used. The mathematician, Fibonnaci, introduced the use of zero to Europe, via Italy in the 14th C. Until printing came along, the zero was represented by the the letter ‘o’ as we find it in the VMS. Later the oblong glyph, ‘0’, was introduced by printers.
Nick’s book “Curse of the Voynich” is the starting point for in-depth, imaginative analysis of the VMS. Nick is not averse to positing bold speculation, although I think he has backed away a bit from a northern European origin? My copy is well-thumbed. I do wish that Nick would go with regular credit cards, however, and not rely on Pay Pal.
Cheers, Tom
Tom: I’ve stopped selling copies for now but hope to start selling an e-book version.
Nick, My guess is that if “Curse” becomes out of print, it will fall into the category of a rare book and the copy price will rise. An e-book has a huge drawback in that, unless home-printed, the reader’s own marginalia will be difficult. Please reconsider!
Cheers, Tom
Tom: the cheapest Curse on bookfinder.com at the moment is £85, but at one point it was over £400. :-/
Nick, Rats!
Cheers, Tom
At the risk of my seeming repetious, I must hark back to the red bucket issue once more; that’s the one filled with a blue fluid of undetermined nature, possibly a diuretic induced waste release by the gal holding it. It does seem that whoever was responsible for the faint sign off beneath the accompanying nymph’s foot is significant to the exclusion of others due to it’s out of the way placement. I’m quite sure that the author must have picked up on the same clue that I detected, namely the F.U.B.L depiction in the f84r bottom pool scene. Also the adjacent scaffold letter ‘P’ which comprises three walking sticks, is quite distinct to all other similar gallows type lettering and may have been included as an aid beacon for locational directions. I note that this particular sheet has also been mentioned in the past as also including a unique, almost repetitive sequencing, namely P.3≥ and P.10≥ which may thus give some added significance. I must confess to being a little miffed that folks didn’t pick up on this aberration but now that you are offered another opportunity, please don’t be bashful. If ‘Focus Under Bucket Lady doesn’t work for you then perhaps Fine Uncirculated Books London, might be more to your fancy.
John, I think many have opined that the blue in the bucket is fresh, likely cold water that is being added to a hot mineral pool shown as having greenish water. This might be an attempt to drop the temperature for the comfort level for the bathers. Not only is there some kind of cryptic writing under that bucket but Diane O’D. has pointed out other cryptic writing right under the middle of that same pool.
The mini camera has arrived but, alas, it required some software that my son is having trouble down-loading. Will keep everyone apprised of progress on this front.
Cheers, Tom
The various ponds are full of marks that look like they might be (or might have been) writing.
Several years ago, I did a lot of image processing on the pool pages but couldn’t come up with anything satisfying enough to make out what is going on under there.
Some definitely look like Voynich glyphs and others look like they might be something else, but it’s so difficult to separate them from the parchment texture, the paint scumbling and other lines, I wasn’t able to get anything useful or cohesive out of them.
J.K.P. Now that you have been provided with a more specific target that is clearly writing in a cursive form and actually outside the pool (just); without there being any of those pesky paint scrumblings to impede your image processing; perhaps it will provide newfound enthusiasm for a more thorough examination. Rene, Nick and others with an open outlook might also like to come aboard on this apparent aberration too; the more dedicated amongst our VM collaborators the better chance of a logic based explanation.
@Rene
Ich bin auf etwas interessantes gestossen. Ich weiss nicht ob Du das bereits in deinem Block hast.
Anhand von Wiki hat der Hofbibliothekar eine Inventarliste und ein Handschriftverzeichnis geführt.
I came across something interesting. I do not know if you already have that in your block.
On the basis of wiki, the court librarian has kept an inventory list and a handwriting directory.
In einem kaiserlichen Schreiben ernannte Maximilian II. 1575 den holländischen Juristen Hugo Blotius († 1608) zum ersten offiziellen Bibliothekar der kaiserlichen Bibliothek. Die Bibliothek befand sich seit etwa 1550 (und bis 1623) im Minoritenkloster nahe der Burg.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sterreichische_Nationalbibliothek
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Blotius
Hello NIck,
I am librarian in Biblioteca Nacional de España
There is not a language in the Voynich. No text, no letter, nothing phonetic. It is a astrological and visual code with symbols which indicate the location of the stars in the sky. If you give me your email I will send you my research
Regards
page 93 reads as follows:
“te ea exta ore uni eum una e meum eam re. ea alea a o ea ea a o ea eam re. nex te aeneum nate! a a o ea re ea eum os ire. ea a o meus aleum ad alea ia es ire, ea aleum ea a o nexus lea ne o. ne usa o uni re, ea ala o te.”
the plant, which is described here and is used to treat bone fracture, is on that page. the text goes further:
“fa ote a ire da ea a o una o eum una o una o eam re ea a o a o. dea i id re lea at es ex use a o ea a o ea at os ire. una ri ire ea re queam ea are una ea quear e fa iet es ete. ad ala late a eum alae ea a o meum alea a lea ad der. ur re aquai a ri ire quat ea ire aquai re qua i a o meus ne ta. nu na em re meum meum re.”
the woman, who treated the poor guy, is now boasting about her abilities.
I have already deciphered about twenty pages. the text is about money and property, or power and the state. there are also stories like in a diary. I also found some prayers. at least three or four different authors contribute to voynich manuscript.
here is the first page of the manuscript. note the four signatures at the end, respectively.
“fa ea re der reo et re que mure a ea at est id errat ur eam re. dat re os et ater re it ea que usu ne tex te set es et meus.der e ut uni re rate re reum unam es a etam es ed met eum der. da usa qui i re a qui ad te a a quer es e at meum aleum ales. dexter ea i et es eum em at eo eum. rem et ex ur re.”
this passage is about how power devastate rule.
“amet ea re una o emare a rem et ea et eo meum unam et re. re unire unam re a que a are a qui i ea ea aes re a te are meus ea at rad. meum una deo ea unam re. meus et quiam re.”
this passage is signed with “If i have luck, I gain property”. the text is about that.
“rene, semideum ea demi quem una ur re emaneo id. a quur a lunare a que imum a qui ea alet unam eum os i re meus. una re os i re laneum em re em a nex io des i re uni ea meus. meus num ea ea en eum ea a meus eam re a laus num es i re. meum ur es i re os i at ea at uni re lea ea e a ea e alat … una e a ea ea ames luner lea o a at ea o meum una ri i a te. re ea a que a i re ea i leum uni a te ea eam rem rem es re nex es re. re qua ur ea ur ila munire emi eo ne deus meus os renda. mea et ur es eum al exi dea iret ea re em que a es e ad mea i qua. una lea at ea i re meus os a re. a que a nexum.”
It is about nature and existence.
em a ur eum ur lea ii e ea ea quur ana id re uni re te re ni i re ea re tam et. ad meus ea ea meus es eo ne turi et leum ne turi re es et. ea a __ leum ea eum a lea meum fa te se a meum es eam et. … … … mea i a ur in re os uni re es re a que a i reri i reri i re meo ea quat. … … … ea a quer ea a qui re. mea eum.”
the last passage was difficult to read because not all symbols are visible. it is signed with “The one who migrates”.
I can provide the decipher chart.
Best regards,
Dr. Michael Hoffmann
Germany
There is always something weird about a woman or women in the various translations of the Voynich one finds. In this instance we have:
“the woman, who treated the poor guy, is now boasting about her abilities.”
I suppose the drawings of naked women are a bit weird, so maybe we should expect this.
I like “The one who migrates”, makes me think of pigeons, I don’t know why.
M.H., did you by any chance use Google Translate to interpret the above VMS transliteration into German (or English) text?
I wonder if the author of the Voynich was a time traveller from the future and used Google Translate to compose the manuscript; just a thought.
I also had some problems with the last passage and read the sign off as being possibly…”The one who masturbates”…
For me, it looks like you’ve used a simple 1 to 1 decryption and tore the words apart to get something out of it. That’s how it looks to me at first glance.
But this kind of encryption does not work that way.
Based on my work, the text is concise but understandable.
So much in advance.
Mentioned by the way.
On f93r it is nice to see how many times he used the sign for (et … mirrored S), and he also uses it as an ending.
It is interesting, that it also occurs in the traditional Latin (writing style). (Abbreviation)
I was watching the video of the recent Turkish “decipherment” of the Voynich, which seemed to have somewhat better quality production than some other Voynich “decipherment” videos. However it made me a little sad to see the very likeable boys and their friendly father sucked down a Voynich rabbit hole.
It made me think that really the Voynich manuscript is a horror that has left a trail of misery in its wake. From the misery it inflicted on Newbold to this Turkish family, whose ideas will with time be forgotten, and the many others inbetween.
Whilst it is poisonous, it is a drug that so many of us get addicted to.
Maybe Nick calling his book “the Curse” was appropriate.
Sorry for the sombre mood! (Actually despite what I have said here I am in a reasonably good mood today.)
Geeks all cipherin’ on the Voynich lore..Bin at it four score year’n more.. All is done they’s gonna be sore..Cause there ain’t a damn thing to it..
Mark, I am sure there is no reason to feel sad. My experience is that most people doing things with the Voynich MS are enjoying it. I am sure that they are having as good a time as you are.
They might be annoyed when other people write negative comments about their work. I have not communicated with this group specifically, but in the vast majority of cases, in the end people ignore such comments and continue quite happily.
Nobody has proven that they are wrong.
Rene:
I am not sad so much about it rather resigned to the way the world is.
People are enjoying their research, but in the context that they believe that they are achieving something. Human beings feel positive when they have a sense of achievement.
My curiousity has been piqued by the Voynich manuscript in the same way that many people are fascinated by all sorts of mysteries, historical or otherwise. So, yes, I enjoy researching the Voynich in the same way that one might reading a good detective novel.
When you say people are enjoying it, very few people want to believe the comfortable delusion that their research is going somewhere when in fact it is going nowhere.
People can experience embarrassment at producing a theory that turns out to be meaningless.
They believe that their theory is right, yet 99% of theories will inevitably be wrong and essentially worthless as they are largely mutually contradictory.
So the idea of people happy in their ignorance of the fact that they are wasting their time is not one that is appealing to me I confess.
The resulting disappointment and frustration at their theory being ignored and disregarded is a negative consequence.
When it comes to translation theories they are largely all or nothing theories either you can translate it or not, whilst it is possible that a failed translation could introduce techniques which can subsequently be applied to make a correct translation I imagine this is rare.
I think it is nice for some people to feel that they have made some contribution even if small, so in this situation you have either made a huge contribution or not contribution at all.
Though it is fair to say that every avenue that is explored makes for one few unexplored branches of the tree of possible solutions, so this is an achievement that every researcher who does not duplicate someone else’s theory makes.
As an aside, I feel that by expanding the cipher archive available to Voynich researchers(on my onedrive download directory) I am making a contribution even if I am wrong about everything else. Of course if the Voynich is a language in an unknown script then those cipher records will be of little use.
Clearly some would be inclined to believe that I am deluded and that I am the victim of the same trap, in all cases time will tell us who is right and who is wrong.
One has of course to rely in one’s own mental processes to assess this problem. So like others I think my analysis makes logical sense.
I’ll give you one little hint. Maybe you should get more familiar with the different encryption techniques. Instead of always looking after the technology from Milan.
Imagine encryption being an image and technology a color.
Question: What was used for the picture? Watercolor, or oil, crayon or chalk, maybe just coal. Or several different colours.
Without knowing what is available on the market, you will go round in circles.
The most important thing to look at is the VMS itself. It’s not a 4 x 7 note where we have to search for outside references to guess what might have been intended…
The VMS is a couple of hundred pages that follow some specific patterns from beginning to end that do not match the patterns in other cipher alphabets in terms of position, entropy, quantity of glyphs, or word length. But… it is internally consistent in most ways (even the two Currier versions are mostly the same), which means that anyone wanting to figure it out should probably be spending 70% of their time studying the text itself, in addition to learning about the medieval mindset and medieval paleographical practices and iconography.
There’s nothing wrong with looking at medieval cryptography in general, it’s interesting and educational, but there’s no guarantee that the VMS is a cipher or that it is natural language and, if it’s not, if it is a unique way of expressing information, then the answer can only come from the document itself.
My hypothesis is connected to the notion that the Voynich is a cipher, so I am not exploring the many different alternative hypotheses.
The problem that I see with relying only on the Voynich manuscript itself is that there are so many possible ideas as to how the cipher might work, so it is my suspicion that to explore them all is unfeasible in practce.
So I think one needs more information, this could come from a reliable crib/block paradigm(Nick Pelling), which we don’t as yet have. This could come from a clue from the Voynich or another source as to how the cipher might function.
The central focus of my research at this time is not deciphering the Voynich, but rather the question of authorship. I am inclined to the opinion that if one has correctly determined the author this will provide strong pointers as to where one might find clues which will help to decipher it
After identifying who I think was the author I discovered that he had strong ties to the diplomatic cipher world of the administration of the Duke of Milan. Unfortunately the cipher records were destroyed in 1447, so I am trying to fill the holes in the cipher records using other sources. Another line of my current research involves learning more about my supposed author.
I should add that if I want to learn more about my supposed author and learn more about the ciphers of the Chancery of Filippo Maria Visconti then really the only way to do this is by consulting the Italian archives.
Dear all,
Following up on my idea that “89” stands for “et” and derives from the numbering system of the Armenian language.
I found what I think is an interesting difference in the way “89” is used in the VMS as written by the two scribes. The tighter writer uses it a lot more BUT ONLY AT THE END OF WORDS. I accept Nick’s dictum that what we see as words in Voynichese are really words. But it does not logically follow that a Eurocentric origin is implied! I have argued for an origin “East of Suez” and will come back to India shortly.
But back to the scribal difference in the use of “89”. Three folios, f42r, f44r and f44v, picked at random, indicate that the “looser” writing scribe, showed that in f42r, we have in 23 lines only two occurrences (second paragraph), at the ends of lines 5 and 9. In f44r, with its three paragraphs and 11 lines, we find in the first para, line 2, as the last “word”, likely an isolated “89” and in the line 4 of the third para, …..89, i.e. merged at the end of that line. Now f44v with three paragraphs and 13 lines, we find at the end of line 1 of para 1, (probably) an isolated “89”, paragraph 2, line one, word 4 is likely an isolated “89”, lines 3 and 4 show clearly isolated “89” and in paragraph 3, the first word is likely an isolated “89”. I can find no examples of “89” at either the start or within a “word”, unlike the usual Latin use of “et”, In Voynichese, IT OCCURS ONLY at the END of a word or as an isolated word.
Three folios (f50v, 51r and 51v) picked again at random, from the quill of the tighter writing scribe reveals a huge difference in the use of “89”. It appears only at the END of words as “….89” and at a much greater frequency that as used by the looser writing scribe. In f50v, in 11 lines, “…89” occurs 22 times; in f51r, “…89” occurs 13 times in 14 lines whereas in f51v, “89” occurs attached to the end of words 12 times in 13 lines. So far I have found in other tighter and looser written folios I have examined, that the looser-writing scribe uses “89” much less that the tighter writing scribe and frequently it occurs as an isolated word, as might be expected for the Latin use of et. The tighter writer always appends “89” to the end of words. I accept that these are not NEW words ending in “et” but just a place to park the “89”. Incidentally, it seems a good way to distinguish the looser- and tighter-writing scribes where sometimes the ink intensity and line spacing makes it difficult to distinguish among them. Cheers,
I have noticed that many people have theories about all aspects of the manuscript. I note that by comparison my approach is much more narrow, where I have ignored large swathes of the manuscript and just focussed on specific aspects. Whilst I can believe that is fun to construct a theory around every drawing detail of the manuscript, the somewhat dull pragmatic side of me asks what is going to bring research towards the end goal of deciphering the manuscript. It seems there is also a case for specialisation in Voynich research with some people’s research focussed in specific areas. The manuscript is so long with so many illustrations that it would be easy to spread oneself too thinly by having studied all of the manuscript.
If you all think B-408 is very difficult to understand, I will NOT stop identifying the various objects which appear in B-408. I will, however, refer you ONE MORE TIME to Fray Sahagun’s teachings which are manifold — and TRI-LINGUAL. There is not one item in B-408 gardens that I have failed to identify AND explain its uses.
What I do recognize is that a whole bunch of people are bored, not just with other persons donations but with their own speculations. Fortunately, I don’t have to speculate : Sahagun and his students — and pharmacologists artwork and the uses of Native American discussions for every botanical item, every insect (ants and silkworm moths) mulberry bushes/trees (tree-bark)…..
Take another look at other references (bilingual) to saffron (both spice and dye product). Fray Sahagun had to be very careful when discussing saffron which had many uses. Silk fabric (dyed with saffron). Mulberry bark pounded into ‘paper’ — no watery papyrus……..
bd
General question:
Did it actually have something like a Latin dictionary in the Middle Ages, as we know it today?
eg. English – Latin, or German – Latin.
or how did you learn?
Peter,
they learned Latin (Grammar) from the works of Aelius Donatus, Ars maior and minor and there are German-Latin wordlists, the earliest is the Abrogans and there are bilingual texts like the Althochdeutsche Tatian. But the most common way to learn Latin in the Middle Ages is the Latin psalter, a fact that most people don’t take into account
Hallo Helmut
Ich habe deinen Hinweis nur mal kurz verfolgt, aber ich denke das Problem wo sich zeigt ist grösser als gedacht.
Ich denke hier liegt ein Teil des Problems gegenüber dem VM. Die Unterschiede zum heutigen Latein sind enorm, und das noch von Region zu Region verschieden.
Es macht das ganze nicht einfacher, aber es schränkt zumindest für mich die Möglichkeiten ein. Auf jeden Fall noch besten dank für die Info.
I only briefly followed your advice, but I think the problem is bigger than expected.
I think here is part of the problem facing the VM. The differences to today’s Latin are enormous, and still different from region to region.
It does not make things any easier, but it limits the possibilities, at least for me. In any case, thanks for the info.
I keep reading that the idea of Roger Bacon, da Vinci, and other potential authors who lived earlier than the date given by the carbon dating, have been ruled out as candidates for the author of the manuscript. I fail to understand how the date given by the carbon dating leads to the conclusion that the aforementioned candidates for authorship should necessarily be ruled out.
If the manuscript was a later scribal copy of an earlier manuscript, then would that not still leave the door open to the possibility that the original author lived earlier than the date given by the carbon dating?
Nick: there is no general proof/disproof. However, the contents seem to rely on a number of 14th century genres, so we can almost certainly rule out Roger Bacon. Leonardo da Vinci was left-handed, but the Voynich manuscript was written by a right-hander.
Nick-Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the manuscript was produced by a scribe living in the 15th century, but was based on a manuscript originally authored in the 13th century. Could the reliance of the Voynich manuscript on these “14th century genres” that you refer to, be reconciled with the idea that an original of the manuscript was produced in the 13th century, simply by virtue of the fact that the work of the later scribe of the work was influenced by these “14th century genres” ?
Is there some reason why this explanation is not possible?
Many of Shakespeare’s plays have been performed in modern day dress.
The Voynich Manuscript shows absolutely NONE of the characteristics of da Vinci’s drawing style, drawing skill, or handwriting. There’s simply no trace of anything that looks like his work, and it certainly doesn’t look like “young” da Vinci either. His artistic skilled showed itself at a very early age, as is common for those who are very good at drawing.
Even if the radio-carbon dating had indicated his time period, it seems highly unlikely that da Vinci had any connection to the VMS.
JKP & Nick: Without wishing to be awkward, could what has been said about Da Vinci also be said about Filarete (Antonio Averlino). Surely an architect would also have a high level of drawing skill. If we can assume that Da Vinci did not use scribes to write the Voynich for him, why should we entertain the possibility the Averlino did?
J.K. – I do not think that da Vinci is a candidate for the author. I just mentioned his name as an example of somebody from a time period that the carbon dating seemed to rule out as a possibility as an author. As far as I can see, Roger Bacon (or someone else from a time prior to the date given by the carbon dating ), still remains still a possibility for the author, if the manuscript was a later version of a manuscript originally written by Bacon.
It seems to me, that to rule out somebody like Bacon as the author is analogous to concluding that a version of say “Alice in Wonderland” with computer generated illustrations could not have been written by Lewis Carroll because the technology to produce the illustrations was not around when Carroll was alive.
Nick: if that’s how it seems to you, that’s fine. Yet without much doubt, the single page that’s most problematic for this is the diagram at the start of the BNF Français 565 copy of Nicole Oresme’s Traité de la sphère, which I’ve blogged about a number of times but which Ellie Velinska first brought to researchers’ attention back in 2014:
* http://ellievelinska.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-voynich-manuscript-geocentric-model.html
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2017/10/18/bnf-francais-565-nicole-oresme-jean-de-berrys-library
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2017/10/22/nicole-oresme-aristotle-footprints
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2017/10/29/nicole-oresmes-treatise-sphere
* http://ciphermysteries.com/2017/10/30/nicole-oresmes-reception-outside-france
Mark: as I recall, we have not even one holograph document by Averlino, hence he always used scribes. Nothing more complex than that.
I’ve never ruled out Bacon as a possible influence on the VMS. In my mind, anything that came earlier is a possible influence, even if only indirectly.
Whether it is a direct copy of something that came earlier, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel that way. The drawings show evidence of a variety of sources, and exemplars are not jumping out of the shadows for the drawings or the text, so the content of the text (if there is any) may be from a variety of sources.
A part of a “wolkenband”, appears in the decorated initial for Psalm XXVI in the Bohun Psalter – Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1826. This English Psalter is said to have been started 1350-1360.
The patron for the Bohun Psalter mentioned in my previous post is thought to have been Humphrey de Bohun the 6th Earl of Hereford and Essex (or Humphrey de Bohun the 7th Earl of Hereford).
The “wolkenband” was also a motif that appeared notably in the Toledo Bible of St. Louis IX from the 13th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_of_St_Louis#/media/File:Bible_moralis%C3%A9e_de_Tol%C3%A8de_-_Dieu_pantocrator.jpg
This Bible was made for King Louis IX of France at the request of his mother Blanche of Castile. Blanche of Castile is a member of the same family as the mother of Humphrey de Bonhun, the Sixth Earl of Hereford, Elizabeth of Rhuddland, since she was the daughter of Eleanor of Castile, the wife of King Edward I of England. Eleanor of Castile was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Eleanor of England, the wife of King Alphonso VII of Castile. Blanche of Castile was the daughter of Eleanor of England and Alphonso VII of Castile.
Eleanor of Castile, the mother of Elizabeth of Rhuddland( the mother of Henry de Bohun) was the half sister of Alphonso X of Castile. Alphonso X was nicknamed – the Astrologer.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages showing the translated words.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
Nikolai.
http://voynich.webpoint.nl/?page_id=103
The thing that hits me immediately on looking at the script of the VMS, is the similarity of the gallows characters to shapes in the Bowen Knot/Shield Knot etc. This has been noticed by others.(see above link).
https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/people/faculty/nagel_PDFs/Nagel_final.pdf
21
Characters like some of the gallows characters are also seen in “pseudoscripts” on the edges of garments in many paintings by Raphael and other Renaissance artists.
The gallows characters are also reminiscent of the Turkish knot used in carpet weaving .
This connection of the script to knots, suggests the idea that the script may be termed “Knot writing”. If the pun on the English words “knot/not” was valid at the time that the VMS was written, perhaps the message of the script is that it is “not writing”.
Nick: We might as well not (sic) that Roger Bacon’s mentor William of Sherwood, was of course a Not-tingham lad, if that be any of any help in your pursuit of Voynich gallows humour applications..Also there was, as I recall, a little device that old Empire era soldiers may have recalled from their parade uniforms, whilst serving of Her Majesty the Queen. It coincidently took the form of a double gallows post very reminiscent of those like named Voynich letters. Consisting of a brass, two pronged double loop peg affair, which was placed at prescribed intervals around one’s trouser girth hem line to prevent the wide ‘37 pattern khaki web belt from riding upwards…..I thought a little added trivia might knot (sic) seem overly out of place, if just for the record.
John,
It is interesting that you mention Bacon.
One of the the Latin words that may be translated as “knot” is “torus”.
“Torus” can also mean a “bank”(of earth).
The Italian word for “bank” is “banco” which is an anagram of “Bacon”. Consequently “knot writing” can be interpreted as “Bacon writing”.
The Shield knot/Bowen knot was used as a heraldic badge – an identifier. It may be thought therefore as a kind of “signature”. The idea that a Bowen knot may be equated with both “Bacon” and a “signature” prompts the idea that the gallows type characters represent a “Bacon signature”.
Incidentally, a variant of the Bowen knot/Shield knot appears in many Cosmati mosaic floors. Such a knot design appears in the Cosmati floor of the Stanza del Segnatura in the Vatican where Raphael’s School of Athens is situated. A clear gallows type character may be seen on the hem of the garment worn by the man standing in the brown, blue and yellow garments(Parmenides/) next to the character identified as Pythagoras in the left foreground of The School of Athens.
Interlacing knot work similar to that of the Bown knot/Shield knot is also found in the ceiling design of the Stanza della Segnatura. This interlaced knot work design thus acts as a unifying feature of the space.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Disputa_del_Sacramento_%28Rafael%29.jpg
I neglected to mention in my last post the conspicuous presence of the similar interlaced knotting on the altar cloth and on the gold pallium of the Pope Gregory I (to the left of the altar) in La Disputa by Raphael in the Stanza della Segnatura.
http://voynich.webpoint.nl/?page_id=103
The idea that the Bowen knot/Shield Knot may be a “signature” for the name “Bacon” may perhaps also be used to argue that Francis “Bacon” was one and the same as William Shakespeare due to it’s presence on the W.S. ring associated with William Shakespeare.
Nick: I have noticed that some Voynich characters look like pretzels, I wonder if there could be a connection there.
Also some characters are referred to as “gallows” characters, maybe there is more to that than a useful name. It could be that the resemblance is deliberate. The author of the Voynich may have obsessed with death and so the manuscript describes his recipe for the elixir of life.
Nick: Mary Everest messed around with knots, nooses, fancy stitching techniques and interlocking magic rings to both amuse young students and teach her father’s Boole algebra formuli. Kids still love to make use of her curve stitch method to create thei own quasi planetary systems other quasi circular astrological designs and lovely colourful rosette shaped string art features for framing and the like. Of course Mary is better known in Voynich circles as Wilfred’s mum in law and best buddy, who helped him no end when he was getting started on rare books in the gay nineties. Young Ethel (Lily) or the Gadfly, was still messing with picking up on archaic languages and also interpretting them to pay her way. Those were struggle times, before her hubby hit the bigtime with his well received fancy catalogue sales for rare books, then came New York, the FBI fifth column assertions by jealous adversaries and in 1921, the release of the VM to enthrall us for the ensuing hundred years. After Wilfred left us in ‘29, good wife Lilly wrote the odd book to finish her Gadfly trlllogy and spent most of her old age writing music scores for her own amusement. I’d like to see some of her sheets to see if there can be found any semblance to the Manuscript script. One thing I did see, and Nick, your eyes will light up I’m sure; Check out Ethel’s usual signature sign off and you can’t miss the Scaffold loop feature in the word Faithfully. Thanks for the interesting and possible ground breaking post.
Knots and knot-like patterns: ( recognising forms of decorative design – a first ‘baby step’ in acquiring the tools of iconographic analysis)
Knots and knot-like patterns were of interest to European and American readers as part of the the ‘arts and crafts’ movement during the late nineteenth century and earlier part of the 20th.
Still a hand little reference – Archibald H Christie, Pattern Design – still in print through Dover, I understand.
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/88031367700795358/
True (i.e. accurately informed and deliberate) knot-designs are usually based on something you’ll find in
The Ashley Book of Knots.
However, the model offered by embroidery (e.g. Chinese frogging and ‘turks head’ buttons) shouldn’t be forgotten either.
Cheers
If any of you VM folk are inclined, you might saunter over to the slightly less stuffy CM Tamam Shud site or one of its well illustrated off shoots BS, for a good example of the double link gallows knot, embroided upon the sleeve of a dressing gown. You’ll locate it easily enough on the visuals section of Somerton Man’s clothes and whilst not actually related to the case, that’s of no concern.
For those who can read and write German.
A nonkyptogram
you probably can not translate it with Google!
Für diejenigen die deutsch lesen und schreiben können.
Ein nichtkyptogramm
https://web.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2140487316173911&set=gm.1762039597239167&type=3&theater&ifg=1
In 1863, Richard Grant White, said Elizabethans pronounced “nothing” and “noting” alike. The word “Noting” may also be interpreted as “Not-ing” which is a homophone of “knotting”. Since the main theme of the play “Much Ado About Nothing” is marriage or “tying the knot” , the title of the play “Much Ado About Nothing/Knotting” would be an apt title for the play.
There’s a tie in to your Notting-ham comment, John!
Due to the play of words already shown between the word “knot” and the word “Bacon”, a knot would be a reasonable emblem to use for someone with the name Bacon.
Reiner Musterbuch ( 1208 )
http://www.bildarchivaustria.at/Pages/Search/Result.aspx?p_iPage=1&p_ItemID=1&p_eBildansicht=2
Mr. Pelling
I wanted to let you all know about my forum I started and traffic is picking up regarding the Voynich Manuscrip. I highly respect others views regarding the Voynich Manuscript and I’m open to any ideas regarding what its all about. Feel free to post anything but foul language to other users.
http://voynichman.freeforums.net/
“Tomas”: ah, Tom O’Neil, so that’s where you’ve been. Not sure I can guarantee a rush of people to your site (or even one), but there you go.
@ Nick and and Tom O’Neil :
It is entirely written and pictorial elements are all done by native Americans: When Fray Sahagun was robbed of all of his written materials (his dictation and some 12 Books of all things written and illustrated by his Nahuatl students).
ALL of his written material was stolen by the Spanish Inquisition — and never returned to him. The Spanish Inquisitioners materials eventually ended up in Suleiman’s enormous ‘library (scrolls)’. When Ambassador Busbecq returned to Rudolph II ‘s palace, he brought with him some 200 scrolls, six thoroughbred horses and a small plant specimen — later known as “tulips”.
bd
Nick: A question which has plagued me and should plague all Voynich researchers is the question “how similar is similar enough?”, more specifically, “how does one evaluate the probability that two things are the same based on the degree of similarity?”.
This question is particularly pertinent when considering the visual similarity of drawings in the Voynich. So for example what is the probability that this drawing of a plant represents a specific plant based on the real visual similarities and also the representation of that plant in manuscripts of the time?
Trying to tackle this question in a rigourous and formal way seems almost impossible. Maybe one day some kind of AI image recognition software will provide some reference for quantification of this kind of question. However for now it appears that one is left with making some kind of personal subjective judgment, which is far from ideal.
This question is of fundamental importance as it lies at the centre of so much of Voynich research, whether we are talking about the 9 rosette foldout or the animals that I understand appear in the astrological pages. This question presents a difficulty in formalising aspects of my argument as I can say that Voynich drawing X is very much like non-Voynich image Y, but of course someone else can say that they don’t think they look so much alike and I have no way of arguing with that. Clearly there is a point where 2 things look so alike that it is universally aspected that they are the same; I think nobody doubts that what we would describe as “drawings of plants” actually represent drawings of plants.
This may sound like a rather theoretical and philosophical question, but I believe that for me it is something to bear in mind when pursuing my thought processes.
I was thinking about “goal driven research”. I would think the end goal of Voynich research should be to arrive at a translation of the manuscript. (I do accept that once the manuscript has been successfully translated research on it will continue, but for all current and practical purposes the end goal should be viewed as translation.) That is not to say that obviously there won’t be intermediate goals or steps towards this.
So I think it worth asking the question of any specific area of research “How will progress in this area advance us towards the end goal and how is it likely to take us forward?”
Now it is obviously not certain which areas or research or lines of enquiry will make the most difference, but nevertheless I think one can assess the likelihood a specific line of research might make a difference.
I don’t want to be a killjoy and recognise that some people research aspects of the Voynich without a view to an end goal, just for fun. This is not my approach as I am fundamentally interested in solving the central mystery of the Voynich.
As examples recent questions that I have posed and received an answer to are:
“How likely is it that being able to read the marginalia will advance research towards our end goal?”
“How likely is Koen’s work on the ‘twin marriage’ to advance research?”
I ask these kind of questions as I am inclined towards the view that there is quite a bit of research carried out without clearly thinking out how it may advance the main Voynich research project.
For example it seems hard for me see how the identification of a specific plant correctly will help greatly as whilst it has been argued that the first word on each page is the plant name I think this assertion is geniuely regarded as highly questionable. Of course identification of a given plant may provide geographical information, but I think most plants would be likely to be fairly widespread though it is possible that they are not.
I view my own research programme which has its origins in research into the 9 rosette foldout as providing very important geographical information into the origins of the Voynich as well as potentially, as I believe, the identity of the author.
Geographical information I think has a great value in narrowing down the potential locations to look for other relevant source material which would be another step towards finding a block-paradigm or other kind of crib or a way of narrowing down candidates for authorship. Knowledge of authorship could provide a useful guide as to where to look for more sources to assist in decipherment. So these could serve as a very important step towards decipherment.
I, for one, don’t agree that the most important thing about the Voynich MS is what the text says.
On the other hand, it is perfectly fine for any individual to have this end goal in mind.
If research is the search for knowledge, then the end goal is “to increase knowledge”. This is quite generic and does not differentiate between different types of knowledge. (“what does the text say?”, “How was it done”, “Why?”).
Furthermore, I dare say that it is generally not possible to know in advance which road is likely to be most effective in reaching a particular increase in knowledge.
More specifically, following up one particular theory is less likely to be effective.
Rene: I think that all the genuine Voynich researchers I interact with are fighting battles on multiple fronts.
However, I think that the reason cipher mysteries are so interesting is that if you can get past all the layers of history, there is a single correct answer to be found. This gives a finishing line and a chequered flag, like a puzzle competition. 🙂
Rene: What is important in life is subjective, so I tend to focus on goals. Some might say that research into any given subject is unimportant including the Voynich. The key about being able to read the text is of course that it opens the door to knowledge and understanding of the manuscript. The difference between the knowledge of the manuscript prior to translation as opposed to subsequent to translation should be very very marked. So the translation of the manuscript should result in a very very marked “increase in knowledge” rather than chasing after crumbs which is what we are left with at the moment,
As I say, one cannot know precisely in advance which line of research will result in the greatest progress, however we can assess the likelihood that a given area of research will result in a given increase in knowledge. Again here the question is “likelihood” not “certainty”.
I think diffuse superficial analysis is unlikely to arrive somewhere useful. So, someone has a quick squint at each of the cosmological drawings and forms their theory of each of those and then a squint at each of the plant pages and forms a theory of those and so on… So we then we end up with “Oh, it looks like a water wheel to me” or “it looks like a fountain” and then one moves swiftly on to the next page of the Voynich ready to construct another back of a matchbox theory. The Voynich has such a wealth and quantity of content that I think one can lack focus and feel that any self-respecting Voynich researcher should have a theory for each and every page of the manuscript.
Hi Nick,
from the cipher point of view that is of course right, although my interpretation says that this is more the question “how it was done” rather than “what it says”. Basically the same situation as the third book of Trithemius.
There is also a historical question to be solved, or in fact at least two:
“Who?”
“With what purpose in mind”
Nick: I think pursuing more than one front certainly has something to be said for it. However pursuing all fronts stretches an individual too thinly.
I have opted for basically a very narrow focus primarily the 9 rosette page and the script and its relationship to diplomatic ciphers and their development.
Whether that qualifies me as a genuine Voynich researcher in your eyes I do not know. In the areas I have worked in I have and do endeavour to be very thorough, something few others working in those areas seem to have been.
I agree the “I’ve solved” it attraction of translation of this kind of research is a big motivation for many researchers.
Rene: Take for example my preoccupation with the 9 rosette page. I have looked at the theory of others and examined them and they seem to be back of a matchbox theories.
So as an example your planets theory. I have not seen any documentary basis in prior or contemporary manuscripts for that layout and the lack of details of the theory and what it purports to explain. If one narrows oneself down to explaining only a small number of aspects of the page then one can make a multitude of theories fit. (Narrowing oneself down to the page itself is a somewhat different story.)
Having studied maps of that period and before in some detail I think the 9 rosette page fits neatly in that tradition for a variety of good reasons. Other explanations rely more on personal fantasy than anything concrete.
With reference to my previous comments I think there is a good case for specialisation. This of course is normal in many disciplines. Rather than every individual coming up with 20+ different theories relating to different aspects of the manuscript which lack much detail or much research, thoroughly researching in a more specialised way in a few narrower areas should result in more substantial research.
Mark: part of the problem with the Voynich Manuscript is the way specialist researchers so often look at a single (though usually questionable and interpretation-laden) aspect of the manuscript and from there extrapolate to the history, psychology, and cryptology of the entire thing, and with a claimed level of certainty that is entirely unsupportable.
By way of comparison, it is completely reasonable to instead focus on details with the idea of trying to link those in with external historical traditions: and the work that has been done to link the zodiac roundel illustrations (i.e. linking the drawings with illustrative motifs and designs from specific German manuscripts / workshops) is a good example of that. But it would be a fallacy to conclude from that connection that the Voynich Manuscript ‘must therefore’ itself be an encrypted / obfuscated German hausbuch or whatever.
These are the kind of “microhistories” I talked about in The Curse of the Voynich, and to which Rene is alluding here: and indeed that is how a very significant amount of history is done. It is a measure of the difficulty of the challenge presented by the Voynich that these microhistories have not yet presented us with more detailed logical arguments about the origin and nature of the manuscript than they have. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that we know more about its history from its marginalia and codicology than we do from its text and drawings.
Of course, you would say that your reading of the nine rosette page offers a detailed basis for placing and locating the manuscript’s construction. Well, yes: except that until such time as you have found a single external document or text that mentions it, its construction, its intent, or its travels, your proposed account is still located firmly in the realms of the speculative, no matter how self-consistent or self-supporting it may appear to be. Which isn’t to say your account is true or false: rather, all the while it remains unconnected to the external world, it is close to impossible to evaluate in any useful way.
By way of comparison, where my own (Curse) account differs is that it started by proposing a direct connection with the little books of secrets described in Filarete’s libro architettonico, and then followed on by exploring what that putative connection might imply about the Voynich Manuscript – for example, that it would have certain thematic sections, that its plaintext would be Tuscan, and so forth. Was I guilty of looking at the Voynich Manuscript through too narrow a lens? Some might think so: but given that the sum total of all other fifteenth century documents proposed as being causally connected to the Voynich Manuscript in broadly the same kind of way is currently zero, it doesn’t seem to have a lot of competition in that respect. 😉
Nick: If one is rigourous then what you refer as a “claimed level of certainty” from “specialist research” is not unsupportable. I can’t answer for other researchers, but I see no reason specifically in the scientific method or in the history of the research method to preclude a very specialised approach to resolving a problem, in fact I think it is not uncommon, it just means that one has to be even more careful.
It is indeed completely reasonable to focus on a variety of distinct details and try to draw them into one thread, but this is not a prerequisite.
But for example regarding the “illustrative motifs and designs” one could ask questions of the extent to which those motifs were found elsewhere and the extent to which those texts travelled. Frequencies and probabilities become important here. If it could be proven that the overwhelming probability is that a source was a German hausbuch as the likelihood of alternative hypotheses is very low then that would be valid, but one would have to be extremely careful and rigourous in so doing. I have not looked into that specific problem, so I cannot comment on the truth of falsity of this specific question.
Interestingly my model makes a prediction of a journey encompassing Northern Italy and Switzerland over a significant period of time which maybe “coincidently”, as Rene would object me saying, fits neatly with the alleged origins of various source materials, certainly nothing I remotely considered when forming the theory. So it would be interesting for me to know the frequency of those kind of sources elsewhere.
Your theory is the only plausible macrotheory that I am aware of other than, from my perspective, my own. I admire your intelligence and thorough and rigourous approach. You say intelligent and interesting things that was my first impression and remains so that seems to me all too often lacking in contemporary Voynich research. I don’t try to flatter you when I say that, rather I am quite geninue. This doesn’t mean I don’t think you are wrong in certain areas, but a theory can be wrong yet still an intelligent interesting theory well argued for.
When you refer to supposed “microhistories” which underpinned your theory, you had a series of fairly narrow steps by which you arrived at your theory, so I am not sure in practice the extent that you were bringing disparate threads to bear.
You say: “until such time as you have found a single external document or text that mentions it, its construction, its intent, or its travels, your proposed account is still located firmly in the realms of the speculative, no matter how self-consistent or self-supporting it may appear to be.” Again the same really applies to your theory.
It would be nice and is my aim to find more evidence, but I thought it important to complete my map analysis. As is so often the case compiling more information is very hard as my author, whilst a significant and important person, is not famous, so there is not a vast amount of information about him. Similarly you are aware of the difficulties associated with my continual and on going efforts to find Visconti cipher evidence. I have definitely made some progress, but there is plenty more to do. However for my own benefit as well possibly that of others I felt in important to write up this first phase with as much rigour as possible; hopefully giving me confidence to push on and providing a complete record for others who may be interested. I need to do my utmost to build and justify or change my theory on as rigourous basis as I can.
My understanding was not that your starting point for your theory was with Filarete’s books. This is why the sequence by which you form or formed your argument is important to me as the Curse was unclear on this front.
You say: “then followed on by exploring what that putative connection might imply about the Voynich Manuscript – for example, that it would have certain thematic sections, that its plaintext would be Tuscan, and so forth.”
Presumably your ideas that it was Filarete’s Little Books was at least because of these qualities not an implication of a prior identification as you present. Again this is where the steps in your argument are unclear.
If you take as your foundation the commonality with Filarete’s books then you need to prove that the Little Books are so uniquely consistent with the Voynich. My understanding is that they are not said to contain Astronomical sections. which is core to the Voynich, and on the connection to the subject of Machines seems a raise questions.
You write that Filarete wrote a herbal in the Vernacular. The definition of the word Vernacular is: “the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people of a country or region.” This is hardly consistent with the Voynich.
Now I haven’t researched similar parallel texts of the period with potential commonalities to the Voynich and I imagine neither have you as ot has not been that relevant to my current research. The overlap between the Little Books and the Voynich maybe unusually significant or not, so I haven’t researched contemporary texts to see if this level of commonality is far from unique. Whether someone else has or has not suggested a contemporary text is neither here nor there that doesn’t make it true, though it does provide a point of comparison for others.
Again, I think your theory could be just as easily criticised on the same basis as mine despite your protestations otherwise.
It is also hard to evaluate your theory, though I have pointed out a variety of concerns over a period of time. I find it plausible or perhaps I should say not implausible, not something that can be said of other macrotheories. There are concerns I have, but not so much that I could say with confidence that it is untrue. But even if it is not correct I regard it as an impressive and serious attempt.
If you are not sure whether my theory is true or not, hopefully that at least means that you find it not implausible, which is the same stance as mine as regards your theory.
Nick: I should add that my identification of author is significant. My author attended the Council of Basel which fits very neatly with my map layout and that was a consequence of my identification. Similarly my author had close relatives intimately involved in Milanese ciphers and his brother used the most advanced cipher that I am aware of prior to 1450; further research may indicate more advanced pre-1450 ciphers. So my theory does not have external references. Nevertheless I am keen to justify my 9 rosette analysis in isolation with references to subsequent research. Also my theory is not all or nothing as parts of it may be correct and parts not.
Nick: A few other details->
My author was appointed to his job by Papal Bull and in that he was described as a man of god and science. Now I don’t know if that reference to science was common in that context.
There is a reference to him having written a herbal manuscript.
He introduced many new species of plants to the place he was responcible for.
The place he was based was described as a “hospitalis”, so serving a medical role to those who passed through as it was on a major pilgrimage route.
He was trained initially for the political world and was described as having an important diplomatic role in the area he was based,
He was a intelligent and dynamic figure who transformed the place he worked and was the most significant person to hold that position there in its history. He had personal political dealings with Francesco Sforza.
His uncle in his tranformation of Milanese government is described as having created the first modern foreign office and many other family members played important roles in the diplomatic life of Milanese government.
–So I have researched other aspects, but I think initially I want to treat my map analysis separately.
I’m always surprised when you say the pipes are cannons.
Maybe it’s organ pipes. Symbolic of sound of the sky. And in the middle of the Rossette a whole organ register.
This would certainly be better with the sky rosettes and stars where we see them than cannons.
Let’s do some philosophy.
There is a word in front of the pipes. Compared to the keyword Taurus (if that’s Taurus too). should have the word “aroras” (a roras). translates to “the rounds”. Or maybe “auroras” (sun). That also stands for light and heat.
On the left is another word “afortus” (a fortus) A fortress? Actually, one should not think of a castle. It also means “unsurmountable” or “can not get through”
That’s just a train of thought! 🙂
Peter: The idea of stars that many refer to I find weak, the “*” that see are spread all over the page, so are we saying they are stars all over the page?
A curious point, Claudette Cohen says that it is common to have artillery on maps of that time, yet she thinks that there is no artillery on the rosette foldout. I haven’t investigated whether it is common to have artillery on maps of that time, but if it is then that would provide a little support to my identification.
@Mark
You write: “I find the idea of stars, to which many refer, weak, the” * “that exists, are distributed all over the page, so we say that they are stars on the whole page?”
And yet they are there.
They are also everywhere, in the sky rosettes, city, in the middle, bottom right by the fields.
Stars in this style have a meaning. You can find them everywhere. In churches, among the ancient Egyptians, in Babylon, actually around the world and for millennia.
You can not just ignore them just because they do not fit your theory.
Cannons are not common. If so, then only on battle cards to indicate the positions. ,
Your opinion is needed again. For which letters do you hold the two signs? To be seen on page f66r.
Important for me, if you have the same opinion as me.
I will explain later for which I hold it.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2159792154243427&set=gm.1812476672195459&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Peter, the first one is final-ess (mus). This is the most common form of final-ess in German manuscripts, and occurs in other languages, as well. It’s a normal way to write “s” at the ends of words.
The other one I am not sure. It looks like “m” (mel) overwritten rather strangely in a darker handwriting. I am not 100% certain it is “m”, maybe it’s “in” or something else, even though it looks like “m”. I don’t know what they wrote on top of it.
Peter: Not sure who’s opinion you’re seeking, though at a guess, it’s not likely to be mine…Looking at the interesting sketch overall, we see a naked lady, with that weirdly distended tummy bulge. From her position, hand gestures and such, she appears as if preparing herself for some type of gynealogical medical proceedure. I certainly hope for her sake its not a cescearian operation, as if we’re talking in terms of circa. 1421, she would not be likely to survive. The signs are somewhat ominous, in that we see the old surgery bucket, and an interestingly modern era sea sponge used for soaking up excess blood. Other paraphernalia, which may include a probe hook with an intestinal fluke attached, would be a very vague guess and the roundish head like object, I care not to discuss…. Sorry I don’t note any obvious signs, nor the letters you mention.
I think one is a small (s)
The angel a small (d). Something messed up but the same as in the upper word (den).
@john sanders
Basically I do not represent any opinion about the picture where we see there. It is also not important what it is about.
it is only about the 2 letters where something confusing are shown.
On the total picture I come back surely still on it.
The whole is however surely a key position.
Peter: Perhaps nothing at all…Above the eimer, the green circled item resembles a fish, perhaps threaded on a hook, of which only the shank is visible. On the right, just out of the circle is a shape similar to a kind of German fish hook with the name Pescaro (Esp.). Further right is a round face of which button eyes/nose are apparent. This face is also to be seen on the roundel near the lizard’s mouth (f79v)
@ John Sanders
You speak in rattles. Have you smoked or drunk anything? Because soberly considered there is nothing.
Topic closed.
@jkp
I have looked at this again strongly enlarged with the overwritten (m). In fact, it looks like he overwrote the (m) with a (d). I hadn’t noticed that before.
I ask myself: Did he really want to write (mel) ?
I see a (des), but (mel) would be quite possible.
(mel) old name for ground medicine. ( by region ).
The (e) was written like a (ä) with two dots above.
Peter: So sorry not to be of much help my friend. And no, I’m not into strong drink or substance abuse thankfully. Cheers. js
egal, heute binm ich stockm besoffen eigentlich ish eifach, aber nicht einer nmerkt sa Sache isch.. ir4 chong d mich.
@ rene, aber es schnalt kiner. soory englisch perfkt
genmaur
kt
Koen’s Haiku, reminded me to do re a re check on the armadillo’s armour plate. Just as I thought, the formation is not even remotely similar to the Voynich animal, which does have the armadillo body, but with scales resembling the pangolin, that are unaturally reversed. Got to be a female sketch artist without any bent for nature; Same sheila that goofed up with many of the other Voynich Manuscript’s flora and fauna depictions. post Columbian, is the best I can offer date wise considering…
Well I have succeeded in finding a key, while maintaining a letter to letter format; for the Zodiac Voynich wheel, regarding folio 67r2 in French using a Vigenere cipher.
If you wish to just copy and paste visit here:
https://frenchvoynich.wordpress.com/
http://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/19/french-zodiac-vigenere-cipher-decryted
Use Crypto Corner:
http://crypto.interactive-maths.com/vigenegravere-cipher.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/a2isi9/67r2_decoded_zodiac_to_french_using_a_vigenere/
In the book “The Cipher of Roger Bacon”, p 44, there appears the following passage:
“The parchment, the ink, and the style of drawings indicate, in the judgement of experts, England as the place and the thirteenth century as the time of origin.”
The date given by carbon 14 dating places the date of origin of the manuscript at 1404 -1438. The discrepancy between the date of origin in the opinion of the experts consulted in the 1920’s, and the date of origin as given by carbon-14 dating is large.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/carbon-dating-accuracy-major-flaw
What could account for this discrepancy? Were the experts charlatans? Or could the discrepancy be explained by a flaw in the science behind carbon-14 dating like that outlined in the above article?
Nick: bless you, but the answer is simply that the book got it flat wrong.
Wilfrid Voynich convinced himself that his (now eponymous) manuscript was by Roger Bacon: and he even managed to convince other people. But he was basically wrong, it was just his wishful thinking.
I thought I would state my research goals here for 2019, partly to remind myself and clarify in my mind what they are in order of importance:
1) Continue my research into diplomatic ciphers of the early 15th century (primo Quattrocentro) i.e. the period that the Voynich is dated to, with a particular emphasise on Milanese diplomatic ciphers especially those of the reign of Filippo Maria Visconti. I will have an even greater emphasis on the diplomatic ciphers written by the relatives of my “author” in the Milanese government. This may research may be useful to more general Voynich research.
2) I will endeavour to learn a lot more about my author by tracing back primary sources for the information that I already know of with the hope that it will open my eyes to more information contained within these sources. I may look into what more information on his close family members I can find, but probably this won’t be a major focus.
3) Whilst I don’t anticipate doing further research into the 9 rosette foldout, it is possible that the work of others or discoveries of my own may lead me to new insights and further research.
4) It is conceivable, though I think unlikely that I will research Swiss german sources for the Voynich.
More to come…
The 6 June article in “Siliconrepublic” that Nick (not Pelling) pointed to triggered my interest, of course.
The observation that C14 contents is not uniformly distributed on complete hemispheres is nothing new. Clearly, this is one of the contributors to the uncertainty values in the calibration curves, that are published together with the curves themselves.
So what is this devastating news that justifies the suspicion that history books may need to be re-written?
Fortunately, the paper by Manning et al of Cornell (one of the co-authors of the IntCal13 calibration curve publication, by the way), is available on-line. It is probably sufficient to quote a few lines from its abstract:
“Considerable work has gone into developing high-precision radiocarbon
(14C) chronologies for the southern Levant region during the
Late Bronze to Iron Age/early Biblical periods (∼1200–600 BC), but
there has been little consideration whether the current standard
Northern Hemisphere 14C calibration curve (IntCal13) is appropriate
for this region. We measured 14C ages of calendar-dated tree rings
from AD 1610 to 1940 from southern Jordan to investigate contemporary
14C levels and to compare these with IntCal13. Our data reveal
an average offset of ∼19 14C years, but, more interestingly, this
offset seems to vary in importance through time. While relatively
small, such an offset has substantial relevance to high-resolution 14C
chronologies for the southern Levant, both archaeological and paleoenvironmental.”
So, a regional effect of 19 years, which is agreed to be small, but affecting studies that are called “high-precision radiocarbon chronologies”.
The formal uncertainty for the Voynich MS dating follows from the uncertainty of the calibration curve (IntCal04 in this case), and is 33 years (at 95%), so +/- 16.5 years. Same ballpark.
Looks like the columnist did go a bit over the top here.
Nick,
We can all go home. The whole text has been translated by a pair of authors who reduce it to just 17 pages, apparently. Say it is Greek, and a medical text (poor Touwaide, his ‘iatrosophia’ was picked up and made another meme).
The authors who accomplished the feat know a bit about codicology, evidently:
“This manuscript is a wonderful 15th century manuscript on wove paper. ..”
My ‘Theriac key’ idea seems to have hit a nerve too. (They must have well informed friends).
By searching for common words …. such as the Theriac … as well as expressions used by apothecaries: wash – cut – filter- chop, or even the expression “as custom” …. we noticed that when written in Greek the alphabetic code could be immediately deciphered.
This permitted the translation of the first pages of the manuscript, proposed in English and French, with a glossary giving the Voynich word and its Greek translation. The reader can now continue the laborious translation and discover with us the thoughts of on apothecary and physician of the 15th century, at least his secrete thoughts on biology [sic] the zodiac.
Hoor… hum.
If you are talking about the one by Israel & Israel, I think that’s been out for about six years. I think I saw a preview of it somewhere (Amazon?). There are excerpts on Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=nuZaDQAAQBAJ&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&dq=anita+israel+voynich&source=bl&ots=8KbdFe_1F8&sig=ACfU3U16fnD5Prt5L7HmHHCOp5qFYBI0Bg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiFjNe4qMDgAhUKs1QKHWkNCycQ6AEwCHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=anita%20israel%20voynich&f=false
J.K. Petersen
Thanks for the link.
I read it briefly, smiled, shook my head and closed again.
It is not enough to try to derive something from other medical books. And they do not even stick to their own formula.
JKP & Peter,
Sorry, it was a kind of ‘in-joke’ for old-timers. Thing is that their ‘theory’ is just a cobbling together of other people’s work published in blogs and mailing lists.
My suggestion that because that some version of Mithridates’ theriac recipe is found in all the medieval languages, and we have it as a set of illustrated ingredients in a particular Arabic text (which I discussed) so it might – theoretically – serve as a pictorial and textual ‘rosetta stone’.
Then you have the ‘pickup’ which occurred on the ‘hours speak Greek’ thing, especially after Touwaide’s ‘iatrosophia’ was turned into an anonymous buzzword.
And finally Don Hoffman’s painstaking translation which introduced those words such as ‘chop’, ‘mix’ and so on.
Oldies like me – and I hoped, Nick, if he’s not too jaded – find the mish-mash of ‘lifted’ ideas sort-of amusing in a slightly tired/disenchanted way.
Sorry you took it seriously.
You know, it’s funny…
it’s now been 12 years (early 2007) since I got hooked on the VMS (I checked my hard drive to see when I started downloading resources and it was a few months earlier than I remembered) and I still don’t feel like an “oldie” or like I know very much about it.
JKP – I’ve been collecting digital images since floppies really were were floppy, though as part of my ordinary work, not the Voynich-related.
I suppose I date my becoming formally involved to about eighteen months after someone wrote to me, asking my opinion of a couple of details from the Ms.
That 18 months was spent on reading. I didn’t realise then that it wouldn’t be treated as normal to include one’s bibliography with every essay (short or long).
I began writing an exploratory-and-educational sort of blog in about 2009, but the general level of online Voynichero wasn’t the same then as it is now. I think Marco is so lucky to be able to write about the Indian decans, the Shifanoia and d’Abano without being howled down, or being – as it were hissed and sneered at. When I introduced all that back in 2010-11, there was hell to pay.
That’s the sort of change that makes one feel like an ‘oldie’. “I can remember when… ” 😀
Diane + JKP: for me, the definition of a Voynich oldie is someone who can list five or more things they once thought to be completely true about the Voynich Manuscript but which they have since had to discard completely. If you’ve never been wrong about it, I would suggest that you’ve never really engaged with it. :-/
Nick – everything I assumed when I agreed to look at the manuscript proved to be impossible on closer inspection.
Everything I read on the Beinecke blurb – just about – proved wrong.
After forty years dedication to my own field, I’ve never reached the point of feeling that I knew enough to strut expecting others to meet my opinion with deference. That’s not what it’s about; just to do the work needed to be a little less wrong today than I was yesterday; and tomorrow if the work goes well to be a little less wrong about whatever-it-is than I am today.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend I haven’t done the work I have and formed the views I have done from it. I know, for example, that the imagery in the Vms shows nothing like any apothecary jar used in Europe before the manuscript was made. Just ‘frinstance. 🙂
You know Nick, with the ‘freeze-out’ campaign that’s been going for a while, it’s really nice to have a conversation about the Vms. Thanks.
Diane: sorry, but I don’t believe for a microsecond that there is any kind of ‘freeze-out’ campaign going on. What I do believe is that the stuff you assert about the ESA on your new website leaves both you and everyone else worse off.
Hey, I already made some mistakes.
the first one was to start with VM, and the second one I did not stop.
Am I an oldie now?
Nick,
Let’s be clear.
Since I joined the second mailing list in 2011, I have had to put up with deliberately circulated fantasies – for example about my age (allegedly a teenager – I’m in my sixties); I have had to protest the systematic, constant plagiarism of my work (and it is work that I’ve contributed to the study).
I’ve had Rene Zandbergen for TEN years never opening his mouth to or about me without some effort at denigration. I have been informed by both RIchard Santacoloma, and by Stephen Bax before he died that they were acting on Zandbergen’s ‘casual advice’ in ordering me to stop engaging in conversation 0 just to write on my own blog.
The little engineer has never been introduced to me, and knows nothing of my circumstances, qualifications, or any of the commissions I received during the past forty years. He relies for his ideas very largely on imagination, and for their reception on what I imagine is personal charm, but the fact is that when he asserted with extraordinary confidence, in print, that I am not a recognised expert in my field, his imagination tripped over the line into libel.
Did the moderator of that forum admonish him? Not really.
Now – to take the other point. When your log, for the past TEN years shows that the same organisation (and possibly the same person) who has been the most persistent downloader and printer of your work also declares an intention never to acknowledge you as the source of any information, then there’s a major conflict, wouldn’t you say?
Nick – you may decide not to publish this. I don’t mind either way. I won’t stop working on the blog. I’m not writing for whoever it is thinks I have no right to protest theft of my work. Better they should protest the suppression of discussion and dissent.
Do you know, I asked Marco Ponzi if he could tell me where I might read the argument made for dating the marginalia to the same period as the main text.
His reply…. he blocked me. Do you think anyone will protest?
Hmm – the standards seem to vary, rather… don’t you think?
When you get a situation where your most avid – relentless – downloader has taken some sort of blood oath to never mention your name: to positively go back and wipe it, then there’s obviously going to be a problem with ethical use of the material, isn’t there? It seems better to me to make clear that the pers
RIchard Santacoloma has told me that he was lobbied and ‘casually advised’; Stephen Bax, before he died, responded to a query by saying the same. In each case the ‘casual advisor’ was the same person and their ‘casual advice’ was exactly the same: to say that I should communicate only on my own blog. A sort of ghetto=ising, if that isn’t too loaded a term. (Can’t think of a better).
This has been an issue for TEN years, ever since I said plainly that most of the iconographic arguments didn’t meet any reasonable standard: that the use of the German ‘wolkenband’ didn’t make the Asian cloudband German.
I’m a qualified iconographic analyst, specialising in problematic artefacts. I was asked to give an opinion. I found the manuscript more interesting that I expected. I have shared – and tried to teach – the way to read the imagery in this manuscript, over a decade. In all that time, there is scarcely a single new insight or discovery that hasn’t been ‘lifted’ and scarcely one whose source has been credited.
Having put up with that one particular leech for a full decade, and the same person’s determined combination of plagiarism and ad.hominem, I’ve had enough too.
Nick, this garbage has no place in any respectable publicly visible forum.
It degrades your blog.
I am at a loss why you let it pass.
Rene: I thought it best that people see it for themselves. What I do with it next is another matter…
Diane: I’ve had a longer think about your comment.
On the one hand, I disagree with (and in many parts know to be utterly false) what you have to say here and on your website, both on a technical level and at a personal level. I would like to think that I have previously tried to flag those differences / disagreements just about as openly and straightforwardly as can be achieved. So I hope most would agree that not only have I made my own opinion clear, but also that I have made it utterly transparent that I do not share any of your opinions.
On the other hand, what am I (as a blog owner) to do with comments left here that are not only radically different to my own (as indeed most of them are), but that also apparently enrage other people? I think – as does Rene Zandbergen – that a great deal of your lengthy comment here is, as he puts it, “garbage”: but Rene is not a blog owner, and so has the luxury of not having to moderate comments such as this.
So, here’s what I’m going to do. I will leave your comment here exactly as you submitted it, to make the paranoid, hateful nonsense you have been spewing out for far too long now completely visible to everybody. I will also moderate out all your future comments: and if anyone asks me why, I will simply point them at your comment here, and say – read what she wrote, and make up your own mind.
I (of course) don’t endorse anything you say in it, and may well at some future time simply bin it as the garbage it is. For now, it stays moderated in, but only as a cautionary note to others.
Peter: you’ve still got three more mistakes to make before you’re a genuine “oldie”. But on the bright side, that shouldn’t take you very long. 😉
D. O’Donovan wrote: “Do you know, I asked Marco Ponzi if he could tell me where I might read the argument made for dating the marginalia to the same period as the main text.”
Diane, I’m the one who has been insisting that the script on 116v is approximately contemporary with the radio-carbon dating, that it is stylistically consistent with very late 14th-century script and early-to-mid 15th-century script.
I base this assertion on the paleographic comparison characteristics of more than 1,000 samples which I collected from scripts that are as similar as possible to the 116v script, a project that has taken me ten years of dedicated research and study and for which I had to develop my own mathematical measurement tools (so that glyph comparison were as objective as possible).
I have a great deal of data to back up this estimate, but there are challenges in finding a way to present more than 50,000 individual glyphs, so that they are meaningful to an audience that does not have a paleographic background. I’m working on it, but an over-full work schedule necessarily makes the going slow. I’m hoping I can get get it written up by fall.
Shit …… three more mistakes?
This is going to be pretty tough. But then I’m sure I’ll get my oldie diploma?
It is afterall a woman‘s prerogative to claim foul for no particular reason and at a time of her own choosing. This might especially apply to a lady of a certain age and could be excused as being a defence against perceived badgering by a predjucial, male dominated star chamber. I’m with you Dianne….sort of.
Really now ? We’re talking about research and science, not shoes and makeup.
One wonders whether Diane’s efforts could be directed in a more constructive and probably collaborative direction. I daresay it is a forlorn hope, but given the amount of time she has devoted to it it would be nice if that were utilized to push research forward rather than create more Sturm und Drang.
Frankly given the amount of time and energy she has put into the Voynich she must have got something right or have at least one useful insight.
Mark: the notion that anyone who looks long enough at the Voynich Manuscript is somehow bound to come up with something of genuine value is, alas, amply disproved by example after example.
In fact, I would go so far as to suggest the biggest problem may well be getting started: and if you start off in one of the countless wrong directions, what you produce is more likely to be a hindrance than a help to anybody. :-/
…..and there can be many wrong directions; for not all roads lead to Rome or even Milano , as we’re led to believe.
Nick: Maybe, Diane got me thinking about the jars/vessels/containers/stoves and she said she had never seen anything of the kind. It is rather odd that we haven’t identified them. Were they custom made specifically for their purpose or are they inaccurately drawn or can we find parallel objects? They often appear to be more ornate and complex than similar objects of that period that I have seen.
I wonder what the closest parallels that we know of are. Again this seems to be another example of the uniqueness of the Voynich.
How can you be sure that you are on the right track? Even if everyone else is wrong, that does not mean you’re right.
Mark Knowles: for the more elaborate / fantastical containers, the closest visual parallel I found (and which I discussed at some length in Curse) was Venetian clear glassware from Murano, particularly the decorative motif involving rows of coloured dots. The practical research problem with this is that it may well date the Voynich to 1450 or later, which some people feel unable to consider.
Robert Keller: I think this comes down to whether a given observation / set of observations is overwhelmingly likely to be telling a single specific story (a “micro-history”) that cannot comfortably be explained by alternative means. Put enough of these micro-histories together, and – if they mesh – you might just be able to reconstruct the whole history.
The example I gave just a moment ago (to Mark Knowles) concerning the rows of dots in the fantastical containers in the Voynich pharma section is a difficult one: the brief Murano vogue for rows of coloured dots started (as I recall) around 1450 but was long gone by 1500. So: what is the alternative explanation for this that doesn’t invoke a 1450 to (say) 1480 origin for the manuscript?
Regardless of what you think of the rest of the manuscript, this kind of thing is very hard to sidestep, because it tells a story not of what someone was thinking but of what happened. And if you can restrict yourself to that domain, you’re many times more likely to be on the right kind of track. 🙂
Nick: Yes, I have read what you have written and even seen your documentary and glass could go some way in explaining what we see. However I have not seen Venetian glassware from the 15th century with the level of complexity of the containers we see in the Voynich. It is not clear what the materials that those objects are made from are: glass?, metal?, clay?, something else? or a mixture of these. Having looked at a variety of thuribles I could see some that showed similarities to the objects. Of course as you know I think some of the smaller objects are ciboria. Anyway these are all metal. I have not seen ornate pottery from that period, but it may exist. I vaguely remember that some of the objects were suggested as being stoves. It seems plausible that some objects may be in part of as a whole made of glass.
Some of the containers also look to me to be made of glass. One in particular feels like the illustrator was trying to draw transparency.
Such glass patterns would have been quite advanced for the early 15th century. If they existed, only the most wealthy would have the means to commission them.
My search window has always been much broader than the radio-carbon dating, although my subjective feeling about it (and the “hits” I get from searching) tend to cluster more heavily around 1402 to 1465. I don’t mind adjusting estimates as data emerges.
.
But… paper is not glass (nor is vellum). On paper you can draw ideas for which technology does not yet exist. Da Vinci’s inventions are an excellent example of ideas predating fabrication ability (sometimes by hundreds of years).
I don’t know if the VMS creator was a visionary and able to dream up containers that could not yet be fabricated, but the text itself is possibly unique (or possibly ahead of its time, depending on what it is), so it may be that some of the more elaborate containers are design ideas rather than actual vessels.
Nick: One thing that occurs to me is a Hookah, for the purpose of smoking tobacco. Now I am not suggesting that is what any of the containers are, but it certainly has visual similarities.
I have a South German text of ca.1430 here. Once I reproduced it literally, and once as it would be written today.
translate both texts into English and compare them with each other.
I can imagine that it looks the same in other languages. Unfortunately, I can not Latin, but I would imagine the problem is the same.
If I imagine this still encrypted, I wonder how far is there EVA at all helpful.
If somebody knows old Latin (before 1450), I would be glad if he compares it to Latin today. Best pattern from North East Italy. I would not be surprised if it looks the same.
Here the letters faithful exposition. Starting at the top right (mich).
mich ruw’et die edeln recken here
Nu v’nemet mit guten sitten waz
ich uch sagen mag die her hetten mit
ein ander gestritten recht untz an de
zwelfften tag recht an dem zwel
fften morgen diese mere sage ich
uch vnuerborgen. Da waren bedent
halben die her nache erslagen sie
musten sich mit plute salben die recken
kune zu den zagen owe der star
rken vnmäzzen die rosz wäre tot
mich rufen die edlen Recken ( abwertend Leute ) herbei.
Nun vernehmt mit guten Sitten was
ich euch zu sagen mag. Die Heere hätten mit
einander gestritten. Recht uns an dem
zwölften Tag, recht an dem zwölf-
ten morgen. Dies von mir sage ich
euch unverborgen. Da waren bedingt
halber die Heere. Nachher erschlagen. Sie
mussten sich mit Blut salben. Die Recken
können zu dem sagen, hinunter der stark-
ken unvermessen, die Pferde wären tot.
What is striking about the original text, that the majority consists of short words, of which one would write some today together.
Also, the words have a multiple meaning as simply misspelled.
Example: ( her )
her = Herr, / Sir
her = Heer / Army
her = Ihr oder ihm Him or Her
her = da her / therefore
That’s why I do not use EVA. Something to translate where you can not read, in something where you can not read. Exchange of problems.
I use something where the young people in today’s PC age do not know anymore. Paper and pencil 🙂
What are the differences in English texts between 1400 and today?
Which containers (glasses) do you speak of?
Mark et al,
FYI, there is a pretty long thread (9 pages) over at the voynich ninja forum where you can find a huge array of comparative images for these jars; the thread is called “The Containers in the Pharma Section”.
I don’t mean to detract from the conversation here, but I do think this is an instance where the forum format helps, in the sense that we can post and view images to actually see what the physical examples our posited candidates look like and how they were depicted in medieval/early renaissance art, rather than just writing “it might be this or that”.
Not that any of the images found so far offer perfect matches for the more ornate containers, which may well be “fantastical” as Nick says.
JKP: I am inclined to agree that some parts of the drawings could represent glass, though some parts look unlikely to represent glass. Yes, I think it fair to say that the author had some financial means.
VViews: I will look at those at some point I daresay.
Glass or not, some of them are similar to those in the rosette.
Peter: Yes, indeed they are. I have suggested that they are ciboria (chalices/cups/goblets with a lid) in the rosette as well as in the case of at least one of the objects in the recipes section that resembles those in the rosette.
The idea that they could be fantastical objects troubles me as in a way it fits with the idea of the Voynich being a fantastical document with fantastical plants, containers etc. this again fits with the hoax theory. I do not subscribe to that view. It could be that in the author’s genius he designed and built these objects for his own purposes.
If we are all happy to call it glass, then of course it stands to reason that everything looks good for N.E. Italy, say around Venice and the nearby glassblowing five islets that made up Murano (15th cent). To extend that a little further, two local denizens, fra Mauro and Albi De Virga were known to be better than fair chartists, active circa. 1400 to 1460 or so. A surving copy of the former’s giant world map on best quality velum bares some format similarities to our nine rosette foldout. Though of a higher standard than the VM piece, it is known that the worldly monk employed a host of helpers at his Saint Michael’s noviciate studio and that some of his work survived the ravages of time in the monastery vaults. Young Andrea Bianco completed some last commissions after his mentor’s death in 1470 and we can also be thankful that that Mauro‘s mappa mundi masterpiece and minor works were enabled to be copied by other selected artisans in the intervening years…I’d go so far as to say “glass my ass” for the urns at the end of the day, but I’ll go with Nick and the lads on this one because it fits together oh so nicely!…
Many regions of Bohemia were highly skilled in creating glass (which included east Germany, Czech, Hungary) and there was quite a bit of “cross-pollination” between the Murano (and pre-Murano) glass artists and the Bohemian artists.
My understanding is that the Murano glass artisans were prohibited from leaving their little nest of islands at the risk of loosing their means of blowing, period. Besides, I assumed Bohemian crystal potash glass developed along vastly different style lines to that favoured by their more colourful, decorative and dot loving neighbours over the alps.
Thanks to Thomas F. Spande, I’ve just stumbled upon some rather interesting connections to the Indian sub continent region as being a possible source for at least part of VM’s creation. For this to work out, it would entail a whole new train of thought, totally at variance to suggested historically based theory advanced by most of the scholastic theorists amongst us. It entails, in part, fra Mauro’s world map of 1450 and a very well laid out line of connecting dots that can be tracked forward through a particular family, thence to Voynich by association. It also progresses through a host of well documented other folk of various creeds and professions, many in government service from around 1790 onwards. It does not include any of the those diverse characters from the interim period after the map’s creation who frankly seem to lack the credentials for involvement. This is an ongoing investigation and I dare to say I am not at the heart of the matter by a ways. What I’d encourage folk to do is to carefully study the many Fra Mauro map inclusions to see if we can find any similarity with the VM glyphs. I’m not fir a minute suggesting that there will be, though such could prove helpful in the quest to shed further light on things.
For my proposition to hold any water, it really depends upon William Fras/zer, our Fra Mauro world map, reproduction artist of 1804-6, being identical with his namesake in the Indian Civil Service, who inspired ‘The Company’ art movement and performed many creditable acts on behalf of George, Bill and Vicki during their respective reigns. Noted for his proficiency in awkward Moghulish languages, he was also a brave ‘soldier sahib’ of Col. Skinner’s Horse Regt. when not attending official functions. Bill was sadly shot and killed by an unsatisfied litigant outside his Delhi mansion (still standing) in 1835. An even more famous arty brother James Baillie Fraser had much to say about visits to the Punjab, the hill tribes etc. He travelled extensively through the Middle East and of course translated various Persian/Turkic languages with gay abandon. Being regarded as an adventure writer in the Devonish Dick Burton style, he has thoughtfully left us with a host of half decent travel pics and accomanying text to peruse at our leisure.
Clearly, there are some indications that suggest a pre-1450 date for the MS and there are some for a post-1450 date, but in general all indications clearly point to the 15th century.
Of course there are some that suggest other centuries (post-Columbus, modern fake), but all of these suggestions struggle in ‘explaining away’ all the evidence that exists for the 15th century.
The C-14 dating, and the dating of the costumes are both quite concrete. The suggestion about the Venetian glassware depends on a tentative identification, which (in my personal consideration) is not quite as concrete. The opinion of Sergio Toresella cannot be discarded just like that, but I also consider it less strong than the C-14 dating. And there are relevant opinions of several others (Panosfsky, Salomon, Lehman-Haupt) who prefer the earlier date.
Anyway, this won’t be settled here, and the people who have the real expertise prefer not to pinpoint it. 15th century it is, anyhow.
Rene: like it or not, the radiocarbon dating and the costume dating give dating-at-or-after, not dating-at. Similarly, the various fifteenth century marginalia give dating-not-after-1500: so I think we have broadly the same kind of window in mind.
The only issue is whether other dating evidence tightens those bounds yet further: and Sergio Toresella’s dating and the Murano dots are both very specific examples of strong candidates for this. Even if we happen to disagree on these, we are at least disagreeing within a fairly straightforward framework. 😉
Incidentally, do you happen to know which particular Milanese herbal Sergio was referring to?
What occupies the Murano glass on 1450?
Written documents? Who authored, and especially where?
How long do you need something written down?
History:
This art came from Arabia about Bizanz to Venice around 1100.
Proven around 1300 produced by Benedictines.
Scrap finds from Trier, Augusta Raurica prove similar from the 400.
See Roman glass of antiquity.
https://www.zvab.com/Beschreibung-r%C3%B6mischer-Altert%C3%BCmer-Dritte-Bearbeitung-B%C3%A4nde/12480536236/bd
I don’t think the confidence that the “containers” are made of glass is justified. It is far from impossible, certainly, however there are other very plausible alternatives. The idea that all the containers are made of glass is questionable I think. I find it quite plausible that part of a few containers are made of glass, but all, no.
I have no strong opinion on which precise materials were used though in the context of my own thinking metal is very plausible. In fact what have been called dots could very easily be holes as seen in various metalwork like the thuribles, which I have mentioned. So from my perspective there is no need for the Murano glass workers to enter the equation. The containers design and appearance, as far as I can tell, are not particularly similar to Murano glass objects. Therefore using Murano glass designs as a means of dating, I think really stretches it. (The dots on the containers like the “windows” of the domes of St. Marks seems easily open to multiple interpretations, being very small details as they are.)
Mark: nobody has claimed that all (or even most) of the containers are glass, so that is a straw man argument. The Venetian master glass blower I talked with was adamant that all the glass-like designs in the Voynich Manuscript could be made, so there is also no argument against complexity. The rows of polychromatic dots is a very specific artistic motif in Murano glassware from 1450 onwards, whether that is convenient or not.
Mark, most of them are probably metal and leather. As Nick pointed out, nobody is saying they are (all) glass. There’s one that looks like it might be glass and a couple of others that could be, but it’s not certain.
They are all different styles. Some look like reading tubes, some look like pigment containers, some look like spice containers, some look like fancy containers.
One of the fanciest ones is the one that looks like it might be glass (it looks to me like an attempt to draw transparency but even I’m not certain it’s glass).
They represent quite a range of styles and complexity, so it would be out-of-step with their variety to declare that they were all made of the same materials (and I haven’t seen anyone doing that).
The most complex appears to be at the apex of what was possible to create in the 15th century with glass (if it is glass), which makes it of interest dating-wise.
Regarding the the bins & things. I guess most travelled folk would be familiar with laquered papiere mache fancy containers, common throughout eastern countries and used since time immemorial as decorative containers. Our VM models are not disimilar and could easily substitute for those round festive ceremonial boxes as depicted in old Arabian nights scenes or even Hindustani wedding settings for instance.
Not to be forgotten, painted stoneware (earthenware)
Also nice to look at, not comparable to the Chinese porcelain.
The old Greeks have shown it 1000 years before.
and above all much cheaper than metal or glass. Also woodworks are among them.
Example:
How do I imagine an old pharmacy from the time, and what would I see.
Peter: here’s a nice one (though from a little later) – https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/phmb/V01895/242v/0/Sequence-2025 🙂
I could imagine apothecarial containers in Hellenic times being quite heavy by comparison with our VM boxes, as is evidenced by the rather flimsy plinth bases on some specimens. Same would go for Oriental porcelain or ceramics in my estimation, but jackfruit wood would work well for ornamental bins and vessels of any historical era one cares to nominate.
JKP: don’t forget that properly transparent glass – which the Venetians called ‘cristallo’ – was invented (or attributed to Angelo Barovier) very close to 1450. Filarete wrote about it (he was in Venice in 1450, and claimed Barovier as a friend). Barovier was born around 1400, died in 1460, and was definitely producing cristallo by 1455.
Of course, this makes it a difficult fit with the Voynich Manuscript’s radiocarbon dating range, because it seems highly unlikely that complicated glass-blown objects in cristallo would have been depicted as early as 1438, and even 1445 would be quite a stretch (i.e. you’d need to rewrite the current known history of Murano glass).
@Nick
That’s exactly how I imagine a pharmacy from the Middle Ages.
From 1300 – 1600 all look about the same anyway. The difference probably makes the size of the city where it stands.
Nice to see the dragon, today it would probably be the serpent on the staff. 🙂
Here is one more, which is still in operation today.
https://www.xn--nachtwchterralf-5kb.ch/2014/07/das-schaufenster-der-alten-suidterschen.html
Next to the door you can see a nice relief. Does that sound familiar?
@ John Sanders
And do not say it is a Chinese restaurant.
Peter: nice Chinese restaurant! :-p
Nick:
I was not arguing that the objects were too complex to be made from.
So are you arguing that any container or part of a container with “a row of polychromatic dots” must be Murano glassware from 1450 onwards? Or are you saying that “a row of polychromatic dots” on a container in the Voynich may sometimes not be indicative of glass?
Peter: I beg to caution, that one pretty Venetian blue tinged cristallo wedding goblet “attributed” to Angelo Borivier (circa. 1455), a set of Murano glass jars does not make. And would not account for anything minutely connected to viable VM based solutions at any stretch… I’d contend that an Oxford sushi bar, as opposed to a Chinese restaurant, would be more in keeping with the place nextdoor; Which reminds me, would you happen to know who won the free promo nosh for solving the cipher?….
Mark: the rows of dots on transparent glassware was a signature Murano motif for the next 50 years and beyond – see chapter two of http://d2aohiyo3d3idm.cloudfront.net/publications/virtuallibrary/0892362553.pdf for some nice quality pictures of Murano glass (though admittedly none dating to 1450-1460).
My argument (for more than a decade) is that if we are looking at transparent glassware with Murano motif dots (and there are two obvious red-dot candidates, on f89r1 and f89r2), then we cannot date the Voynich Manuscript to before 1450.
Nick: The rows of dots of the glass objects you refer to have some similarities to the drawings in the Voynich. However I think it is relatively easy for me to find similar non-glass objects from the time with similar rows of dots. So it seems to me a pretty weak basis for inferring that the objects are post 1450 Murano glassware.
In addition it would seem that if your theory were true then all “containers” in the Voynich with rows of dots are made of glass, but do you think that is the case?
So I would restate that it seems to me that this is hardly a basis for deducing a post 1450 date.
For me this is an example of taking a small detail such as dots and constructing a big theory on the basis of it. There are rows of dots all over the Voynich manuscript, but it hardly seems reasonable to deduce that they refer to Murano glassware.
However this has opened my eyes to an angle of research that I have not hitherto explored and that is “covered goblets” as opposed to “ciboria”. If I can find examples of covered goblets that more closely resembles the objects in the central rosette then that rather knocks my ciboria hypothesis for 6.
Mark: feel free to try to find similar objects from the first half of the 15th century decorated with rows of coloured dots. As I said several times before, this was a motif very distinctive of Murano glassware: but no doubt an assiduous searcher will be able to turf up some fragmentary counter-example. Even so, Murano remains the spiritual Quattrocento home of decorative dots, as far as I can see. 🙂
As far as your “in addition” point goes, the containers I’m most interested in are the two with patterns of dots on f89r1 and f89r2. It could well be that other containers (particularly those near to those two) are also intended to be made from glass, but that’s a technical glass-making bore-fest for another day. 😉
You may be against taking a specific detail and building on it, but that is precisely how Art History analyses work: details and techniques have fashions that rapidly change, which help us date and locate objects in ways that are often not possible with other evidence and techniques.
Mark Knowles wrote: “So are you arguing that any container or part of a container with “a row of polychromatic dots” must be Murano glassware from 1450 onwards? Or are you saying that “a row of polychromatic dots” on a container in the Voynich may sometimes not be indicative of glass?”
I don’t think that’s what Nick was arguing. Once again you seem to be turning people’s carefully phrased statements into absolutes. This is NOT an all-or-nothing situation in terms of glass or dots.
.
Here’s my background as far as materials go…
I am a software developer and computer media specialist by trade, but I know enough about ceramics that I have taught it in adult extracurricular courses and am qualified to teach it at the university level. This includes most materials from stoneware to porcelain. I have won national awards for my wheel-thrown objects and I’m quite good at glaze chemistry (I majored in honors chemistry, math, and biology in high school).
I have worked with papier maché, leather, and other materials. I’ve done bookbinding, sculpture, and mixed media objects with almost anything that can be manipulated, including wood and metal.
As far as glass goes, I have not blown glass myself, but I’ve studied it to some extent, I’ve read much of the history of glass techniques, and I personally own antique glass from Bohemia, Murano, and Egypt. I also looked for it in antique shops and museums when I traveled in Hungary, Italy, Berlin, and the Slavic nations.
So, I am moderately confident that I can interpret at least some of the VMS container drawings and they don’t look to me like they are all necessarily made of the same materials or were intended to serve the same specific purpose.
If any are glass, I’m pretty sure it’s a minority, and I’m not ruling out the possibility of rock crystal (my blog has an example of a small amphora masterfully carved from rock crystal thousands of years ago). It’s also possible the “transparent look” was intended by the illustrator to mean something else.
I am also doubtful that they are ceramic. Some of the might be, there are a few I’m undecided about and there are a few that I suspect are crafted of mixed materials (which might include ceramic), but I’m fairly confident that a number of them have metal embellishments.
Glass my ass!..That‘s about the best I‘m able to muster at such short notice, though making allowance for my inexpert, non award winning experience as examiner of the dainty handblown A.B. Murano cristallo glass jars circa. 1450 give or take a year or two ‘nudge nudge wink wink.
In my unresponded proposition as outlined on 21/22 Feb., it fits as follows:- William Fraser, 1784-1835. F.M. Murano/Venice/Portu. Mappa Mundi replication of 1806. Anglo Indian Service, 1800-1835. Commissioner of Delhi & with brother James Baillie, 1783- 1856. artist, soldier sahib, travel chronicler and translater. With
Col. Sir George Everest, 1790-1866. Anglo Indian Service, Surveyor General, Chief Geographer of India Sub Continent northern regions inc. Himalays 1823-43. To
Mary Everest Boole, 1832-1916. Mathamatian, educator, authoress, librarian & favourite niece of above. Also recruiter, close confidant and mother-in-law of Wilfred Voynich..Five daughters including Alicia Boole Stott (mathematition), Ethel Lilian Voynich (linguist/translater, authoress & wife of above), Lucy Everest Boole (renowned Chemist/pharmacist), Mary Boole Hinton USA citizen ( bigamous wife of Phillospher M. Hinton), Margaret Taylor (art student and wife of Edward a famous plant/castle artist etc., mother of Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor MP ‘fat boy’ Nagaski bomb wave theorist/ scientist physisist/geologist/cosmologist yachtsman, and Col. Julian Taylor, neurosurgeon/soldier Changi POW)…If we were to be out looking for the sort of talent required to putover a prank on a despised intelligencia; Oh let’s say a fake Vinland map eg. you couldn’t go past this collection of worthies, and of course a great facilitor, in the form of the pre groomed con man Michal Habdank-Wojnikz had been introduced into the Boole/Stepniak clique of feminist inspired, socially shunned naturopaths, upon his impoverished arrival in the UK circa. 1890 via China/Berlin (Oriental Express?)…This probably won’t go over too well with the VM clique but that’s ok, I’d prefer it to be here as opposed to that other place dealing with a most unlikely hoax scenario. NB: Fraser, the map man is still in need of proper tie up to the East Inja bloke of the same monicker.
JKP: You say: “I don’t think that’s what Nick was arguing. Once again you seem to be turning people’s carefully phrased statements into absolutes. This is NOT an all-or-nothing situation in terms of glass or dots.”
From all I can understand from what Nick has said he is making the inference that:
“rows of coloured dots on a container in the Voynich” -> “The container as a whole or that part is made of glass”
I don’t believe I have interpreted carefully worded statements as you say into absolutes where that is not warranted.
Yet again you seem to be appealing to your claimed authority. So far I have been lead to believe by you that you are an expert on Botany, Materials (as you have just described), Palaeography and more subjects related to the Voynich. I find these appeals to your own authority rather argument a little tiresome. Given the many years you have worked on the Voynich and the extent of your supposed expertise it is surprising that you have not deciphered the Voynich.
@ John Sanders
Every time you write, I stand in front of Rätzel.
I do not understand what you mean. Now you have written so much, but what are you aiming for?
In the rest of China / Berlin is not the Orient Express but Trans Sibiria.
And that with the Cina restaurant was a joke.
Mark: no, you’re still misinterpreting me. Of the two containers with Murano-styled dot patterns, one appears to be drawn showing transparency, and styled in a way that makes it resemble blown-glass objects. My contention is that the combination of all these elements at the same time is what makes it likely that this is post-1450 Murano cristallo inspired design.
That is, it is the combination of elements that makes the argument, not solely a row of coloured dots.
I also think that it is different materials. Some shapes are hard to make in metal or clay. I can push glass into complicated shapes by mouth. With metal, this is only in the cast. (Centrifugal casting) how to make Easter bunnies from chocolate, there was not yet.
Some vessels have something like a metal foot to put on charcoal to heat the contents. Glass would be a bad idea here.
Then there is also the Preisfragem, and intended use.
Since we come from northern Italy, Murano-Glass is certainly a good option. Very famous and expensive. But were they the only ones in this region?
Peter: I am prone to using unmeaningful supportive pun phrases to bring a little humour into otherwise dull theoretical discussion, that’s all. Wilfred was said to have made a very fast journey across from “Cina” to Paris which historians claim is untrue. Orient express did actually run between Istanbul (Const’l) and Paris via Budapest and points east through Munchen, Strassberg. Of course there were other support routes to Berlin which were part of OE, perhaps after Fred’s quick trip over from the East Orient. So sorry for the language problem; It might have been dealt with by those in charge of reparations at Versailles in Juni 1919, but we know how those Frogs tend to be overly forgiving, don’t we?….I didn’t get the China joke, but there you go, my apologies.
Nick: Some brief research on the internet appears to show that there was glassware with multicoloured illustrations from the fourteenth century with rows of dots, so it is a pretty small step to guess that there were examples with rows of different coloured dots. The main difficulty that I have found on this topic is finding examples of early 15th century Italian glassware in general; most surving examples appear to be from the late 15th century onwards. However as you like to say absense of evidence is not evidence of absense.
So how do you deduce that this feature implies it must be post 1450 Venetian glass? Where is your evidence supporting this claim?
Mark, I’m not an expert on botany. I have never said that. You are once again restating me.
These days botanists spend a high proportion of their time looking through microscopes and studying the genetic characteristics of plants. I haven’t done that.
I have a strong lifelong interest in plants and have been actively engaged in seeking them out, creating a herbarium, and cataloging tens of thousands of plants for many years. I’m also an avid gardener.
I’m also not an expert in cryptanalysis (or anything close to it). Puzzles are my hobby and crypto puzzles are fun.
No, I haven’t deciphered the VMS, but neither has anyone else. All the people who claim to be able to read it are relying a great deal of subjective interpretation. I don’t think they’ve solved it so, as long as the opportunity is there, I will continue to try.
Mark: I’ve read maybe fifty books on the history of glass and been to a number of museums (most notably on Murano itself). The accounts seem unanimous that there was no properly transparent glass in production prior to 1450, and also that Murano was where this new ‘cristallo’ came from. The glass workshops on Murano were making plenty of high-class glass objects before 1450 (and no doubt some with dots on, it was a characteristic Murano motif). Perhaps you might look again at f89r1 and f89r2, and suggest what these might be if not distinctively glass-blown objects.
You’ve got me beat, Nick. I’ve only read about 35 books on the history of glass.
I have handled quite a lot of antique glass (mostly Bohemian and Murano) but not as old as 15th century. Would love the opportunity. 🙂
JKP: when I made the documentary on The Curse of the Voynich, I was lucky enough to be allowed upstairs in the Murano glassworks museum and see all the pieces they don’t have space to put on show, and also to meet (the deservedly famed) Rosa Barovier Mentasti. Which is why I felt obliged to first read everything I could get my hands on to do with Murano glass. 🙂
Nick: Again, I am wary about appeals to authority, so despite the number of books on glass you have read or the number of glass museums you have visited I have found iit relatively easy to find pretty transparent examples of Italian glassware with rows of dots and different coloured drawing.
Look into Aldrevandrin glassware. See:
https://www.qantara-med.org/public/show_document.php?do_id=1150&lang=en
This glass is clearly transparent enough to easily correspond to the drawings in the Voynich that you refer to.
I have not argued that the non-coloured portions of the Voynich containers are not glass. What I have been pointing out is that your post 1450 dating is not justified on the basis of rows of coloured dots or a somewhat greater degree of clarity of glass from that later period.
Mark: f89r2 seems to resemble a five stage rocket combo including ít’s plinth base, green soda glass bottle (neck & shoulder) and its little stopper in place. The stage two bin section and stage three barrel extension could be papier-mâché, ceramic or anything else one cares to nominate except glass of course. F89r1 might suggest an urn of green celadon Chinois porcelain (Tang Dynasty no doubt), not glass, with a fancy embroidered covering. Best I can come up with mate, so what’s yours?..
Nick: From what I can see is that Aldrevandrin glassware of the early 14th century is of a very high degree of clarity. So I see no good reason on that basis to state that the Voynich manuscript cannot be from the early 15th century.
Now maybe there were no examples of Aldrevandrin glassware in the 50 books you read or the numerous museums that you visited, but clearly (no pun intended) it existed and there are some surviving examples from well before 1450.
Nick: If you are keen to see an example of this Aldrevandrin glassware in a museum you can visit the British museum and add one more glassware museum to your list. See:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1338018&partId=1&images=true
Of course what you suggest could be glass could also be a white coloured material rather than being transparent, though I think glass is more plausible.
Mark: there is a particularly complex relationship between Ayyubid glass and early Venetian glass decoration/enamelling (e.g. Aldrevandin glassware), see for example Rachel Ward’s (2015) “Coincidental Developments?” article. As a further example, the row-of-dots motif was (I think) itself appropriated by Murano from Islamic glassware, to help make their product look suitably ‘high class’.
But at the same time, the Ayyubid glass industry was long dead even by 1400: the only flicker of the row-of-dots enamelling motif remaining was via Murano glassmakers’ appropriation of it. So I would argue we can almost certainly rule out a direct Islamic source for this.
Hence the remaining issue is whether the Voynich manuscript might be depicting Aldrevandin glassware (also Venetian, but which seems to have stopped producing glass circa 1360). My position here is that I am sure it cannot be (Aldrevandinus’ workshop enamelled glass beakers), but that this is far too small a margin to argue such an unbelievably technical point in.
Nick: Yes, I have already seen Islamic glassware with a row-of-dots motif. I certainly have never suggested a direct Islamic source.
My point is that glassware that basically meets all your criteria(rows of dots, high levels of transparency, different coloured enamel) existed in Italy long before 1450.
Given the scarcity of Northern Italian early 15th century glassware it is hard to determine whether there were precise examples matching what we see in the Voynich. Again, to reiterate absense of evidence is not evidence of absense. Nevertheless there is every reason to believe this could have been the case and no reason not to. Remember these examples have been dated to around 1330 which gives Italian glassmakers 100 years to refine their technique by 1430. There seems no good reason to believe they regressed in their technical abilities.
It may be as you say a technical point, but your post 1450 Murano glass dating hinges on it.
Nick: I think when challenging the carbon dating you really need a strong well-argued case.
You may be sure of your Murano post 1450 glassware theory, but in order to persuade you need argument and evidence to back it up, your confidence is not sufficient.
It seems not inconceivable that if the drawing does represent glass then it could very well be glass of Venetian origin, but that does not mean the author had ever been to Venice. It seems perfectly plausible that someone living near Milan could purchase glassware produced in Venice.
Mark: again, you’re distorting my argument. I’m not saying anything about the author, just that if it is transparent Murano glass, it is almost certainly after 1450.
Nick: I am trying to understand your argument not distort it. I never said you mentioned the author. I am questioning in particular how you can say that “it is almost certainly after 1450”. If your argument/evidence is not what I have described then what is your argument and evidence for such a bold assertion?
As far as I can see you have not presented a case that if it is glass then it could not be early 15th century.
Aldrevandin is Venetian (with Syrian cross-pollination of technology and some of the styles).
Mark, I am very familiar with Aldrevandin and its history (which has been disputed for a while by scholars but which is now generally accepted to be Venetian). If I’m familiar with it, then I’m sure Nick is too.
The dot patterns around the heraldic patterns in this style of glass are not the same as the rows of dots on the 15th century Venetian pieces. There are certain PATTERNS of dots that were popular in specific time-frames.
JKP: I was referring to the appeal to authority you seemed to fall back on again and again by stating what you say you have done or what you know. I am much happier when an argument and the evidence supporting that argument is presented for a hypothesis rather than justifying it on the basis of a claim of great knowledge on the subject.
Mark: “but that does not mean the author had ever been to Venice“.
There is only so much visual art history argument that can be sustained in a small margin such as this: as JKP suggested, I am sure there is a very strong argument that we can exclude the Aldrevandin Venetian workshop as a source for those two drawings, but that kind of visual argument would need to be built much more like a journal paper.
Mark: There is another easier way to suggest a Filarete disconnect and I’d assume that Rene, our master at arms would not be inclined to disagree. It all gets back to those dreaded swallow tailed merlons of course. Note the indistinct, poorly detailed castle on the nine rosettes page, which might well be overlooked by any casual observer, Wilfrid included perhaps. It could be asserted that the artist took a shortcut in squaring of the turrets and hastily substituted ‘V’ slits as a matter of convenience, not knowing that such poor detail would be be pounced upon by keen eyes later in the day. It might not be tantamount to Antonio Averlini’s fall from grace but he’d be on shaky ground for a come back you’d think!….
JKP: Whether you or Nick are familiar with Aldrevandin or not it supports my argument. If my observation was made by Nick then I would wonder why he did not see the problem that it presents for his argument. If you were familiar with it then I wonder why you did not make that observation and consider that problem for Nick’s theory.
In the example I linked to we can see rows of dots and not just dots around a heraldic symbol. However given that you are very familiar with this glassware I wonder why you have made this mistaken statement. Maybe you are not as familiar with it as you claim.
Look again:
https://www.qantara-med.org/public/show_document.php?do_id=1150&lang=en
Also as Nick has observed this style was carried over from Islamic styles, but if you are very familiar with this topic then I wonder at your comment.
Nick: My point about the author was not in answer to your argument, but rather as what I feel an important addition statement. I never claimed you made any statement about the author.
Well unfortunately I can only suggest that if you feel it necessary in order to justify your point that you write a journal paper then I suppose that is what you must do or acknowledge that there is not as yet a strong enough case to support your argument. I would be happy to read your journal paper, but without a stronger argument or evidence than you have presented to me thus far I still regard your position on this issue as weak.
I am not necessarily saying that it was produced by the Aldrevandin Venetian workshop as their techniques could easily have later passed on to other glass workers in Venice and I suppose it is possible further afield, if it is glass that is illustrated.
John Sanders: I am sorry I also believe they are swallow-tailed battlements. Sorry!
Mark: as I’m sure JKP would be comfortable backing up, there is a very strong argument to be made that what we are looking at is not Aldrevandin painted beakers or similar of the early 14th century, but showy top-end pieces inspired by Murano cristallo from 1450 onwards.
I wonder, though, if you would ever feel as though an argument of this sort would be good enough, while there is doubt of any kind still in play. This is the kind of sterile furrow Rich SantaColoma has been ploughing for more than a decade: a faint possibility is a poor thing to be betting the farm on. :-/
Nick: If there is “a very strong argument to be made that what we are looking at is not Aldrevandin painted beakers or similar of the early 14th century, but showy top-end pieces inspired by Murano cristallo from 1450 onwards.” then you need to make it, it is not reasonable to expect me to accept that it is so especially when arguments of consequence hinge on this point.
It is not like I am clutching at straws. It is not that thete is a little doubt, but rather a lot. I think it is much more than a faint possibility that it is pre 1450 and so the carbon dating is right.
Mark: you assess doubt in one way, I assess it it in another. In the words of the great American philosopher James Joseph Brown, “I got mine / He got his”.
Demanding that someone writes a journal article to resolve the unbelievably fine technicalities of an issue makes you look like more than a bit petulant. As my teenage son would no doubt put it, perhaps you should Partaketh Of The Pill That Chilleth. 😉
Mark: Yes, I’m well aware of your thoughts on the merlons from past posts, but that’s fine I’m not trying to test your resolve or convince you that you are perhaps mistaken. Each to their own and life goes on….I was once an avid collector of fine French glass, Lalique, Galle, Baccarat, St. Louis you name it, fine old parafin lighting set in ornate copper chain pull settings, Bohemian mid 19th century paperweights by Fred Egermann, the whole box and dice. Used to also pick up some pretty fair Murano clear cristallo and millefiori too, but you know something, they were hardly worth the trouble compared with the plain Frog stuff and do you know why?..They flooded the market, just like those beautiful Japy carriage clocks. Hope you don’t think I’m blowing my bugle; thats best left to others who get a blast from that sort of caper, God bless em all.
Nick: My understanding is that your position is more similar to that of Rich SantaColoma. My understanding is that he argues the carbon dating is wrong and the Voynich is a modern hoax. You argue the carbon dating is wrong as you perceive there is evidence of post 1450 glass. It seems that you are out on a limb not me. I see the scales of evidence as being the other way around, I am inclined to the view that there is a lot of doubt that it is post 1450 glass.
I don’t know if JKP endorses your post 1450 dating of the Voynich he hasn’t made his position “crystal” clear.
Mark: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
No wait…
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Oh, good grief Mark. Whenever you restate something that someone else has written you reduce it to… I don’t even know how to describe it… it turns from fertile soil full of nuance and possibilities to a muddy little push-me/pull-you puddle.
You won’t accept anyone else’s credentials and yet you elevate your under-informed opinion to equal levels. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? Well, never mind. I’m bowing out. This will only go in circles.
I think Nick has a good point.
Personally, I haven’t committed completely to a time slot other than the 15th century. I’m leaning toward ca. 1430-ish but… If it turned out to be middish-15th century rather than early, I would not have trouble accepting that. I think there are signs here and there in the VMS that it might be a bit later than the radiocarbon dating.
I would be surprised if it turned out to be later than ca. 1485, but up to that point, I think it’s possible.
The script style on 116v looks earlier than that BUT, if it was written by someone who was elderly (by medieval standards), then they would have learned an older style in their younger years, OR if they lived in one of the smaller communities, where the evolution of scripts styles tended to lag by a decade or two compared to major centers, that could also affect the estimate.
Nick may turn out to be right.
BTW, Nick, I think it’s very cool that you were given the “back room” glass tour.
Mark wrote: “Also as Nick has observed this style was carried over from Islamic styles, but if you are very familiar with this topic then I wonder at your comment.”
Did I not say in my post that there was cross-pollination from Syria? Did I not say the origin had been disputed for a while before the mounting evidence pointed to Venetian origin?
Yes, it was carried over from Islamic styles. Mamluk is frequently mentioned in connection with the Aldrevandin style. I don’t have to look up any of this. I know it by heart.
JKP: Then if you know it by heart why did you say:
“The dot patterns around the heraldic patterns in this style of glass are not the same as the rows of dots on the 15th century Venetian pieces. There are certain PATTERNS of dots that were popular in specific time-frames.”
This would seeem to contradict what you have said given.
JKP: When I restate something that someone else has written to me, I try to reduce it to the underlying logical structure and the evidence it refers to. If you think I have misstated what you have said then if you wish to reply then you should state your argument rigourously and precisely, avoiding handwaving and vagueness.
My opinions are not under-informed.
When it comes to someone like Professor Harvey I take his credentials seriously in the context of Medieval Maps, specifically,even though I would still be wary of appeals to authority. When you talk of your credentials what are they? Do you have a PhD in medieval materials? If you are so focused on arguments based on credentials then what formal qualifications or academic positions have you held that underscore that? If you insist on basing your arguments on your supposed expertise rather than reason and evidence then you need to put your precise formal CV on the table(not I am a keen gardener).
Stephen Bax was a Professor in Linguistics (Much more qualified in relation to the Voynich than you are.) However I don’t think this is a good reason to take Professor Bax’s ideas unquestioningly.
Professor Newbold was a Mathematical and code breaker (Much more qualified in relation to the Voynich than you are.) However I don’t think this is a good reason to take Professor Newbold’s ideas unquestioningly.
I could give more examples of people with credentials…
To reiterate I have little interest in appeals to authority, but require arguments and evidence to support those arguments. If you can’t provide arguments and evidence then you telling me you think you know a lot about the subject won’t go far with me.
I try to avoid bringing up my credentials in presenting arguments as I think it pretty irrelevant.
In fact my dating points to 1430-ish as does yours.
Nick has expressed certainty that there is post 1450 glass drawn in the Voynich, clearly neither you nor I share that certainty.
Nick: I am gratified that I have been a source of mirth for you.
Mark: no wait…
Haha haha haha haha haha haha haha hahahahah
Yup, comparing me to Rich SantaColoma is still funny. 🙂
Mark: if you respond to someone’s post by including a horrible mis-simplification of what they wrote, technically the right response is to conclude that you are an idiot and walk away. That nobody has yet done this is not a sign that it hasn’t been appropriate. :-/
Nick: You were comparing me to Rich SantaColoma I suppose that could be said to be as or more funny.
Mark: the way you were constantly finding different annoying ways to snipe at what is a genuinely straightforward and sensible historical hypothesis was more than a little reminiscent of the way Rich SantaColoma tends to proceed.
If you’re trying to give the impression of having an emotional reaction against anything that might be so rudely presumptive as to run counter to your beloved Voynich theory, it would seem that you’re doing really well. But… there may be a flaw in the plan, sorry. 🙁
Nick, you should be congratulated on your patience. I’m not sure how you do it!
Nick: I have no interest in or enjoy sniping here or elsewhere, so if you perceive that as what I was doing then I think you are wide of the mark. I was challenging your argument as you presented it, even if that meant on occasions getting into the details. Attacking an argument is a good thing as it either strengthens it or demonishes it, so it should not be viewed in negative terms I think it is all part of the process of developing theories. So what you see as sniping I see as something completely different.
No, my reaction is not emotional to your hypothesis, it looks to me like it is not demonstrated as being highly probable, based on the evidence and arguments I have seen you present. Yes, it is not a wholly unreasonable hypothesis, but I think the confidence you have expressed in it is not justified by your evidence and arguments. Given that it contradicts the carbon dating I think the argument needs to be even stronger. It is true that it also contradicts my dating, which is naturally something of interest to me, so exploring such arguments is relevant to me.
It frustrates me when these discussions degenerate into comparing someone to an alleged kook and then when it is suggested that the analogy could be the other way around great offense is taken. Or suggesting that someone is an idiot, because they have different analysis than your own.
We can all start throwing insults back and forth “You’re the idiot” “No, you’re the idiot” and so on. However this would be a complete waste of both of our time.
I have actually taken some interest in this topic as I stumbled upon a question whilst looking at glassware, which could possibly undermine the part of my analysis which I view as most insecure. However further research on this topic may strengthen or weaken my own argument, either way that is a good thing. I don’t treat someone contradicting my own theories as an affront, but a useful contribution provided they are detailed and specific in their criticism.
As you say, we can agree to disagree and leave it there.
One thing I will say is what examples have you seen of early 15th century or late 14th century Venetian glassware? These seem hard to find though clearly they existed. I think a good variety of examples of early 15th century Venetian glassware could either support your argument or weaken it.
By virtue of my lack of patience and a tendency to being in the idioic 1910 mythology camp, I’ll keep mum from further input on this thread. Wouldn’t want thise hyenas to close in for the kill. HA ha haa.
Mark wrote: “To reiterate I have little interest in appeals to authority, but require arguments and evidence to support those arguments. If you can’t provide arguments and evidence then you telling me you think you know a lot about the subject won’t go far with me.”
It is difficult to have a fertile discussion with you is because 1) you always oversimplify (or change) what people have said and 2) you seem to think it’s possible for someone to sum up 10 years research and 20 or 30 years of experience in a few sentences.
Asking someone to fully explain their findings on some aspect of the VMS in a blog comment is like to asking someone to teach you a new language or to play the violin in a few hours.
Some things cannot be explained in a few words, and yet you frequently expect them to do so. When you don’t get instant answers, you accuse them of not really knowing what they say they know.
In the unlikely event that I’d ever be be challenged, this correction relates to Mary Ellen nee Boole, wife of convicted bigamist Charles (note) Howard Hinton 1853-1907. Chuck was a very self promoting but likeable fellow of Balliol College and British of course. Famous for his co-share work with sister-in-law Alicia Boole-Stott on developement geometrical oddities like the multi faceted rotating (tesserect) cube; not to mention the modern Jungle Gym with son Sebastion. He also wrote numerous tech books ie. ‘What is the fourth dimension’ & ‘A new era of thought’ as well as pioneering Science fiction of a unique style, depicting fair and wonderful people from strange exotic lands where the human like flora & fauna?, are able to interact on equal terms…When not lecturing boring complex math theory at his third rate NJ College, he messed with multi flex bamboo and developed a noisy but directional missile launcher (bazooka) in support of the Princeton Tigers training syllabus. Sadly and unexpectedly Chuck carked in Wa. DC at 54, followed soon after by Mary (CS)…The book, ‘A history of the Boole & Hinton families, shaping the modern world’ sounds interesting, though it won’t help VM ‘mw or th’ advocates, so I don’t recommend that they waste time on it…
For me, this discussion should not be on the details of one or the other observation, but much more on the weight of the evidence. On: which is the more likely dating based on this weight.
In normal situations (and I don’t know why the Voynich MS should be treated in any other way), C-14 dating gives the ‘date of’, not a ‘date before’. The same is true for relatively clearly identifiable items drawn in the MS, such as the clothing.
For the radiocarbon dating, this is due to the different time scales involved. The uncertainty of such dating is (far) greater than any additional uncertainties from ‘local events’. With the latter I mean the time that the parchment might have been lying around unused, or the time it might have taken to create the MS.
The former is counted in decades, the latter in years at most.
Of course, the parchment “could have” been lying around for 30 years, or it “could have” taken the author 30 years, but here we are in the low-probability (low weight) zone.
For the drawing of clothing styles, the only logical conclusion is that the MS was drawn round about the same time as the other manuscripts that show the same clothing styles. If it were reasonable to draw clothes that people wore a few decades ago, this would also apply to all the other manuscripts. On this point we also have the very qualified opinion of a Morgan library curator.
(And I am sorry but that just simply has more weight than opinions from any of us, regardless how lowly one may think of authority.)
Finally, no matter how it is presented, the comparison with Murano glass is part of a hypothesis. It may be right, but it necessarily has less weight. I am sure there are more indications going for a later date but I have seen none as reliable as the two that go for an earlier date.
Finally, there is the hand of f116v. Even before the C-14 dating I considered it earlier than the 1460-1470 date of Toresella and Panofsky.
(Note that this date range was considered the most likely a priori value when the radiocarbon dating experiment was planned).
Now I don’t rate my own opinion on that very highly. However I note that JKP has been writing very much the same (mostly elsewhere).
This is not very specific dating evidence, so also does not do much for our balance of evidence, but it again tends towards the earlier half of the century.
Rene: Surely a similar weight of evidence must have once been applied to our other, much less discussed Beneike VM, recently on display in NC as genuine. It had previously been disredited and almost certainly proven a fraud despite its claimed C14 period authenticity. Sorry to keep bringing this case to your attention, but I’m yet to receive a satisfactory explanation on why our VM should not be subjected to the same scrutiny along similar lines…..Anything to end the glass farce!…
Rene: when the radiocarbon tests were being planned, the ORF producers (as you reported a little after) were explicitly expecting a late-16th century dating, and very few researchers shared my confidence in a 15th century dating. 😉
I think the way that you are reporting things here is biased and unrepresentative. I began with very specific reasons for dating the Voynich Manuscript to 1450 or after (the cipher alphabet evidence, the parallel hatching, the humanistic handwriting, etc), and none of those has gone away. Hence I am not some kind of radiocarbon ‘denier’, I have specific technical concerns about a single vellum sample that I believe caused the overall date curves (merged from the four) to be skewed slightly earlier than would seem to fit the actual evidence in front of us.
As for the zodiac roundels: you yourself spent many years suggesting (as I continue to do) that these drawings were very probably copied en masse from an (earlier) external German calendar, so the dating evidence here would seem to be dating-at-or-after.
It should be noted that the cipher alphabet evidence give no reason for dating the Voynich Manuscript to 1450 or after. (Nor as Nick meticulously demonstrated do the swallow-tailed battlements.)
Mark: that is your conclusion, not mine. What I argued in Curse was that the cipher alphabet weakly suggests a date in the mid 1450s. I completely agree that it is not a conclusive argument on its own, but I utterly refute the suggestion by Rene that this and the Murano glass are somehow part of an overall hypothesis. Rather, these dating elements came first, and the entire reason I found Averlino’s little books of secrets was because the evidence as I saw it was pointing to the 1450s or thereabouts.
I applaud the idea of testing individual hypotheses (such as the Murano glass hypothesis), but this will typically take a far more detailed, sustained, and visual argument than can be shoehorned into blog comments.
JKP:
I have no interest in oversimplifying or changing an argument. However I think arguments should be structured on the basis of A->B B->C etc. Handwaving non-specifics are not helpful. I do my best to state the fundamentals of an argument like Nick’s as I understand it, so that it can be examined; you may think this reductionist, but I think it is essential. I am happy for someone to clarify their argument if I have misunderstood it, but if the argument is presented in a vague non-specific way such that it cannot be examined then that is a problem.
I do not think all research can be summed up in a few sentences. However you can’t possibly expect me to accept your argument on a very contentious subject like the Voynich based on your say so; I would not do this for Newbold, Bax or others. If you can’t sum up your argument in a few sentences then that’s fine, but don’t expect me to accept it as true, because of your claimed decades of studying it.
I see the problem as simply that you think I should recognise the truth of your point without adequate justification, as you claim that you know a lot more about the subject than me. Far too often you appeal to your claimed experience and expertise rather than actually evidence and arguments.
Mark: I think you are expecting far more clarity and provability from even the briefest blog comment than can be practically achieved. There therefore seems to be a broad gulf between what you and other people respectively consider “adequate justification”: as a result, your comments are coming across as far closer to trollbait than I think you would prefer, if you stopped to give it thought.
Trollbaiting, whatever that may encompass, seems to be little more than a weak kneed millenium based excuse for a disgruntled person’s ineptitude in coming to terms with reasonable argument on contested factual grounds. Then claiming foul because of a perceived more enlighted understanding of the matter in dispute, which to me is a pathetic, pompous and cowardly approach. I have been accused of it, yet have never quite come to terms with the meaning, or ramifications of having committed such a darstardly offence to social norms. In the good old days it was common a common held proposition, that if the action gets too willing, hold your counsel and take a fair loss with dignity.
john sanders: spoken like a true troll, well done. 😉
Nick: Maybe my standards of proof are too exacting. I like to think that I am as exacting with my own theories as I am with those of others. In the case of the Voynich I think there is reason for being very demanding of hypotheses/theories etc. given the history of flawed analysis.
If I was interested in trolling I would not use a Voynich manuscript blog to do so, as it hardly seems to be the obvious choice. I guess to put in simply I am interested in getting as close to the truth as one can reasonably expect. Certainly your post 1450 dating contradicts my own theory, but I like to think that if I was persuaded by it that I would change my ideas accordingly; at the moment I am far from persuaded and have endeavoured to get to the bottom of this hypothesis.
I find the idea that part of some of the Voynich containers are glass and more specifically Venetian glass interesting, just the later date not nearly sufficiently justified.
One useful thing about looking into this is that, as I have previously stated, my biggest concern with my own theory has been my identification of the tops of the objects in the central rosette as being crosses, now looking at glassware it is certainly the case that from a much later period it is not hard to find glass containers with tops closely resembling the tops of the containers that we see in the Voynich that are not crosses. So at some stage it would be worth my while researching examples of this kind, such that there are any, from the much earlier time of the Voynich. This research may lead me to change or reject my own ideas or it may strength them either way it may be illuminating.
Mark Knowles: once again… I didn’t say you were “interested in trolling”, I said “your comments are coming across as far closer to trollbait than I think you would prefer”.
I find it disappointing and frustrating in equal measures when I see researchers who have been pursuing a research lead on its own merits suddenly drop that lead because they realise that if it were found to be true it might contradict some long-standing belief about the Voynich Manuscript’s date or location they hold to be true. Obviously in the current thread I could (as an example) point to Rene Zandbergen who would not look at Murano glass on principle (because it would run against his unshakeable belief in the precision of the radiocarbon dating).
The same situation came up recently with regard to Diebold Lauber’s workshop with Koen Gheuens and (again) with Rene Zandbergen, where my suggestion that the calendar from which the Voynich zodiac roundel drawings came from may well have been a copy of Diebold Lauber’s workshop was openly put down, yet again mainly for the reason that this would push the date for the Voynich further into the 15th century than they were comfortable with. That was similarly an example of how researchers choose to stop looking at what is in front of their eyes because of preconceived ideas about date (and perhaps location too).
Now that I realise where my true talents lie ie. troll baiting, I’ll endeavor to pursue that vocation with a new determination, in order to piss on the the flames of self serving, cliquish, pocket pissing claptrap. I’m loving it, but no need to flatter me by personal address in any future snide quips; I’ll know that it’s me that’s being reverse trolled and I’ll take it in my cloven footed stride!….
Mark Knowles wrote: “Maybe my standards of proof are too exacting…”
I don’t think that’s the problem. I think many Voynich researchers appreciate high standards.
The problem is that you repeatedly expect quick answers to complex and difficult questions (that took years or decades to research) that might take weeks or months to answer.
Then you hurl darts at those who don’t instantly satisfy your challenge by implying that their failure to provide instant complete answers means they don’t really have anything (or don’t know what they are talking about).
Hi Nick, I’m still very much interested in Lauber but countless hours of additional research turned up nothing new. I needed a change of subject to keep my motivation 🙂 If there’s anything else to be found, maybe someone with better research methods will dig it up one day.
After a long time back and forth, I have now come to the conclusion that it is not glass.
It is the precursor of a smarties family pack.
See link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties
Peter: ah, the bad old days when there were only red Smarties. The Renaissance must have been hell to live through.
Koen: here’s a suggestion for you. The Q13 verso page with three women and pipes across the top (I can’t think of the folio number off-hand, but I’m sure you know the one) – what are they wearing on their head?
I have a suspicion that it’s a very specific head-dress that I’ve seen in a painting, but can’t for the life of me remember where. Perhaps you’ll get lucky. 🙂
Koen: f77v… and it’s the head-dresses of the nymphs in the middle and right (particularly the middle) that remind very strongly of something I’ve seen before.
Koen: I’ve had a bounce around the web, and I’m pretty sure the image I was thinking of was the 1439 picture by Jan van Eyck of his wife Margaret Van Eyck:
https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/e/eyck_van/jan/02page/28margar.html
(I’m also pretty sure I saw it on one of my trips to Bruges, which is where the picture is.)
Koen: here’s another image, though it currently seems to be only in Google’s image cache (but perhaps you’ll have better luck than me):
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvm.edu%2F~hag%2Fsca%2F15th%2Fevanspl131b.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvm.edu%2F~hag%2Fsca%2F15th%2F&docid=keN8VJKre20FcM&tbnid=XPUI1mEeDn46QM%3A
JKP: I don’t necessarily expect “quick” answers, but I do expect complete answers. I appreciate you may not feel you can fit a complete answer here in the comments and may not have addressed it in your blog. Nevertheless I repeat that I cannot accept a point as correct unless I can see that complete answer that justifies it. You saying that a complete answer exists that fully justifies my point, but I don’t have the time to provide it, cannot logically be sufficient for me to accept a point as being true as it relies on my accepting that your complete answer would be correct. Who knows if I were to see your complete answer I may still conclude that it is fundamentally flawed and incorrect, so I have to see that complete answer to reach a conclusion about it. Simply put I cannot accept things on trust I need to be able to verify them myself.
Nick: If you visit the following link you can see a glass with multiple rows next to each other of different coloured dots from the 14th century:
http://www.idesign.wiki/tag/millefiori/
I have seen another different 14th century example of this. So this artistic stylist design feature long pre-dates the 1450s.
The one lady seemed to me so familiar. This was seen as a picture in Dance of the Vampires.
Your example seems to belong to the same family. 🙂
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Quentin_Matsys_-_A_Grotesque_old_woman.jpg
Nick: I think you if you wish to demonstrate your assertion then the best way would be to find a variety of Venetian glassware from the early 15th century then demonstrate that there is a marked difference between that and glassware from after the 1450s such that only the later glassware can be consistent with that which we see drawn in the Voynich, if it is glass.
Nick: I think the difficulty that you face is that your Averlino hypothesis depends on a post 1450 dating of the manuscript as it seems hard to believe that Averlino wrote the Voynich manuscript if it is dated before 1450.
I am inclined to the view that the carbon dating is the gold standard and we should reject it only if there is strong evidence to the contrary. I don’t believe I have been presented with such strong evidence.
I use pedigrees from that time as references.
One can also see the priest hats on one of them.
Examples:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2229143580641617&set=pcb.1970377369738721&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Mark: the web is full of mislabelled and misdated historical objects, and the history of glass has countless examples of this. Finding the actual object rather than a web-page full of cut-and-pasted text would be a big help in assessing whether you have found a genuine counter-example or just a web-page full of bla.
Mark: that’s a reasonable good abstract suggestion, though it would probably take a couple of months to put something together that would be properly satisfactory.
Mark it amazes me that you think Nick hasn’t seen your examples.
It blew me away when you posted the Aldrevandin example. EVERYONE who has done research on glass knows about Aldrevandin and Nick has done a lot of research on glass and has BEEN to the Venetian museum.
Nick’s observations are based on a lot of factors, but you want to pick these apart individually and try to use single examples to negate a complex observation.
Mark: if you read up on radiocarbon dating in depth, you’ll find that the scientists involved in the dating do not share your confidence in the precision of the technique. It can be a useful technique in historical research, but it is by no means the ‘gold standard’ that you think it is, and it is most effective when combined with other techniques.
Hence I think that your reasoning is based on something that isn’t really as absolutely true as you think it is.
JKP: From what Nick has said as far as I can understand Nick has not seen this examples and certainly not research it or why would he ask his question?
I think you fail to understand that not all examples are in the Venetian museum. So although Nick has BEEN to the Venetian museum it does not necessarily mean that he has SEEN this particular glass.
The Aldrevandin glass has a high degree of clarity, so given Nick referred to the post 1450 glass only being of sufficient clarity I assumed he was not aware of the earlier glass; either way it was certainly worth presenting as a counterexample.
When you say: “you want to pick these apart individually and try to use single examples to negate a complex observation.” you are essentially right; that is how logical reasoning works.
For example if Nick says:
A or B or C or D -> E
Then I look at whether statement A is true and then I look at whether B is true and then I look at whether C is true and then I look at whether D is true. If I think that there is no good reason to believe that A, B, C or D are true then I conclude that there is no good reason to believe E is true based on this argument.
So if for example:
E = the glass in the drawing dates from after 1450 (Assuming it is glass)
A = only glass dating from after 1450 had sufficient clarity to correspond with what we see in the drawing
B = only glass dating from after 1450 had multicoloured rows of dots
and so on…
In logical reasoning one dissects complex statements into a series of simpler statements; if one does not do that one can never hope to address them.
Maybe in your wide ranging studies you missed out studying logical thinking.
JKP: I should add, when evaluating a complex proposition one should reduce it to its constituent parts and then evaluate those parts individually and from that calculate the overall value of the original complex proposition. That is the only way to determine if a proposition is likely to true or not. If you reject that method then you will be incapable of arriving at the truth.
Mark: I rejected Aldrevandin glassware as a possibility more than a decade ago, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little rusty. I was also sure a decade ago that some 15th century glass items had been mislabelled as 14th century glass (specifically, I believe that a number of 15th century pieces had been commissioned to mimic high class 14th century pieces), and so I would need to reacquaint myself with the intricacies of the various arguments for and against before fully getting back on the Murano horse.
As far as logic goes: though I personally doubt you mean to come across as a patronizing loudmouth in your exchanges with JKP, you really aren’t succeeding at the moment. Your interpretations of the components of the arguments involved are way too reductionistic, sorry. 🙁
Nick: I think we all get invested mentally and emotionally in our theories. It is true that your book “The Curse” was based around the hypothesis that the author of the Voynich was Antonio Averlino, however if that turns out not to be the case it certainly does not make your book or your work are without significant value. Whilst I have not read all the books about the Voynich I seems to me that “The Curse” is a very important work on the subject regardless of whether Averlino was the author. It seems there have been quite a few books written advancing absurb Voynich hypotheses, but yours is certainly not one of them.
I think it might be interesting for you to consider a pre-1450 figure with influence and connections in the Milanese court. I am not saying you need to adopt my hypothesis, but I have not thoroughly researched the movers and shakers in the Visconti court and you might find someone of interest there. So rather than focusing on the post 1450 Averlino you might want to see if you can find a pre 1450 Averlino-like figure in Milan. (By Averlino-like I don’t necessarily mean an architect, but rather someone who might have written the Voynich in Milan in that earlier period.) As you know I have my own theory that I am investigating, which is not quite that theory, but this other avenue I suggest might be worthy of exploration and fit in with your broad programme.
You have oversimplified the “logic” to the point that it’s not.
Not all explanations, including explanations of logic (a subject I scored high in, by the way) can be explained by reductionist methods, and yet you doggedly insist that they can.
Have you seen Nightmare Before Christmas?
One of the ways they tried to “decipher” Christmas was to break a Christmas ornament, to reduce it down into parts more amenable to “study”. But they did so before they knew enough about it to study it in a fruitway way (thus creating a pile of dust and completely missing the point).
Great analogy. I think maybe it applies here.
Nick: I do not mean to come across as patronising, but I think when it comes to being patronising JKP beats me hands down given that his constant refrain is that he knows much more than I do on this or that subject pertaining to the Voynich.
Any proposition has to be presented in a form where it can be dissected and analysed if there is any hope of getting to the truth. Saying that it is too complex to formulate means saying that it is too complex to ever determine whether it is true. Maybe you can present an alternative formulation of your hypothesis that is more representative, but I am doing my best given what you have said.
Hi Nick,
indeed, the two producers were favouring a paracelsan origin, and I have certainly tried to convince them as much as I could, for the better part of a year, that they were in the wrong century. I am not sure that this matters much though.
I don’t know if Greg Hodgins believed me more than he believed them, but being a professional he simply approached it as “unknown”.
John Sanders: there is no inconsistency related to the Vinland map. This is (almost certainly) a later drawing in a perfectly genuine old codex.
As I think I have been trying to say a few times by now.
JKP: It is noteworthy that you say “logic(a subject I scored high in, by the way)”. This is a classic example of your repeated appeal to authority. I deliberately did not mention before that I studied formal logic at Cambridge University as part of my Maths degree as I did not think it relevant; I try to avoid appealing to my authority on any subject as I don’t believe my own arguments should be judged on that basis. You love to constantly appeal to your claimed authority to justify your arguments; I will continue to treat that method of arguing with the distain that it deserves.
“Nightmare Before Christmas”, terrible analogy I think. This is a nonsense argument and if you can’t see that then I do question your ability regarding logical reasoning. There is nothing even remotely close to being a parallel.
Mark Knowles: personally, I think JKP’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” analogy was great, but then again I only got my first degree in mathematical and philosophical logic, so I obviously know nothing whatsoever (by your logic) 😉
I am not appealing to authority as much as you think, Mark. I am providing info on my background as a courtesy, because it provides context to evaluate my statements. People can take it or leave it.
And by the way, the logic courses I took were part of my post-graduate program. It was not my major, but I did enjoy them.
The analogy in Nightmare Before Christmas is not a nonsense argument. They brilliantly and succinctly illustrated an error common to a great deal of research.
In the end, the only thing I really want to do is solve the riddle of the VMS text. The rest of it is a fun part of the journey but not my primary goal.
Nick & JKP: “Christmas” is not a proposition, so in analysing it one trying to do something completely different from analysing a proposition. “decipher” Christmas is ambiguous; what do we mean by that? If we were trying to determine when Christmas is then that at least has a definite answer, though it is still not a proposition.
A proposition once dissected can be easily reassembled unlike an ornament. A proposition is not a physical object.
I could go on.
To me it is a nonsense comparison as it is in no way parallel.
Nick, your first degree in mathematical and philosophical logic or mine in Mathematics or JKP’s high score in logic I think should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. We need to focus on the substance not on individual qualifications.
Jules Janick is a distinguished Professor of Horticulture at Purdue University and Arthur Tucker is an Emeritus Herbarium Director at Delaware State University. They says the plants in the Voynich are from the Americas. Should I take it as a given that the Voynich plants are from the Americas, because of their academic status? No, I don’t. (This is one example of many.)
Regarding Voynich researchers I am extremely vary of any appeals to authority whether in academic qualifications or in other ways. If you or Rene or JKP or Diane or whoever says I know a lot about X, so you should trust what I say is true I am highly reticent to do so. I would expect others to be equally wary if I were to try to justify an argument by an appeal to my own authority on something rather than substance.
JKP: Your background should not affect my evaluation of your statements.
I see no parallel with the Nightmare Before Christmas example. If you wish you can elucidate how there is any relation to evaluating a proposition as I have described in my previous comment.
Mark: you seem to be completely missing the point about JKP’s Nightmare-Before-Christmas bauble story, a mini-parable on the perils of applying reductionism without understanding the fragility of certain kinds of knowledge.
Having said that, the major alternative is that you understood it perfectly well but you’re deliberately being a bit of a dick, but that would never happen. No wait…
Nick: I understood it. But it just has no bearing on my analysis of the proposition. I’m sorry, it just doesn’t.
It might be a parable and I daresay that is fine in the religious context, but I think in the context of Voynich research this specific parable is not illuminating in this case as we are dealing with two quite different things.
I am sorry if I come across as a pedant. What you perceive as me deliberately being a dick is just me trying to carefully present a methodological point about how we can approach assertions like “there are drawings in the Voynich of glass that can only date from after 1450.” Nobody has presented an alternative to the approach to evaluate such as proposition as I have suggested other than to say one should be more holistic and less reductionist, which is very non-specific.
J.K. Petersen: Are you arguing that it is necessary to know Christmas in order to study it?
My impression from the discussion here is that everybody is trying to convince everybody else that his way to interpret the VMS is the correct one. But is it really necessary to find the correct interpretation in order to study the VMS? Maybe it is the other way around and the real problem is that everybody is starting with wrong assumptions.
Robert Keller: What do you think are the wrong assumptions and what do you think are the right ones?
Rene: Yes we have been back and forwards on the VM and of course Nick did a pretty fair analysis on the main points not so long ago. I seem to recall that a question of atomic fallout was put across as likely to have attributed to the dating problem, which non of the experts including Donahue the NSF/AMS lab man, or Skelton, Marston, Painter and even Wally Mcrone never raised…..Your theory of it likely being a being a genuine hoax in an even more genuine old codex is new to me and I’m sure others such as the resolute 1910ish Voynich fans would be very interested to hear more about. This I’m sure would go some way, if necessary to exhonorate the pre voynich testers at AU from any further nasty hints of incompetence or subsequent cover up. Hope you can find the time…Cheers js.
Robert Keller wrote: “J.K. Petersen: Are you arguing that it is necessary to know Christmas in order to study it?”
No, sorry Robert. That’s not at all what I was saying.
Nick beautifully summed up the point of the example. I really couldn’t state it better.
But if it’s still not clear to you, what happens in the film is they doggedly pursue a reductionist approach to studying the bauble (in their attempt to study Christmas), ignoring other methods that might yield more fruitful results for some of the more cultural or ephemeral aspects. By focusing only on the concrete (and not observing its role in context), they destroy the very clues that might have brought them closer to understanding.
Mark Knowles: “I could go on.”
We’ve noticed.
Hmmm, what is Christmas now and how did it come about?
And how far is the (possible) glass helpful with answers to the VM?
John Sanders, you are always quite vague…
Almost from the start, the Vinland map was a point of controversy. There were some who were convinced it was genuine and there were some who believed it was a fake. This has persisted for decades.
The parchment was dated to the 15th century and the ink had modern constituents. This apparent inconsistency sharpened the discussion for years, but can be explained (modern drawing on an old MS)
For the Voynich MS, there was no such controversy. There was uncertainty about the century of its creation. After Voynich’s death, the 13th century (Bacon) lost popularity and most people believed 15th or 16th century. Now, there is little doubt left that it should be the 15th. (Yes, there can be some remaining doubt, so I write ‘little’).
The parchment was also dated to the 15th century, and the ink has _no_ (identified) modern constituents.
From all this it should be clear exactly where the differences between the two cases are.
Note that I am also not aware that anyone ever seriously contested the C-14 results for the Vinland map. This was quite different for the McCrone result.
Rene: Regarding the carbon dating I have described it as the “gold standard”. Now I believe it has been suggested that I am overestimating its reliability or whether the analysis has been correct.
It is a true that it could be said that I am appealing to the authority of the carbon dater(given my afor stated deep reservations about appeals to authority). I did not personally witness the collecting of all the samples. I did not personally witness the processing of those samples. So it is conceivable that mistakes were made, i.e. samples could have been mixed up with samples from other sources, samples could have been incorrectly processed etc.
However I have worked on the basis that carbon dating is a tried, tested and established scientific technique. In addition I have trusted that the individuals at Arizona University are experienced and adept at carrying out the process of carbon dating.
Now I have not and cannot reproduce the carbon dating they carried out, so I have to take it on trust that they performed this analysis correctly and thoroughly. I cannot take anymore samples from the Voynich manuscript, I do not have the equipment to process those samples and also I would have to develop the skills in order to do so correctly.
Nevertheless as with numerous other examples of carbon dating I see no earthly reason to doubt their conclusions when they say the parchment dates from between 1404 and 1438 with 95% confidence. So this does seem to be a gold standard.
However it has repeatedly been suggested that this dating of the parchment to between 1404 and 1438 is not correct. I don’t know if there is a case for contacting Greg Hodgins to answer objections regarding the dating. I, personally, don’t believe I have seen any compelling evidence to doubt this dating. If we reject the Arizona University analysis of the carbon dating it does seem that there is almost as much case for saying it is a modern hoax or late 15th century or 16th century as any other dating hypothesis purely based on the carbon dating.
In conclusion my strong inclination is to standard firmly by the Arizona University analysis concerning the early 15th century dating, unless someone can provide me with a satisfactory justification as to why they are wrong.
Mark, all,
I am not sure if one should call anything a ‘gold standard’. The most reliable way of dating a manuscript is when its text says when it was written. There can be other hints from the text, or from the identity of the author. This does not work for the majority of all manuscripts, but when it does, one can pinpoint the year, or have an uncertainty of just a few years. If such a manuscript is radiocarbon dated, the written date is the benchmark.
Now with respect to the radiocarbon dating of the Voynich MS, I actually witnessed the taking of the samples, but this is completely irrelevant. One can trust that this was done correctly, as was the treatment of the samples.
One has to realise that this process is an established technique that has matured over decades. Many different groups have worked in this area, discussed and compared their results in conferences and publications, and established the accuracy. The heart of this process is the ‘calibration curve’ which follows from global samples of tree rings (among others), which has been iteratively improved in a collaborative effort of all major centres.
I have spoken with Greg Hodgins before, during and after the C-14 dating of the Voynich MS. He is a scientist. If I ask him (as I did) whether there could be errors, he confirmed that this is possible. However, that does not mean that the results are not reliable.
The result gives a date range and a probability of 95% that the date of the MS falls within this range. An error does not mean that a mistake was made. Typically, it means that some un-modeled effect makes the probability estimate too optimistic.
Obviously, the probability of an error of 5 years is larger than an error of 15 years, and the probability of an error of 25 years is much smaller still.
Take the case of contamination. If there was modern organic material in the sample (which one could easily imagine) , then the resulting date would be ‘too new’, and this even if the process was done fully correctly. Of course, everybody working in this area is fully aware of this risk, and methods have been developed and are continually improved, to minimise it.
In fact, as a preparatory step for the Voynich MS, two cleaning methods were tested, indicating that a relatively rigorous cleaning was necessary. I have not mentioned this in my web page on the topic, which I trust you have read.
My personal view: if someone suggested that one could extend the margins of the dating by 5-10 years ‘just to be safe’, I would not consider that unreasonable. However, an error of 25 years or more is large, and not to be expected. It would require very strong contrary evidence.
Finally, I don’t know much about Venetian glass.
However, I also don’t know that the items in the MS could not just be objects of the author’s imagination. I do not see that objects with dots like that could not have been produced before 1450. The Voynich MS author/draughtsman liked putting rows of dots in various places, so it could just be a personal taste.
That, in my opinion, is entirely likely, *much* more likely than a significant error in the C-14 dating.
Nick: Have you found and consulted an appropriate expert on medieval glass objects? He/she might be able to point you in the right direction to find evidence, which will support or contradict your assertion. I am not saying you should take his/her word on it, but they might able to explain arguments or make you aware of evidence that you have not already seen.
You mention that the “Humanist hand” must date the Voynich to after 1450, how much evidence do you have to support that assertion?
Rene: it’s easy to forget that the much-touted “95%” figure is a measure not of historical probability but of statistical confidence. And it would take a doorstop-sized book or two to explore the practical differences between the two measures. :-/
It’s also easy to forget that three of the four vellum samples yielded extremely similar C-14 results, and so themselves would yield a wider (and later) spread of dates than the fourth one would alone. As a result, the apparent narrowness of the final date interval (because the statistical procedure used to combine the four distributions into a single synthetic distribution artificially narrows down the final range) was strongly driven by the f68 sample. Without that fourth sample (f68) in play, nobody would bat an eyelid at a 1450 date.
So: whereas I suspect the f68 sample may have been taken from a contaminated part of the folio (specifically the much-handled outer edge) causing the otherwise-reliable radiocarbon scientific dating process to yield a slightly earlier (and narrower) date interval than it did, your judgment is that all the secondary historical dating evidence I have been pointing to for the last 15 years is more likely to be wrong.
My point here is that we basically agree about the scientific methodology and about three of the four samples: and so the difference between our two positions is so paper-thin (or rather “vellum-thin”) that they should be viewed in the bigger picture as no more than a gnat’s eyebrow apart.
What this means is that the difference between our positions is not that there was (as you put it) “a significant error in the C-14 dating”, but rather a “a very minor error in the C-14 sampling methodology for one of the four samples” (which couldn’t really be further away from the way you describe it). And so it seems that you are deliberately mischaracterizing the nature of the debate here as being somehow ‘pro-C-14 vs con-C-14’ in order to somehow depict yourself on the side of the (scientific) angels, which I think is misleading and unhelpful.
Can you please therefore stop fallaciously characterizing me as some kind of ‘C-14 denier’? The ‘headline’ radiocarbon date range is no more than a statistical interpretation drawn from four samples, assuming their absolute correctness: what it is certainly not is some kind of moral high ground, which is what you seem to want to treat it as.
Rene: As Nick knows I feel that Nick has not provided so far any evidence to support the claim that the Voynich is dated to after 1450. I would not say that without the carbon dating the evidence is strong enough to justify the before 1450 date either. So for me the carbon dating has to be the deciding factor, until there is data which contradicts that if there ever is any.
To be honest I find Nick’s evidence for the later dating as or less persuasive than the dating by the supposed “sunflower” from after the discovery of America.
However I do think Nick has certainly raised some interesting questions out of the dating ideas that he has discussed. The idea that there is Venetian glass illustrated is intriguing even if it does not help with dating. IF we can say there is transparent glass then we can ask where such transparent glass might be found.
Mark: what question would I ask them? I know – from talking to a master glassblower – that the (apparently glass-blown) objects depicted in the Voynich Manuscript could indeed have been made as depicted by a 15th century master glassblower. And I know that the rows of dots was a typical feature of Murano glass. And I know that ‘cristallo’ began being produced in Murano during 1450-1455. So what else is there to know?
I guess what you’re actually asking is how far I would push a glass historian to try to disprove the notion, e.g. regarding properly transparent glass and Aldrevandin decorated glass etc. Perhaps it is something that I could persuade a glass historian to co-write a paper with me about. But… you must admit it would be a lot of work on my part to basically scratch your itch. :-/
Mark: it’s not a humanist hand, it’s a ‘humanistic hand’, which is a normal hand of the period where the scribe has been influenced by the styles and shapes of the humanist (revivalist) hand. The earliest ‘humanistic hand’ I have found that matches the Voynichese letter shapes (and that much more in Currier A than in Currier B) is from Rome in about 1450, though I recently noticed something broadly similar from Basel (?), I’d need to go back and check the date of that.
Nick: My mistake regarding terminology, the “humanistic hand” question is not something that I have studied, which is why I asked.
Mark: on the contrary, I have provided lots of evidence – it’s just that you don’t think that any of it is powerful enough to convince you to drop your own hypothesis. Which, incidentally, is fine by me: the practical craft of history isn’t about constructing “smoking gun” proofs (because these are the exception rather than the rule), because there can very often be multiple mainstream readings of the same event or object that directly contradict each other and yet persist for decades, possibly even forever.
Nick: I don’t mean to be hard on you. I am keen to get to the bottom of how you justify your dating. And perhaps forlornly hope to persuade you to consider an early 15th century dating and on that basis see where you great intellect leads you.
Nick: Well, it is definitely true that I have not yet shown my theory to be anything close to certain, so I am probably being unfair on you to expect a standard of evidence from you that I cannot provide myself.
Mark: Moreover, It’s not so easy for to forget that the four velum samples were especially selected and not at random, so as to seemingly undermine an unbiased spirit of total fairness. I think Rene and JKP have often outlined to us that all was above board, both having been personally involved in the process, so as to insure that the necessary controlls were in place in order to varify that the C14 dating apparatus functioned as it should….I can’t recall off hand, what particular controls were used, although one might expect that they must certainly have included historically confirmed pre dated velum samples of correct age and species from an unrelated source. We may wonder how such sampling was procured and whence, so as to have been readily on hand unless a likely result was anticipated; It has been oft asserted that experts involved from mixed areas of academia, those without RCSA qualifications, expressed surprise when Greg Hodgins gave them a date range at variance to their expectations, certainly non consistant with that suggested by the manuscript’s claimed history according to Wilfred Voynich himself. One can’t help but to note that marginalia notatations of known providence, were said to have also played a part in the control process which does not seem to suggest a ‘surprise’ element at all. NB: Not so long ago Rene himself conceded a slight shift towards Nick’s faviured Averlino line, but I suspect this was an unintended faux pas and not a concession to a mate.
Mark Knowles wrote: “And perhaps forlornly hope to persuade you to consider an early 15th century dating and on that basis see where you great intellect leads you.”
Following the evidence is more important than being persuaded “to consider an early 15th century dating” and I’m sure Nick knows this.
I’ve done something smart. From the Bronze Age to the present, the dot motif is always a popular motif. This also includes waves and zigzag patterns, tendrils and floral patterns. All of them are included, engraved (pressed) and painted.
Therefore, for me the pattern alone can not be decisive. Here is probably more of the name recognition in the foreground.
A recognition value, as one finds in artists, I do not see synonymous.
The area Northern Italy and the name Murano alone, support the date only specifically on this glass. But not on the VM.
Permit me to identify with the original inhabitants of Terra Australis, attesting to their more or less continuous and almost exclusive use of dots, waves, zig zigs, plus the odd tendril and desert bloom in decorative art form for at least forty milenia…..Shows that the average bronze age doodler and later talented Murano glass blowing artisans would seem to have some ways yet to go in catching up with the Aruntas in fine dot application upon bark, hides wood and the odd coke bottle (of late)…
Nick,
much of our discussion is a case of opinion vs. opinion, and this is quite typical for discussions about the Voynich MS. The best I think I can do in such a case is to present as clearly as possible on which points I base my opinion. I see you do the same, so all is fine as far as I am concerned.
There are also a couple of things that are facts, and this is where it is getting trickier, because the interpretation of facts becomes again subjective.
With respect to the four samples that were taken of the Voynich MS, these are fully equivalent. There is nothing a priori that makes one more valid than the other. Naturally, of the four C-14 measurements, one has to be smallest and one has to be largest.
Establishing the C-14 contents is a process that has its inherent error, and this error, expressed as a sigma, was around 0.004 (in terms of relative C-14 fraction). Only if any sample is clearly different from the others, by several times this error, should one be justified in rejecting it. As it happened, the standard deviation of the four measurements was 0.003, which means that also a posteriori all four samples were equivalent and valid.
There is no reason to treat the folio 68 sample in any different way.
Additionally, I have redone the calculations for different combinations of three out of four samples only, and the result was essentially the same in each case. This may be surprising, but just shows that the main contribution to the uncertainty of the result is the uncertainty in the calibration curve. This also means that more samples will not improve the result.
Pariah Heep,
you are mistaken in several counts.
JKP was not involved in the C-14 dating exercise.
The last word on the samples was from the expert Greg Hodgins, with the Beinecke giving the go-ahead (or not) on the number and the individual folios. (They did not want the 6-page fold-out to be damaged).
No “historically confirmed pre dated velum samples of correct age and species from an unrelated source” were used in the process.
Please give us an example of an ‘expert’ who was surprised at the outcome.
Your hint at incompetence bordering on foul play reminds me of another contributor to this discussion…
Rene: Neither the other contributor nor I have any horse this race, which seems to be headed on a precarious course by all accounts, if you’ll pardon my affrontery in saying. Moreover without either of us have suggested incompetence, your protestations re same are most peculiar. If you can make a quid out of new book accreditations and the like, that does amount to foul play in my book so you can rest easy there….Perhaps it was someone of a lesser qualification and not an expert who declared that the result of the Hodgins C-14 trst (1421m) was not one that had been anticipated afterall…Forgive me for being so presumptious on the degree of expertise involved.
JKP:
You say “Following the evidence is more important than being persuaded ‘to consider an early 15th century dating’ and I’m sure Nick knows this.”
I agree, but there is no evidence whatsoever that I have been made aware of now or before that the Voynich dates to after 1450. However the carbon dating clearly points to an early 15th century date. So on that basis I was advising Nick to consider an early 15th century dating. I wonder if you can grasp this logic as it should be pretty self-evident what I was arguing. I was NOT arguing that he should consider an early 15th Century date in the absense of evidence for the dating; if you don’t understand that then I can’t help you.
My perspective is that with most people who develop macrotheories about the Voynich they have devoted considerable time and effort to those theories and become emotionally invested in them(this could potentially even apply to microtheories). They have often, to some extent, staked their reputation on their theories by presenting their theory to others in one way or another; maybe by contacting newspapers or writing books or writing papers or just presenting their theories in forums like this. These factors can lead to a certain amount of inertia when it comes to changing their mind on their theory in whole or in part. Of course , it could be argued that this is as true of my theory as of any others; I hope by being aware of this I am somewhat immunised against this mistake.
So I was suggesting that Nick was doggedly sticking to his own macrotheory despite his great intelligence given that Nick’s identification of Antonio Averlino as the author of the Voynich is dependent on the post 1450 dating of the manuscript. I was geniunely stating that he could be confident of the value of his book “the Curse” and his research into the Voynich even if his Averlino hypothesis is incorrect, so he should not be discouraged from considering an earlier dating and seeing where his intellectual abilities take him given that perspective. I was not suggesting he adopt my theory, though of course he would be welcome to, but rather that he consider a new line of research based on the earlier dating.
Mark: you seem doggedly determined to misrepresent what I have written, but I’ll say it again.
I started by finding a number of elements that suggested a post-1450 dating. I would agree that none of these alone would constitute absolute proof, but at the same time that is an unreasonably high bar for historical proof to have to pole vault over.
My judgment was that these things gave sufficiently strong grounds to back the idea of exploring the history of the post-1450 period to look for any contemporary objects or documents or correspondence that might be referring to something that could be the Voynich Manuscript.
That was the research context in which I found mention of Averlino’s books of secrets. So it was not a load of historical fragments hustled together to support a pre-existing macrotheory, but a constellation of dating evidences of varying strengths that drove a focused documentary search.
The basic historical research all still stands: while the Averlino macrotheory atop them all remains untoppled too. Which isn’t to say it’s correct, because we simply don’t know enough to prove or disprove it.
I happily continue to consider other dates and explanations, and would like to think that I of all people have given you more space, support and encouragement than any other Voynich researcher.
But you’re being a bit of a disrespectful prat here at the moment, and I’d rather you backed off somewhat.
Rene: I think you are misusing statistics here to try to force clarity onto what should be accepted as an unclear situation. That the four samples are the same or not is a statistical interpretation, not a mathematical certainty.
I also re-ran the calculations on the three non-f68 samples some years ago, but my spreadsheet yielded a broader interval than with all four samples. There’s a page on this in ciphermysteries somewhere, I’ll try to dig it out.
Nick: I think you have misunderstood, I was not saying you decided on the Averlino hypothesis and then looked for evidence to justify your post 1450 dating; I don’t think I have ever said such. In fact I completely believe that you arrived at the later dating and then at the Averlino authorship identification on that basis. Rather I was asserting that your Averlino hypothesis is based and dependent on that later dating; this is a completely different point. So I was in no way misrepresenting you. I think you came to the process of identifying Averlino as the author in good faith and through a careful process of deduction based on other ideas, despite the fact that I think you may have made mistakes along the way.
Frankly the fact that you dated the Voynich to the 15th century prior to the carbon dating is very impressive.
I am really not trying to be disrespectful as I actually have a lot of respect for you, as I would think you must know by now. You certainly have been hugely helpful to me in my research as I am sure you have been to others. I was only curious as to what conclusions you would come to if you pursued a different research angle. Anyway by that answer I was not trying to prod and poke you, primarily I was trying to answer JKP’s point.
I know I do overuse the word “somewhat”, I think this is, because I don’t like to overcommit myself or be too emphatic.
Mark: if that is your intention, you are falling somewhat short at the moment. :-/
Nick: Clearly, you are right, I must be falling short.
I can see no earthly reason to have any mischievous intentions and I think you can be confident that I have positive intentions; this would be a waste of my, your and anyone else’s time if I were to have any other attitude; you may feel at times that I am misguided, but you don’t need to doubt that.
Pete: Sitting back in Sydney town, taking in the gay Mardi Gras scene as is your wont, please give a thought, if you will, to internal conflicts raging on the VM front. Mate against academic mate, trumped up accusations flying hither and thither at all levels. I’m thinking that your earlier, well stated, though inexpert views on an eastern solution may have inadvertently been the catalyst to our current sorry impass. Accordingly you might agree to come forward as the face of reason, in endeavour to resolve the resultant downward spiraling impass which might sink the good ship Voynich, if not rectified..ps. Keep your Marcos up son.
@pariah heep
Do you mean me ?
I did not understand a word what you write there.
Peter: don’t worry, it’s much the same for everyone else. 🙂
Pariah heep: You must be John Sander’s cousin as your slightly cryptic style is reminiscent of his.
Nick, I am afraid that I don’t follow.
Statistics is an area of mathematics.
The maths related to the processing of the C-14 measurements of the four samples is completely straightforward.
One may argue what one calls an outlier: anything that is more than 2.5 times sigma? Three times?
That does not apply here. All four samples are within the error of the technique as reported by the U of Arizona. That is a mathematical fact and there is no room for doubt or discussion.
The conversion of the C-14 ratios (three or four) to calibrated date is reasonably straightforward, but not at all trivial. I do seriously wonder if you did it correctly.
Rene: if you have four samples, where three are alike but one is different, it is a matter of statistical interpretation as to whether they form one group or two – there is no reliable statistical test for mathematically answering this either way. Sure, there are statistical tests which suggest an answer, but these categorically do not give a single mathematical answer in the way you suggest, stats doesn’t work that way.
You also seem to have misremembered the issue about the difficulties of merging three or four date distributions into a single date distribution. The problem isn’t converting the C-14 ratios to calibrated date ranges / distributions, the problem is the next step on from there where you merge those three or four date ranges together to form a single date range. If you are merging three very closely-aligned date ranges, you end up with a distribution that is almost identical to the one you started with, because you’re not really putting more (statistical) information in: but if you add in a distribution that is set apart from the others, this would have the effect of narrowing and skewing the final (composite) date range.
As a result, I argue that the narrowness and date-centre of the ‘headline’ date range is very strongly dependent on the f68 sample.
Nick & Rene: It does seem that however you, Nick, choose to do the Maths vis-a-vis the carbon dating there is no way to shift the confidence interval by as much as 25 years, so that, Nick, your dating fits within it with 95% confidence. I would be curious to see the Maths that gets you there.
Mark: yes, there is a good technical discussion to be had here vis-a-vis merging statistical distributions, but in the meantime can you please stop mouthing off like a dick? Thanks!
Nick: I think that it is utterly unfair to say that “I am mouthing off like a dick” as you put it. This is a completely reasonable point and insulting me in that way is completely inappropriate. I have not insulted you and endeavoured to be polite and respectful. Despite me bending over backwards to be friendly you have repeatedly insulted me in a crude and vulgar manner.
I have been very critical of your arguments, but have not attacked you personally in the way you have attacked me. I think all arguments are worthy to be attacked, but attacking people is something quite different.
These dating questions are a fair topic for discussion, I think.
Mark: I honestly can’t have made it clearer to you that you’ve been repeatedly expressing yourself here in a way that is coming across to many of the commenters here (not just me, not by a long way) as somewhat self-obsessed, petulant, and pointlessly combative. And for what? For nothing, really nothing.
Sure, there are some good discussions to be had on the topics you are so obviously interested in, but when you keep on expressing yourself in such an openly dickish way, it’s hard for even me to raise sufficient enthusiasm to engage with you, and I’m unbelievably laissez-faire in many respects.
Nick: Self-obsessed, quite possibly, that can easily be a failing of mine and something I need to try my best to avoid. Petulant, I am not inclined to think so. Pointlessly combative, I don’t think so at all; there has been a real point behind my criticisms of and challenges to arguments on this blog; I wouldn’t waste time arguing anything I thought irrelevant.
If there are a large number of people who have expressed concerns about my behaviour on this blog(I assume in private) then that is certainly something I need to consider as I don’t want to be responsible for making this a difficult research discussion environment for people. So far, although I have placed a lot comments I get the impression that I have not been a particularly difficult commentator compared to some others.
I guess I can be quite strident and forceful on points, but that is because I consider them of great importance in Voynich research; such as the question of dating. This is why I have been resolute in my challenges to your dating ideas. I guess that in this forum I have not pulled my punches when it comes to discussion of points on the Voynich. In terms of my attitude to people, then I try to be caring in so far as I don’t view any Voynich researcher in a negative light no matter how likely or unlikely I think their theory, after all, without trying to sound soppy, they are all human beings who have invested time and energy into researching the manuscript and so should be respected for that. It is worth noting that you don’t pull your punches at all when criticising other people’s theories either, which I think is fair even if I am the unfortunate victim of that criticism, as long as it doesn’t fall into personal insults (I am not referring to the present discussion in this case).
I would question whether I have been behaving in “an openly dickish way” especially with regard to the last comment, so in that instance I definitely do think your remark was unjustifiably rude. I don’t think it necessary to be quite so rude, especially given the great offense you took regarding the comparison with Rich Santacoloma.
Treading the line between vigourously challenging people’s ideas and aggravating people needlessly is hard, especially when people may not be wholly and relaxed understandably with their ideas being challenged; I know I can be uncomfortable with my ideas, even justifiably, being challenged. I try to stay on the right side of this line, but it is certainly possible I land on the other side of that line on occasions.
I think you are a really good guy, but I have felt it important to discuss these controversial points about the Voynich in a pretty robust and determined manner.
@Mark
I think Google has certainly translated correctly.
Nick certainly did not behave Vulgare, he just said that you just write too much meaningless.
I also noticed that, you write a lot of stuff, but at the end you did not say anything.
Peter: Alright, you want something specific. Well, Nick refers to the “Humanistic hand”, now I guess this is the same as the “scrittura umanistica”. As far as I can tell from a little research this originated in the early 15th century, but Nick dates it to the late 15th century; which leaves me confused. It could be that Nick is referring to something different.
The reason for all the other comments is that I keep on being accused of somehow being malicious and I have felt the need to reply. To be honest, I much prefer to discuss specifics, which is what I normally do.
Peter: Nick’s dating based on the parallel hatching is interesting, because at first glance this looks very persuasive. I will have to see what more research leads me to.
J.K. Petersen: You already have an idea what christmas means. Therefore you know the solution. But what if the solution is uncertain? It is quite normal to dismiss evidence that contradicts our beliefs and to pick out those dots of data that will confirm our prejudices. With other words when people would like an idea to be true, they end up believing it to be true.
If you are unable to convince somebody else this didn’t mean that he his a dickhead. Maybe your arguments are simply not as conclusive as you believe.
Peter: To be fair to Nick he talks about the “humanistic hand” as derived from the “humanist hand”. The humanist hand is dated to the early 15th century I think. I don’t know how Nick dates the humanistic hand, it seems to be based on a few examples which seems a bit weak.
Mark: I described the difference between a humanist hand and a humanistic hand, and pointed out that the Voynichese hand (particularly Currier A) seemed to be an example of a humanistic hand (however many times Voynich researchers incorrectly cite the “humanist hand”). However, it was only your guess that my dating argument was based solely on its being a humanistic hand: for as you point out, there are examples of humanistic hands (though admittedly not that many) that date from earlier on in the 15th century.
In fact, what I actually did was go through loads and loads of palaeography books at the British Library (luckily they’re almost all on open shelves, feel free to repeat the process yourself) looking for manuscript hands from 1400-1480 that shared similar features with the Voynichese Currier A hand. The earliest I was able to find was from Rome around 1450.
So my dating evidence there wasn’t simply that it was a humanistic hand, it was instead that the earliest humanistic hand I have so far found that clearly shared features with Voynichese was from close to 1450.
Peter: It looks as though the parallel hatching technique was used in the early 15th century, however it seems it only really started to become popular from the 1440s onwards. So this cuts both way, on the one hand this points to the fact that it is perfectly possible that this technique was used by the author in the early 15th century, on the other hand it may well have been unusual for him/her to use this technique.
This poses an interesting question about the extent to which the author was using cutting edge techniques and ideas. Given the intelligence of the author it would not be surprising if he/she was using the latest technologies and ideas.
In general, if the author was quite old-fashioned in his/her habits then that would support a later date and if the author was keen to embrace new ideas it would support an earlier date.
I would generally be inclined to think of the author as someone more likely to be eager to adopt new technology than being conservative and traditionalist.
Nick: That is interesting. Did you find many examples from the late 1450s of the humanistic hand? Certainly the frequency of examples would help support though not prove the later date. Or did you find few examples overall?
Obviously if you found very many examples from 1450-1470 and none from before that would support your case. I have not yet inspected the handwriting comparisons, but it is an interesting subject.
Also it would depend on the relative frequency of the different handwriting styles over the century to get some idea. The same kind of approach could be applied to questions of the kind we are talking about with the glass.
Mark: there were very few examples indeed, and 1450 was the earliest of them.
Mark: you might want to look at…
* http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/voynich-parallel-hatching
* https://ciphermysteries.com/2009/09/19/vms-parallel-hatching-dating-page (for the comments)
* https://ciphermysteries.com/2009/12/18/pre-1450-german-voynich-possibility
Peter: Rest at ease my friend. I was addressing Kerrie over the way, to whom I occasionally redirect interesting snippets…Don’t concern yourself too much on inability to follow my drift; We are oft told that ignorance is bliss, but I’ve found that being ignored, can at times prove to be even more blissful…
Nick, I can see from those links that you have a couple of posts on hatching. I don’t recall any blogs on the VMS hatching… maybe I saw some a long time ago, but if so, it has slipped my mind), but I have tried to collect samples along the way.
I’ll post them next weekend if I can (that’s the soonest I can get to it). I’d rather post before I read your blogs.
What I have probably just corroborates what you have, but I’m always curious to know how (and whether) findings from different researchers can (hopefully) fill out a picture, or at least help confirm or add weight to the previous work.
I’ve never thought about hatching. But I know that they often occur in land and nautical charts. Beaches and rocks were often hatched. But really have no idea from what century. I will not look for it, but I keep it in my head.
I also distinguish whether it should simply fill a flat surface, or whether I should achieve a shade or depth effect.
Without shading, a cylinder looks like a rectangle, I see that without hatching even in the floor plan.
If I see a circle from each side, then it is certainly a bullet. 🙂
Peter: I’d like to think I’m correct in saying that there are obvious distinctions in the purpose of the parallel hatching in VM, which is used specifically to define contour and create third dimensional, mostly man made forms on a flat surface. Whereas another type, taking the form of tonal depth shading merely creates contrast in order to highlight or to distinguish those shapes best known to nature. Both methods, employing somewhat different tools and techniques in their execution, may or may not have the same historical derivation, though I’m not artistic so I really don’t know. I wouldn’t pay too much heed to my poorly worded attempt at meaningful articulation, so no need for your translator on this one sport.
Nick: Thanks for those links. I will read those pages. The parallel hatching argument on the face of it looks very persuasive. Obviously I will need to delve into the specifics to make my own, personal, assessment.
You only need one strong example to justify your dating, so even if all your other reasons for the late dating are weak, as in my personal opinion from what you have presented so far they are, then that one example would be sufficient.
Given the low frequency of examples of the “humanistic hand” with specific features that you have described I don’t think that dating argument is very compelling.
Mark: as I said, the dating evidence isn’t as strong as I’d like, but though diffuse it is nonetheless (I think) stuff that should be considered. The humanistic hand has been separately dated (by Sergio Toresella) to 1460-1470 (as I recall), based (as I understand it) on specific comparisons with the hand that appears in a particular Milanese herbal: sadly I don’t know which herbal Sergio was referring to, because that would give a very much stronger argument to his dating.
Nick,
I am sorry to say, but you are definitely wrong about the processing of the four samples, and this is not a matter of opinion, but of straightforward mathematical processing.
I have attempted to explain all details as best I can at my web site.
The relevant page can most easily be reached by clicking on the ‘Search’ button at the start page, and searching for the term ‘carbon’.
All four samples are statistically equivalent. There are reasonably clear rules about deciding about outliers, but I already wrote that.
Rene: I also think you’re wrong, because I think you’re confusing statistical interpretation with mathematical processing. You write:
“This shows in a very visual, yet qualitative way that the four measurements are consistent. There is no indication that the samples represent a different age.”
This is your statistical interpretation, not a mathematical fact. While I agree with you that:
“the spread of the measurements is less than their inherent error”
I disagree that “This quantitatively confirms the consistency of the measurements”. Though I agree that this suggests the consistency of the measurements, it does not prove it, it is not a mathematical fact in the way you keep claiming.
I’m obviously going to have to blog again about this, because there simply is not the mathematical certainty about the fourth sample that you think there is.
I really don’t know what else I can reasonably say about the topic.
The web page is there for everyone to read and I’ll just leave it at that.
I emailed Dr. Rachel Tyson regarding early 15th Venetian glass. She says:
“That’s a good question – you have identified a bit of a hole in datable evidence of glass in the early 15th century.
There does seem to be a decline in glass of the late 14th – early 15th century across Europe (except Bohemia), which may partly be a combination of the effect of the Black Death, when glassmaking may have been affected by glassmakers and patrons and customers declining, leading to a lack of innovation and decline in manufacture etc. There is also a lack of archaeological contexts that can be dated to this period, including large stone-lined cesspits no longer being built in backyards, making it difficult to date finds accurately. It would make a good research topic!
Glass was still being made. There is documentary evidence for glassmaking in Venice/Murano right through from the later 14th and early 15th century (see Luigi Zecchin’s volumes on Venetian glass (in Italian) which contain documentary evidence as well as a selection of glass: Vetro e Vetrai di Murano: Studi sulla storia del vetro. Volumes I, II & III. Compilation of articles written by Zecchin, grouped by topic. Arsenale Editrice s.r.l., Venezia, 1987). The glassmaker Angelo Barovier is known as a master glass enameller in Venice – first mentioned in documents 1424 and died 1460.Venetian documents mention enamelling in the first half of the 15th century.
There was a large assemblage of glass found dated to 1390 from the archbishop’s palace in Tarquinia in central Italy – see Martine Newby’s thesis https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9348106.pdf.
Some paintings of Last Suppers etc. show tall glass flasks and plain beakers in the later 14th and 15th centuries, so they definitely continue. As you commented, there are enamelled vessels dated up to the mid 14th century, and then the second half of the 15th century, so it seems likely that glass was still enamelled in the intervening period.
I’m not aware of a particular specialist in this topic in England or writing in English. The Italian committee of the Association Internationale pour l’Historie du Verre may be able to help you, or know someone in Italy with more specialist knowledge of this topic – but possibly in Italian! http://www.storiadelvetro.it/.”
Mark: thanks, that’s particularly helpful. I’m pretty sure I went through Zecchin way back when, but I shall download Martine Newby’s thesis this evening, that looks like a very interesting read. 🙂
Nick: I have read your posts. The parallel hatching argument is interesting. I don’t know to what extent that your own observation of an earlier German usage of the technique is problematic. From what I have read there are the odd examples of parallel hatching going back to the early 14th century. However for me the question is how unusual was it to use this technique in the early 15th century, in Germany or Italy or Switzerland. If it was possible that it was used in the early 15th century, but highly unusual then your case remains strong. I daresay I will look into this.
One thing I remember is that Phillip Neal argued for an early 15th century dating based on the history of herbal manuscripts.
Parallel hatching had been a common medium in sketching for many years before 1440, of that there can be very little ‘common sense’ doubt. The fact that examples are not so frequently come by, could be due to any number of logical reasons. One that comes readily to mind is, in that it’s likely main purpose being as an student artist method of instruction. In which case the parchment might be used over and over, eventually being obliterated by pigment application, hence it’s unlikelihood of having survived in any case…. Of course commonality of hatching and cross hatching as applicable to the works of great ‘sketch’ artists like Len da Vin needs little explanation; Although one might offer in passing, that his use of the medium was likely more by a desire to accentuate his architecural designs, likes of which are still with us due to their technical excellence and desirability….I should add that other forms of parellel hatching, as evidenced in related art forms such as in etching, engraving and lithography probably evolved from all those run of the mill sketch art students, having adopted such trades to accord with their respective talents….Now cross hatching could be a different kettle of fish altogether, if it could be connected with VM, though only in so much as its earliest known application relates, for the style never lost favour (as some will contend) and is with us yet…
I don’t think that the ‘parallel hatching’ argument can play any significant role in the dating of the Voynich MS, because there are several problems with it.
The first is, that not all ‘drawing of close parallel lines’ is actually parallel hatching. The purpose of hatching is to introduce ‘shading’ in a linear technique. With ‘linear technique’ is meant that the tool (a feather in our case) only allows to draw lines, and not to fill areas. Copper engravings are typical examples where this was used.
To better understand whether this applies to the Voynich MS, we should know where the examples of parallel hatching are located. I am only aware of cases where lines are drawn in parallel, in order to indicate a direction of a slope or surface, e.g. the insides of the containers in the pharma section.
Either way, this is a bit qualitative. What is even more important is that, when I asked the art historian Alexander Nagel, he immediately pointed me to an Italian example from 1420, in pen and brown ink.
It may be found here:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/338134
It uses both parallel hatching and cross hatching, the purpose being to introduce the concept of shades.
Wonders may never cease; We find it most gratifying that for the first time our rarely challenged VM El Supremo, actually dared to rehash unaplogogetically, what the trollish pariah had just outlined as astutely, in two helpful consecutive posts no less….The sketch of the diciplined lads on the Sea of Galilee with the boss JC on the water, are proof of pre 15th century familiarity of the style in our ‘cross hatch’ saga; Though we note with disappointment that the background castle tower shows no sign of desired swallowtail merlons on its rampart.
Rene: it seems 100x more likely to me that the dating of that single picture is faulty, so I’ll raise that with the Met curators.
And no, Art History isn’t qualitative in the way you describe, you seem to have misunderstood how it works and what it is trying to achieve, sorry.
Mark: I suspect there is an argument to be had about the relationship between the Voynich Manuscript and the earliest instances of the “alchemical herbals”, but that it’s really very subtle indeed.
Rene: Thanks for that. I will look into your point.
The proportion of illustrations in the “alchemical” herbals that have mnemonic elements (esp. in the roots) is higher than the more traditional herbals.
In this respect, the VMS has some commonalities. But it is clearly not based on any common “template” in terms of which plants are included or the order in which they are presented (complicated by the fact that the VMS plant folios may not be in their original order).
There’s overlap of some of the more recognizable plants (which are few and far between), but no strong indication of overall similarity in terms of sequence or content.
Like most of the VMS content, it looks like the designer may have introduced some originality into the process.
J.K. Petersen: I’ve long (from the days of The Curse onwards) suspected that there is a categoric difference between Herbal A pages and Herbal B pages, and (putting aside the Herbal B pages) the simplest explanation for the Herbal A pages is that they are, basically, a herbal of some sort.
But the alchemical herbal tradition started in the 14th century, so I’m wondering aloud if the Voynich’s Herbal A pages might somehow (and don’t ask me how, and don’t ask me about the pictures) be part of that tradition in some way. It’s just a thought: 98 drawings with descriptions, in a fixed order that stays constant between mss…
Philip Neal’s page: http://philipneal.net/voynichsources/alchemical/
JKP: You have mentioned a point that I have written about before, namely how original was the author of the Voynich?
My inclinations as to say quite original, maybe even very original.
Certainly the cipher used is at least to some extent original; how original we do not know as it hasn’t been deciphered.
My analysis of the 9 rosette foldout is that it is quite an original design of map.
There are certainly other aspects of the manuscript that show originality.
As I have mentioned before, the more original the manuscript is the harder it will be to find a “block-paradigm” as Nick has described and in fact this will make it a bit harder to find a crib in general. Of the more original it is the more difficult it is to find parallels with other contemporary manuscripts and other sources.
Obviously we see some contemporary parallels, so it is not completely original as it would be if it fell from the heavens.
Of course the more original the author can be said to be the more plausible the cipher hypothesis becomes relative to the unknown language or unknown script perspective.
So this poses to me the question as to whether the author could be said to be a genius (a word I generally avoid using). The more intelligent the author the harder our task most probably is.
Mark: making progress doesn’t rely on guessing whether or not the author was a genius. 😉
Nick: It is all guesswork, but I think this is an interesting question as to what we think about the mind of the author, their motivations, inclinations, abilities etc. This is certainly not the only or most important subject to address, but I see some value in it. Who knows if we can make progress getting into the mind and mindset of the author it may provide useful insights. This is not a subject at this stage that I have or plan to devote a lot of time to, but even though it is speculative it is not pointless I think. There is definitely a place for this kind of discussion or speculation.
Mark: there may well be a place for it somewhere, but I for one have found everything that speculates about the author’s motivations and mindsets to be a complete waste of time – we’re simply not far enough down the road for anything like to have a positive (rather than a negative) net result, sorry. 🙁
Strangely enough I’d never really given thought to the VM creator’s IQ, though I could well image an imaginative person with a developed knowledge in many divers fields ie. medieval culture, though nit necessarilly a student of same. A genius almost certainly as Mark reluctantly suggests, though more likely in a field perhaps not covered by VM subjects but who sought out the expertise of others with better knowledge than (s)he.
Nick, for the dating of the MS there is a whole pile of evidence, and this pile consists of items that are not fully consistent with each other. The way to sort that out is to try to judge the weight of each item, and to take it into account accordingly. This is exactly what I am trying to do, as I already mentioned before.
I also mentioned already that for me the most ‘weighty’ evidence for a post 1450 date remains the opinion of Sergio Toresella.
With respect to the parallel hashing, I just explained the reason why I don’t see it putting the balance in either direction (pre- or post-1450). It is as neutral, as is (for example) the appearance of a human sagittarius with crossbow.
The hatching argument is one where the time and place of the origin of the MS seem to become linked, because you argue that in German contexts it was already used earlier.
The early Italian example I showed is just one example, and certainly the earliest I know of. There are others (Italian) dating to around 1440.
Even if the dating of the item in the Metropolitan turns out to be incorrect, the thrust of the argument that this was used before 1450 remains.
With respect to the place of origin of the MS, for as long as I can remember I had written at my web site that the MS shows both German and Italian influences. I think that still remains valid after all these years. Now let’s look at three arbitrary possible reasons for this (but there are of course more):
– the MS was made by a person of German origin living / working in Italy
– the MS was made by a person of Italian origin living / working in Germany
– the MS was a collaborative effort of a German and an Italian.
Now does the MS have evidence that allows us to distinguish between these three (and the others)? Which one is more likely? I don’t see any, but it might be another area for further research by anyone so inclined.
So, the MS could very well have been conceived by a German, or in Germany, and assuming it is purely Italian is risky.
By the way, I didn’t write that I think that art history is only qualitative 🙂
Rene: I am quite certain that the Met item is mislabelled, in that it seems to be a much later sketch of a predecessor item, where the predecessor item was made around 1420 (not the copy). As such, I don’t really like the way you’re trying to use it as a lever to criticize the utility of Art History: it’s just noise, and heaven knows we don’t need any more noise than we already have.
The German influence on the manuscript (as opposed to on the marginalia) I see as restricted to the zodiac roundels, very probably copied from a German calendar of the 1420s. Arguably a larger influence is the French influence on the Astro section, which seems to be more directly integrated into the text.
@ Nick
I do not agree with that. The problem is that already 100x nonsense was served. You would also ignore it if it’s true.
I have shown some examples with me, I even underlined them in red and yet people do not see it.
It’s actually easy, you just have to see it.
What is a @
What’s this ? v ‘
Or what does the sign (Pi) mean?
This is a normal spelling ……. think german, but write latin.
If people do not ask, then there is no answer.
I have the same opinion as Rene. The German origin is not assigned by the hand.
This I have explained as well as it already went.
It’s not just the sign of the zodiac.
http://ciphermysteries.com/2010/08/31/voynich-f116v-pax-nax-vax
Nick: One thing I think we can make some assessment of and so is therefore less speculative is the degree of originality of the author’s work in the Voynich.
Obviously if his/her work was very derivative of other contemporary manuscripts then that would be one thing and it is more likely it would have already been cracked by a crib or your block-paradigm.
If it was completely original then we would not see any parallels with contemporary manuscripts. In which case it would prove to be exceedingly difficult to crack.
However we do see significant parallels with other manuscripts, but it appears to be very far from highly derivative.
Why does assessing how original it is matter? Well, if we can assess that then we can make assessment on specific aspects of the manuscript as to how original we might reasonably expect them to be. As an example take my favourite 9 rosette foldout, if the author was not very original we would expect the page to be clearly derived from another page, however if the author was highly original it would make sense that the author had produced their own individual representation of a map. It could also be interesting to ask which parts of the manuscript were more or less original, probably the more original parts would be, on balance, the more important parts to the author as they would on average have required more work. It might be interesting to ask how original it is when compared with other contemporary manuscripts like Giovanni Fontana’s work, for example.
Obviously the notion of originality is highly relevant to your notion of a block-paradigm. If it is highly original then it makes finding a block-paradigm that much harder.
I am inclined towards the view that the author was pretty original not only on the basis of the sophistication of the cipher, but also on the basis that I regard the 9 rosette foldout to be quite an original map design.
I sense you view the author as less original than I do as I believe you are more inclined to the view that much of the manuscript was reproduced from a template.
Another case for originality is that it makes less sense to encipher something completely unoriginal.
Yes, this is speculation, but I think we can make some loose judgment all the same.
Well, Nick, this is your blog. You can write anything you want.
I will refrain from further comment.
Deutsche Schreibweise.
„v’“ bedeuten nichts anderes als die vorsilbe „ver-“
nehme ich die VM Zeichen „q“ oder „4“ was der häufigkeit eines einzelnen Buchstaben als Wortanfang wiederspricht. Ein Zeichen für eine Silbe.
@ bedeutet nichts anderes als „an“deutsches Kombinationskürzel „ ) “ „ a) “= an.
Als gleiches, „en = e)“….un, an, in, on, en.
Was macht er ? Er macht nichts anderes als aus einem deutschen Kombinationskürzel „ N „ ein lateinisches Kombinationskürzel „T“.
Denke deutsch, schreibe Latein.
Benutze Vorsilbenkürzel, Kombinationskürzel, und lateinische Endungskürzel,
und verstecke noch das „E“ in einer Kombination.
Das interessante, vom Urheber ausgehend ist es immer noch eine einfache 1 zu 1 Verschlüsselung, was eigentlich noch kein richtiges Kryprogramm ist.
So einfach und doch genial.
Habe ich die gleichen voraussetzungen, ( deutsch und latein, schreibweise um 1400 ) versteht man es in 20 minuten.
Ob er gewusst hat, dass das „e)“ dem lateischen kürzel „et“ optisch gleich ist lasse ich mal weg. Et = et.
Nick,
I managed to map Ros2 with the 9 circles of hell from Dante. You should have a look.
http://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/31/rosette-2-circles-dante-inferno
Thomas O’Neil: Your idea is charming. Clearly it is not my idea.
The biggest issue that I find with your theory, which is a common problem with so many theories of the page, is that it explains so little of the specific details of the page.
I am inclined to the view that almost all the details of the page have a significant meaning and are not merely flights of fancy.
Tom: Erni Lillie proposed a similar idea more than a decade ago. There’s a link on this page here: http://ciphermysteries.com/2013/03/08/dan-browns-inferno-and-the-voynich-manuscript
@ Mark and Nick,
What is intriguing to me is that I had no idea about Dan’ proposal for the Rosette regarding the 9 circles of hell. I wonder how he mapped them and if it is identical to my layout. If we presume that the voynich is just an invented text and the reference for mapped number 8 contains the 10 bolgias; then we maybe be able to see if these vords are just voynich cardinal numbers. My logic would tell that me these vords if voynich numbers should retain a high count in the Voynich Manuscript.
We could check here:
http://www.voynichese.com/#/exa:shed-:crimson/exa:ched-:royal-blue/843.3333740234375
What is also very symbolic is a Castle mentioned in the 9 circles of hell and a fierce blowing wind.
@Nick do you have a link to Dan’s mapped system of Ros2?
Thanks guys! 🙂
Rene: Regarding your argument that the following options are likely:
“– the MS was made by a person of German origin living / working in Italy
– the MS was made by a person of Italian origin living / working in Germany
– the MS was a collaborative effort of a German and an Italian”
I think there is scope for assessing the likelihood of each of these.
Obviously, as I have already mentioned, my theory, formed before I realised any German connections, implies a Journey(map) from Milan to Basel. i.e. essentially Italy to Germany. I increasingly believe that some of the manuscript was written in the Milan area and quite a bit in Basel.
I think it might help to ask whether the manuscript is essentially an Italian style manuscript with some German influenced contents or the other way round. I think that if it is the former it more likely to have been written by an Italian and if the latter by a German. I think we can ask in which parts of the manuscript one finds the Italian influences and which part the German. If the earlier influences are Italian then probably the author was Italian. There may well be other factors we can consider that might indicate whether the author was more likely to be German or Italian. Of course this is speculation.
Rene: Having thought about it. The ideas of Italian and German influences combined with the notion of there being an itinerary map does fit rather well with an itinerary map illustrating a journey from Italy to Germany or alternatively Germany to Italy(Of course I would argue both Italy -> Germany -> Italy).
Again even if my 9 rosette theory is largely wrong this kind of Italy/Germany journey map idea is intriguing, I think. Of course some aspects of my theory I have greater confidence in than others and the parts that I am most confident in tie in closely with a journey across the Alps as well as a link to Milan. My speculation that some of the plants in the Voynich maybe Alpine in origin fits with this.
Again this is speculative.
Mark: let’s also not discount the French influence on the astro pages, just to be difficult. :-/
Nick: For my own personal theory even that is not necessarily problematic as in my own theory my author travelled into French Switzerland specifically Geneva. And again it is worth noting that my theory was in no way created on the basis of the idea that there were German or French influence.
I am not saying that if there are French influences that those French influences originated whilst, in my theory, the author was in French Switzerland. (It seems clear that there are German influences and I have not looked into whether in my opinion there really are French influences based on available evidence.)
The Alsace and east Swiss regions had quite a bit of French influence, so that might not be a problem.
There were a lot of ties between scholars in Paris/Flanders and the major centers of the Holy Roman Empire.
Be warned; no wrath like a woman scorned, especially when one happens to be of a certain age and mind-set. Fellows can take being pissed on from all directions and tend to piss back in kind; whereas ladies are likely to bide their time, build up a good head, then saturate those who they consider to have agrieved them, with gleeful delight and from a great height!…
I seems that Diane O’Donovan is quite cagey about her academic background, but I think the following may be correct:
“Diane O’Donovan, Newcastle, Australia. Diane read Syriac and Near Eastern history and mythology under Professor Bowman in Melbourne before travelling to Japan, where she studied Japanese and Persian miniatures for two years. Upon her return to Australia, she studied Fine Arts (including semiotics), Near Eastern Studies (including Classical Hebrew), Industrial Archaeology and Ethics of Politics and Science (with emphasis on formal techniques of mass oratory and visual propaganda) at the University of Sydney. Her postgraduate research topic – ‘The Host of Heaven in pre-exilic Israel’ – led to a continuing interest in the religious and other popular uses for astronomy. She has worked at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and in Administration at the University of Sydney. Happening on an image of the ‘Charles VI’ card ‘Le Fou’ in a bookshop in 1990, and recognising it as a mnenonic image for Orion, she began a ‘weekend’s” essay on the subject. Twelve years later, the area still offers new insights into medieval history and culture.”
I don’t know how relevant her background is to Voynich research or not, but she certainly has some academic credentials.
It does seem that Diane has written about Medieval playing cards and has probably had some interest in Medieval maps prior to her interest in the Voynich.
I do think there is a lot to be said for people of different backgrounds approaching the Voynich, so whilst I find it hard to find much, of what she actually is happy to make public, plausible, she certainly can have her own distinct take on the manuscript.
I get a sense that whilst Diane has some academic credentials she has worked on the margins of the academic world. It does not appear to me, though I could be wrong, that she has ever held an academic post in a University and doesn’t appear to have a PhD. Whilst it is clear that she has some genuine academic experience with some relevance to the Voynich, one could be mislead into thinking that she has a very high level of expertise on the basis of her pronouncements.
I bring this up as whilst credentials are much less important to me than arguments as I often repeat when someone seeks to justify there research by appealing to their authority as an expert it is worth asking what their expertise really is.
On the subject of experts, I met with Professor Harvey and some other academics working in the field of historical maps recently. Frankly they have been very decent to me. I have been asked, not at my suggestion, to submit an article to a reputable academic journal about my analysis. It will go through a review process so it would I expect to be more than a year before it appears. However I am slightly concerned about this as if my theory turns out to be complete and utter nonsense then that could potentially damage the reputation of the journal. We are all familiar already with people rushing to newspapers and the like proclaiming that they have “solved” the Voynich, only for it to turn out that their theory is wrong or unoriginal or both. This is not to say that I now have doubts in my theory rather that until something is proved without a doubt to be correct then there is always the chance that it is complete nonsense. I will communicate my concerns to them and if it can be published and presented as an “idea” rather than a demonstrated fact then I would hope that if it is subsequently demonstrated to be completely false there won’t be any blowback on the journal.
Mark: I seem to recall that a certain tempermental lady of my brief aquaintance, who hailed from Way Out West somewhere, also boasted of a university education and had a passion for collecting Australian military uniforms of both world wars. Army officers gear would seem to have been more desireable to her than any old war torn diggers rags, especially fancy neck ties and the like. Some in her family had a soft side for itinerant swagman looking for honest work and tucker during the depression years, but they gave short shrift to any tramps and vagabonds looking for handouts. She never spoke to me of the higher intellectual standards that you speak of with regard to Voynich specifically, so I guess we must be refering to different people.
I was thinking about the question of “experts” and how this Voynich project might be approached. I think it is fair to say that all or almost all those who research the Voynich now, including myself, can be said to be hobbyists; that is not to denigrate any of us and amongst us there are clearly individuals who have significant accomplishments or intellectual abilities. When I use the term hobbyist I mean people who are not qualified academics in disciplines that relate very directly to the Voynich (even the late Professor Bax could arguably be said to fall into this category as his field of research expertise was not very directly connected to the Voynich). Now thoroughout history hobbyists or non-specialists have made great contributions to research, so that does not preclude any of us from doing so at all. It seems that many specialist academics steer clear of the Voynich as they risk damaging their reputation in the academic world if their theory turns out to be flawed, as so many do. (One can only feel a little sorry for Tucker and Janick in this regard.)
I would imagine that if Voynich research was undertaken as an academic project then it would require a large interdisclipinary team of people with academic experts in the very specific and diverse fields that relate directly to the Voynich. However such a project would require coordination and drawing the diverse threads together to form a complete unified picture of the manuscript. Even then constructing a viable macrotheory from the different expert analysis would need a very small core of people or person building an overall vision of what the manuscript is, so in someways you may still be left with the individual researcher who is in the same position as the hobbyist. Also as I have said before I think one fairly small part of the manuscript will be the key to the manuscript as a whole and therefore in some respects a whole team could be redundant.
Having said all this, I think Voynich researchers should be more inclined to collect and share the insights of academic experts in fields very directly connected to the Voynich. I will make it crystal clear again that credentials are not sufficient to justify an argument, however impressive the credentials of the expert are, but an expert may help to introduce us to evidence that we have not seen before and arguments that were not aware of as well as in addition references to other experts or sources that we were not aware of. Put simply an expert can act as a shortcut and avoid us reinventing the wheel. It is worthy noting that many relevant experts may be unfamiliar with the Voynich and interested in being connected to the project.
John Sanders: It could conceivably be the same person, though I have no reason as yet to believe so.
@All,
My latest and greatest theory for the Voynich Manuscript.
When a sound occurs it creates a frequency. The following video shows a visual microphone of the sound waves. Was the voynich a writing of the deaf.
news.mit.edu/2014/algorithm-recovers-speech-from-vibrations-0804
Each glyph could be a separate tone. A voynich word would have one tone or a combination of tones from the glyphs. Take for instance the gallows, those would represent a higher frequency pitch in the text. A voynich word could represent a whole sentence from sound. If we could map frequencies to these glyphs maybe a reading would occur.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-scans-show-deaf-sub/
https://www.reddit.com/r/voynich/comments/b4qpth/the_voynich_text_maybe_a_visual_microphone_text/
A deaf person is not blind. He can read.
But how is a deaf to distinguish the sound, so that he understands which symbol now generates which tone. And how should a second person understand that if he wants to instruct him?
Suppose a character represents a key from a piano. How should I write a description of an existing image?
And in the end, it’s just an encryption, it does not matter what the origin of the character is or what it looks like.
The optics should only set the wrong picture and hide the language.
@Mark
A newspaper will only publish your view and will not stand behind you. So she is not attackable. At the end, let it rest on your shoulders, whatever there write.
I’m not sure if it was Diane, where Constantinople has assumed as the starting point for the VM.
Because she is right. The similarities are definitely there.
But she probably did not consider the story.
Much knowledge was gathered from the Orient and Europe in Byzant. Translated into Greek and Latin and has spread so in Europe.
(Certainly also to the east)
But that was a few hundred years before. It ended with the Crusades and the spread of Islam.
This knowledge has been copied and has continued to spread.
Now the question arises for me, how far can I use similarities of drawings to define a place of origin of the VM? Although similar, individual drawings have appeared in England, France, Germany, Grichenland ……..
Sensationeller Fund in der Schweiz
Im laufe der letzten Woche ist im Kanton Aprilgau ( Schweiz ), ein sensationeller Fund gemacht worden. In der Witzburg, im Scherztal ist einer der seltenen Voynich- Pflanzenseiten wieder aufgetaucht.
Die Wissenschaft steht wieder vor Rätseln. Obwohl die Pflanze schon länger bekannt, breitet sich unter der Präastronautik unruhe aus.
Weitere Details folgen…
Nächster Beitrag:
Hohes aufkommen von Eierdieben an Ostern erwartet.
Die Reaktion
Sensational Fund in Switzerland
During the last week a sensational find has been made in the canton of Aprilgau ( Switzerland ). In the Witzburg, in the Scherztal, one of the rare Voynich plant sites has reappeared.
Science is again faced with puzzles. Although the plant has been known for some time, it is spreading restlessly under the preastronautics.
Further details will follow…
next article:
High emergence expected from egg thieves at Easter.
The reaction
https://www.facebook.com/groups/voynich.yahoogroups/?ref=bookmarks
Surely that was an April Fool’s joke. But whoever thought this plant does not exist, is mistaken. Her name is Usnea filipendula.
One statistic that would be worth compiling is the percentage of Voynich researchers who are programmers (software engineers, computer nerds, whatever term you prefer) or people who write software as part of their work or know how to program though don’t do it professionally. Now it is hardly surprising that this is high as one would expect programmers to be interested in codes. I, myself, am competent at coding, however I came to be interested in the Voynich, because of the castle on the 9 rosette page and the possibility that it is a map. The idea of doing coding for Voynich research felt and feels a bit like a busman’s holiday. I was attracted by tails of distant lands and obscure, but romantic, languages; you know Shangri-La or the kingdom of Prester John. Northern Italy or Switzerland is not quite as exciting, but better than if I thought the manuscript came from London, which would be a show stopper for me. I think in the back of my mind I dreamt it was Georgian or Armenian or from somewhere around the Caucasus written in an extinct language with an unknown script, not a cipher. Nevertheless my research took me towards a different story.
If it wasn’t for the carbon dating I don’t think I would have taken any interest in the Voynich as the possibility that it could be a hoax would have scared me off. I wouldn’t want to risk wasting any time on a possible hoax.
One thing that I have learnt about the Voynich world is to be anyone you ought to have your own blog or at least your own Voynich website. However I have never had a blog or had an urge to have a blog. It is great if other people choose to have a blog. Nick’s blog is great, which is largely due to a combination of the quality of the blog posts, Nick’s insightful replies to comments and his willingness to help. That is not to say that I don’t think he is dead wrong on a number of things and I am not shy of saying so, but strong differences of opinion are to be expected.
Nick: Having looked at other Voynich blogs yours still stands out to me and I am still not sure whether I have got what it takes to be a Ninja.
Anyway I am not going to start my own Voynich blog even if that condemns me to Voynich mediocrity, I don’t know quite why, but that’s the way I feel.
Edge drawings are not that unusual either. And this monk also gets no top mark in drawing.
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/cps/Ad0109/43r
Peter,
Thanks for the kind mention; permit me to correct a couple of points:
(1) I did not say that our present manuscript was made in Constantinople.
(2) I’m glad you didn’t lay a wager on the idea that I “probably did not consider the story”.
Secondary histories of Constantinople are easy enough to find, but among the historical sources that I found helpful for illuminating “Voynich”-specific issues were Henry Yule’s multivolumed ‘Cathay and the Way Thither’ and Virgil Ciociltan’s more recent (2012) publication.
The first is online, I believe. The second, being a Brill, is expensive of course, but well worth its price.
Again, thanks for the mention.
[Nick – I’m sorry Peter hasn’t commented at my own blog; I’d prefer to respond there. However, I really would like people to know about Ciociltan’s study which shed light on a number of knotty problems raised by the map and other imagery).
Nick: Am I right that you have suggested that the author’s name is written somewhere in the manuscript? Or is my memory failing me?
Anyway, if so, where do you think is it written?
Hi Nick I translated the MS I mean the alphabet and I also have a decription method
I can’t tell the details through this page because I haven’t gone to the intelectual property registration so far.The clue is in the alphabet obviously but the method of decription is extremely important as well.I want to comunícate this to an expert,my alphabet and method work in all the pages or almost all.I know the purpose of the boxes in the alchemy section,the women in the pools(Page 75) the gibelin casttle,the woman at the bottom of Page 66(zandbergen said she is dead but she isn’t and many others)I I want to let you know my findings.
Best wishes
Laura: I’m often contacted by people who want to have their historical cipher decryption checked in confidence, so please feel free to send through whatever you like to nickpelling at nickpelling dot com .
Laura: Really pleased to hear that your our little prone lass with the swabs from f66r pulled through OK, which seems to show consistency with the treatment laid out in the Casanova translation. How could Reni have depicted otherwise?
Thanks for your replay.I think the information has to be confidencial if not your work might be copied.
Million of people are working on the decription of MS so I don’t understand your point of wiew.It’s nonsense anyway thanks.
Laura: as with all historical cipher decryptions, you have three basic options:
1) go public with your decryption, and run with the consequences (good or bad)
2) show your decryption to an expert in the field in confidence, to see if you have missed something significant
3) never show it to anybody
Make your choice.
Hi Nick. Can I send you something too ?
Hi Nick I go for option two but how can I send the information? I need an email adress to send you the alphabet and many words I agree with a person above the one who says that one plant is fenugreek but I didn’t find it looking at the plant it’s written on the top of the page it says… Malhov alhov it’s from pre-hispanic arabic alhov is fenugreek in arabic, Malhov=richness in arabic.Alli in all… The richness of fenugreek.I can’t see the rest of the words because they are unclear.This not Voynich language is a transliteration from the Arabic. Give feedback
Bye Nick
Josef Zlatodej Prof: Best of British on having whatever you send, treated with anything but contempt my friend. I spent 40 minutes preparing what I consider to have been a realistic word picture of the f66r sketch’s meaning, with its supine nymph and medieval surgical items laid out beside her. It was an abortive attempt on my part however, possibly because someone had made similar suggestion many years ago, rendering my thoughts troll bait, though it’s more likely to have been that nobody in the loop had come up with the specific logic beforehand, deeming it an embarrassment to established VM principles.
john sanders: sorry for the loss of your 40 minutes, but your comment ended up looking as though you were trolling the previous commenter.
My time is not too much a burden to bare, but subjective thoughts, should not be discarded out of hand, merely at the whim of any moderator whose deletions are based on an impetuous presumption that the offending post logic is not original.
john sanders: oh for a world where lack of originality counted as the main criterion for deletion. :-/
May the Good Lord save us from a world where lack of tact and humility counts as the main criterion for idealistic based deletion of original thought.
Nick – we need some way to know whether or not our ideas are independently reaching conclusions earlier reached or not – and so to acknowledge precedents.
I remember in the earliest phase of writing up my research how I later discovered that just the same lines of enquiry had already been followed, and similar observations made. Embarrassing, in retrospect, to realise how ‘old-timers’ must have read those posts to ‘Findings’.
Perhaps one day there’ll be some wonderful nerd who decides to create a total ‘Voynich encyclopaedia’ where every page from the manuscript is cross-referenced and annotated with what has ever been said about it. Wouldn’t that save a lot of time and grief?
Diane: I started on almost exactly that kind of project 6 or 7 years ago, full of idealistic enthusiasm. But when I realized I was struggling to get even 25% of the way through f1r, the realization of the scale of the effort that entailed stopped it stone dead. 🙁
For the most part, though, I think that when we are (finally) able to make sense of Voynichese, the overwhelming majority of the things that tend to tax us now will turn out to be complete non-issues, like arguing which of several misshapen muffins most resembles the face of Jesus. :-/
Nick – I hope so, but I suspect is that if/when someone reading of the written text is accepted, most of the past century’s labours will be as irrelevant as phrenology is today.
b.t.w – has anyone mentioned that Theodore C. Petersen of the Catholic College in America rates a mention by Szermai (author of a codicologist’s ‘bible’, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding – I knew of it, of course, but not keen enough to buy a copy. Now it’s available through Scribd – as Kwakkel kindly mentioned on his blog). Anyway – Petersen’s name is on page x as an one of the pioneers of technical studies, along with Goldschmidt who as you’ll know, also commented on the Vms
“Whereas the majority of scholars of previous generations avoided the structural aspects, exceptions must be acknowledged: Theodor Gottlieb (1869-1929), Ernst Philip Goldschmidt (1887-1954), Theodore C. Petersen (1883-1966) and Graham Pollard (1903-1976) are among those who were eager to uncover technical details hidden under the outer lustre, admittedly an arduous task for the uninitiated in the craft.”
And about the last phrase – so very, very true.
Claudette Cohen, who defers to Rene Vandenbergen’s VM trestise for her grasp on the general subject, brings up some interesting conclusions on f66r, (just spotted), which bare marked similarities to those of my own, and one other it seems. In her “unlocking VM secrets” she relates particularly to women’s health issues and birthing rituals as prime motivator behind the VM’s overall theme, to which I for one concur within reason. In her 2015 analysis of the very rough depiction, she describes a breach birth utilising a Scotch gum solution in a bucket and two sea sponges for application and mopping. I opted for pregnancy termination with extreme predjudice involving foetus decapitation (round sponge) to fasilitate removal from the womb, which was quite common up until fairly recent times, though maybe not so in medieval Europe. Where her informant Salomans? mentions a word/letter translation of three additional items (beneath a two word caption) close by other items at the scene, I disagree profusely, having identified them as being basic abortion instruments, namely a padded non invasive hook, a curette & extractor hook, along with a sprung tract clip to prevent bleeding. I had tried unsuccessfully to explain my views to Peter a while back, though it seems these were lost in bombastic translation for which I must own fault.
It wasn’t until obstetric pioneers like Aranzo in the 16th and Deventer the early 18th, documented their new theories on the neccessity to accurately gauge the measurement of a birthing woman’s pelvic displacement, along with the skull dimensions of her fullterm, as yet unborn child. This was only recognised much later, but deemed a breakthrough of enormous potential for a good outcome for both mother and child. In practice the the proceedure remained in general use in obstetrics and midwifery for a century or more, up until xrays came into common use…The instrument most used by those tasked with delivery was simply called a pelvimeter, a metal precision device with folding arms and having the general appearance of a set of modern o/d pipe calipers. I have identified what appears to be a pelvimeter quite by chance on a recent VM Portal blog, being held by a nymph figure, whose post importance relates to something totally unconnected with what she carries in he right hand…Smoking gun, Grecian fire, exploding myth, Maggie Taylor’s mistake, aberration or none of the above? be my guest……
@John
Based on the plant pictures, I noticed that most of them have something to do with women’s problems.
To the picture I would also say that it is quite possible that it deals with sponges and a bucket, the bucket contains something yellowish.
The German text: “und den muss des” (and then that must), only says that something happens, but not what
To the VM text where it stands, I come up with my key: “a merea totis entus unum neret” ( A mere one with bleeding without waiting ), whereby I come to the last word on no result.
Peter: Yes I can well understand “und den muss”, but then “des” (of) does not fit the caption, nor is it in a position to really. Can you not consider that what you thought to be the three letters forming “des” could in fact be my three small metal surgical items instead.
Nick you said:
“when I realized I was struggling to get even 25% of the way through f1r, the realization of the scale of the effort that entailed stopped it stone dead.”
This is indicative to me of the sense in my current focus on the text just on the 9 rosette page. Already I have found that there is a lot to look into just on this one page. The sheer size of the manuscript makes the prospect of getting to grips with all the text in the manuscript more than daunting. Obviously it would be absurd to completely ignore the riches found in the manuscript as a whole, especially when it comes to looking at the statistics and the general properties of the text. But, as I have said before, I think sometimes with the Voynich it is easy to miss the wood for the trees, so there is some logic in concentrating just on one very large page for the time being.
This a question for Mark knowles.
Did you find a route on a map from Basel to Milan?
Might the MS author have arrived to another City in north Italy?
Thanks
Laura: If I understand your question correctly the answer is yes. I have studied the 9 rosette 6 page foldout, i.e. 86v, and I have a map theory of that page. My theory, whether correct or not, really only implies connections to the cities/towns of Milan, Novara, Pavia, Como and Bellinzona. It is possible the author arrived in a different city in Northern Italy, but that does not constitute part of my theory; however, to repeat, my theory may be wrong.
@John
It is almost impossible to misunderstand “des”. It is nothing but “das” in High German. English ( the or that )
Today actually no longer visible in the spelling, today High German is written. German is not equal to German, at least not 500 years ago. One distinguishes between Germanic, Frankish, and Alemannic. In this case it is alemanic.
Alemanisch in about from Bohemia and Maeren, over Bayern, Austria and Switzerland to the Tyrol. Partly to the Mediterranean.
Thanks for your reply I’m not very fluent in englsh but you understand the question,It’s an interesting theory so you can see a route from Basile(Switzerland) or Germany to northen Italy.The other City I was thinking about is Padova(Véneto)
May be you’ve got something a little part of the puzzle.
Peter: We’re at least making headway so let’s put “der” impass to one side and proceed with the positives. We seem to be as one on likely links between plant or herbals apropos the unmentiinable subject of “women’s problems”, which our VM nymphs seem to insist is their own damned business. If we can meet at least half way on the sea sponge concept, that would be a giant leap forward and your accompanying “bucket with something yellowish” is indeed a portent to future mutual cooperation, not merely’scotch mist’….According to my (trolled) informant C.C., said bucket (pot) contains a “Scottish sponge gum” or a laminadia (kelp) concentrate which has been used by highland lassies to ease problematic delivery of their ‘ain wee bairn’ since time immemorial. She contends that whilst usage was originally confined to cold northern regions ie. Caledonia and possibly Denmark (sea kelp/sponge beds), a North European overlapping was likely at some unknown point in time, which seems to fit rather neatly with her support for that region as the most likely VM setting.
Peter: It is noted that Richard Saloman, Anne Nill’s confident and known well to Panovski, usually referred to the Latin/german in f66r variously as ‘der mus del’ or ‘der mussdel’ but also just ‘der mus/der muss’ with no ‘del’, parts of which, if correct, convert to modern day ‘der mussteil’ then in turn will translate to ‘must participate’. The long and the short of all this, it seems, is that Saloman can’t quite make up his mind on whether or not the ‘del’ actually constitutes latin form letters.
Apropos my earlier post identifying a basic pelvimiter device in the hands of a nymph, this being based on its general look-a-like form. However, upon further scrutiny, I’m inclined to the view that the instrument is just as likely, perhaps even moreso, to be a pair of Chamberlen obstetric cranial enveloping delivery forceps, in basic form very similar to those depicted. These fine surgical implements went through various stages of improvement over four centuries and are still in use today; the pair in question displaying wide flat grasping blades, or perhaps even a more modern split parallel twin armed style. Irrespective of the design or type, we are certainly not within cooey of Rene’s C14 1404/38 or Nick’s Averlino 1445/55. So gotta get some good excuses in order to deep six the aberration eg. ” standard later add on ” may still work, as this little clanger won’t be easy to mute….
Peter: Not to be outdone, Antoine Casanova in his complete unexperged Latinic translation of VM in 2018, reveals that….the ‘V’ above the passage is for15th cent. or perhaps ‘verse’, followed by ‘misce vestra beatitudo’ which I’ve semi converted to mean ‘mixed blessings are as good as you can expect’, then the tricky bit ‘ren’ which Antoine would have us believe is the abreviation for ‘renuntiando’ which is of course self explanitary, whilst making no real sense in the passage. Unless it’s a direction to the nymph that she might contemplate the implicit perils of future pregnancy and renounce her interest un sex.
@John
I did not say anything about the North, it would contradict my conviction.
There are plants in the VM that grow only in the south. Swallowtail Cats do not exist in the north either. The German is certainly not Germanic.
About the (sponge) I can only say, “it looks like that would be possible”. In the mentioned birth tools, I have no idea, but have not seen in the VM synonymous.
For the word “des”, for me it is not an “L” rather a nasty “S”. Maybe he wanted to write “mel”, today “Mehl” ( flour )also means powder or medicine, of “gemahlen”. But for me a S “des”, then the sentence makes sense.
In the area 1400-1450 everything is possible for me. Time has not moved as fast as it does today. I just rely on the C14 dating, until then, the animal for the parchment still lived.
I have no idea what you are talking about Antoine Casanova.
I must say, John, that I’m astounded by the rapid growth of your knowledge of matters concerning Vm. There is a vestige of memory here. However.
I subscribe to the view that it’s the outsiders, such as yourself, who may well influence which way this Vm mystery is directed. The local management appears to be dozing off, not willing to recognise your wise contributions and many of the other contributors have short eyes and long noses. Humour is beyond them.
Admiring what you do, I remain ..
Peteb: Your perception as an admitted VM minnow, is also to be admired. What I’m trying to disprove is, exactly what you’re insinuating, apropos our exulted panel of experts going to any lengths to discredit evidence which does not fit with the accepted rules of VM conformity. You see, my f80r nymph, the one standing within the post 1795 processed see through sturgeon bladder, armed with a pair of surgical grade obstetric forceps/calipers, of similar or later vintage in her right mit is real. Could it really be that this easy to overlook, minor player is destined for VM scrapsville (alternate nether regions) without fair hearing. I believe there may be someone out there, eyes open and with the proper credentials, daring enough to break ranks and promote interest. You’d be opting for ‘out of sight of mind’ I’d say, but I have greater faith in my peers, given that I’m known to be out of my mind and can garner a sympathetic hearing because of it. Thanks for the promt and I owe you one son….
john sanders: it’s entirely possible that one day you might start talking sense about the VMs. But today isn’t that day, sorry. 😐
nick pelling: It’s not at all likely that the sense your referring to is within your ability to grasp unfortunately, to-day or at any time in the forseeable future. Do you have someone else in the team with a modicum of intuition and initiative to deal with the things relating to f80r,that you are so obviously deficient in. I’d love to communicate with them in a friendly, non combative or snide manner.
john sanders: if Claudette Cohen is so close to the truth that only you can see, why not try commenting on her blog? Share the love, why don’t you.
Dear John,
Our mutual difficulty is trying to understand what the manuscript was meant to communicate to people of the time it was made. And that was not the eighteenth century, so it is not Nick but the manuscript which opposes your impression of the detail on f.80r.
The vellum is not eighteenth-century; the binding style is not eighteenth-century; the inks and pigments are not of the type or the range which was employed in eighteenth century works … and so on.
Other researchers have mentioned other objects which they perceive as ‘like’ that detail – including an instrument held by ‘Geometrie’ in a thirteenth century manuscript. Many things are translucent in water,and it is more interesting – I think – that a draughtsman with so little knowledge of renaissance-or-later techniques for rendering perspective should here manage to suggest both transparency and distance through water.
Does anyone know? In certain regions, endings have been given in Latin numerals. Sometimes you see a 5, then again a 2, 7, or the 9.
Is that correct ? or am I wrong ?
Florentine Codex (Fray Sahagun (with knotted rope around his robe) :
“Earthly Things” (most important to me was the mention of the many uses of the mulberry tree) Also from the Florentine Codex was the Saffron Crocus. Both of these “Earthly” items were first written by Fray Sahagun and his student artist and student writer (two languages: Espanol and Nahuatl/Najuatl .
Another section of the “Florentine Codex” deals with “De los Dioses” : pages 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19 .
Recently, I tried surf-boarding again … of all things that could happen was that I broke my wrist!
bd
.
nick pelling: Thanks for the suggestion, though I prefer to be where I can do my best in conveying in my own well style, a message to those who still have the nerve to say “not so fast old cock”, in hope that reason will prevail against all odds. Odds such as stubborn incidious top end resistance, based on an inane refusal to see the writing on velum, along with potential for loss of face, self esteem and all credibilty; thus becoming exposed to a perceived fear of lifelong ridicule. VM is only a curse if we allow it’s evil to pervade our thoughts, eventually driving us to distraction…..bd: Howdy doo old fart. Trust that all is well, that Bobette Miller is merely a whim and that all’s hunky dory with Mr. Douglas…Right or left?..makes all the difference mate. I do wish you’d take up a less physically challenging pursuit and leave the surf-boarding to those die hard old Aussies, like some known to you who are more or less expendable.
Peter, many of the Latin abbreviations resemble numbers.
The one that looks like 2 is usually -ur or -tur.
The 9 is usually con- com at the beginning or -us -um at the end.
The 7 is usually et (both the letters and the abbreviation for “and”).
The 4 (EVA-l shape) was used in earlier medieval texts as the “r” abbreviation which later became the “smoke” abbreviation (a squiggle shape, although sometimes it was simply written as a curv).
The 3 at the ends of words is actually a rotated “m” and usually stands for -em or -rem (and occasionally -rum). It is often drawn the same as the letter zee, but some scribes write it like a 3.
They’re not really numbers, they are abbreviations symbols, but they are somewhat fashioned after numbers (Indic-Arabic) to make it harder to mistake them for letters.
John, what news have you on the Gypsy migration that split into two parties, back in the appropriate day? Seems the masters-of-cipherage may be split into two camps as regards. Camp 1 has never considered them the source of the Vm, the other holds that a bunch of pot smoking rage-taggles out of India or thereabouts couldn’t hold a pen to paper.
I remain ..
@JKP…thanks
Just a thought:
For me, the meaning of the signs as endings are clear, since they really only occur in the back.
Endings such as -vis, -mis, -tis, -is, (or others), abbreviate numbers.
Endings such as, et, at, est, um, are already present as a single character.
What if he does nothing but use Roman characters. I II III IIII V
The question where I imagine, would that be an encryption at all, or just a delusion, or just cheeky? 🙂
I think that’s possible, Peter. Numbers were often used to represent letters in ciphers, even medieval ciphers. Some were entirely composed of numbers. I’ve tried to keep an open mind that the glyphs might correspond to something other than letters.
The challenge is to figure out which ones they are (if any), and then to determine the right transliteration for a good proportion of the glyphs, and THEN to figure out if the system generalizes to the rest of the text (produces something meaningful).
There are many ways this might be approached (the EVA-e shapes have quite a bit in common with the minims and might also be numbers). So far I haven’t come up with an overall system that produces a large block of cohesive text.
A word here or there isn’t good enough (I don’t understand why so many researchers claim they have solved the VMS when they can only find a handful of “words” and maybe one phrase). Even short phrases aren’t good enough (it’s possible to find phrases in several languages, in fact sometimes the SAME phrase can be translated to more than one language), it has to be longer phrases, at least a few.
If there’s a system that produces four or five lines of consecutive text that make some reasonable kind of sense (it doesn’t necessarily have to be narrative prose, it could be lists, coordinates, or something else meaningful), or even a steganographic page pattern that produces something meaningful (like words hidden within random text in some rational way) THEN there might be something to it.
Roman numerals were dying out the the early 15th century in favor of the Indic-Arabic numerals, but they were still used for indexes, dates, and some parts of calendars and charts, so they were still very much in the consciousness of 15th-century scribes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re in there.
For some months I read the old books to get a better feel for the spelling at the time. Speziel from the southern German area, and preferably from my immediate vicinity.
What I have found, 80% of all words are misspelled from today’s perspective. But the mistakes also change when the origins are just 20 km apart. The same picture from person to person. Everyone writes the way they want. Even in the same book, same person, same words are written differently. This is only really apparent if you really read the whole text.
If one then hears the words also where are read, I notice that the dialect has not changed as much as actually thought. They are still spoken similar or the same today.
I wonder if this is about the same in Latin texts. If anything, in any way, is misspelled, it does not make things easy.
In any case, I have already adjusted my search system.
But would be grateful if I could use a language-writing expert, especially old Latin, my guess.
Ars Technica published an article today about the Voynich, pointing to a new paper by Gerard Chesire, which fails to provide a satisfying answer to the interpretation of this book. Maybe this is a bit of non-news, but for the enthusiastic here, it might be fun to read.
– Ars article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/no-someone-hasnt-cracked-the-code-of-the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript/
– Paper by Gerard Chesire: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02639904.2019.1599566
A group of students at the university of Adelaide tried several interesting numerical/computational approaches under the supervision of Professor Derek Abbott. Their results can be found here: https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Semester_B_Final_Report_2014_-_Cracking_the_Voynich_code
J. K. Peterson: You might be in a position to inquire in your sphere as to whether or not a team of encumbant Allan Turing, award winning neuron computation geeks from Toronto University have made attempts of late to investigate some feasability for a natural language decipher capability of the Vm text. The leader of any such efforts would probably be U.K. born Graham Everest Hinton 71, grandson to the 4th or 5th degree of Messrs. Everest and Hinton, both names of which you may be familiar from my, to date non sensical Boole posts of late.
There’s always interesting work going on at UofT, in many areas of linguistics and medieval studies, but I’ve been too busy to keep track of what has been happening lately.
J.K. : Busy is as busy does, just don’t go working yourself to an early demise, scholastically speaking of course and take care while out in that K1 of yours.
A year ago, J.K. Petersen on May 30, 2018 at 11:51 am said:
“M.H., did you by any chance use Google Translate to interpret the above VMS transliteration into German (or English) text?”
Some time back, my use of the term “machine transcription” was thusly interpreted.
I had been writing programs to determine to what extent the VM might be susceptible to a rigidly logical substitution of our familiar alphabetical characters for the VM glyphs. There is a definite logic there, but it is not rigid. This suggests that the glyphs stand for words or parts of words which vary in a logical manner with both the instant grammatical needs and the particular context within the VM as a whole.
Such variation suggests that the text is a form of “speech notes”, an aide memoire intended to be read aloud by its author/s. (On wading through Nick’s blog postings, I discovered that he has had a similar idea: that the VM is intended to be read aloud.) The writing of speech notes in idiosynchratic shorthand is a form of lossy compression, as is putting a car in a crusher.
If the VM script is lossy then we may never know exactly what it says, but we should be able to discover the gist and be forever certain that it is not a royal proclamation written in proto-Klingon with an admixture of Esperanto.
I have been exceedingly busy for the last couple of years and have had little time to work on the VM. I did, however, find time to post some of my musings:
https://www.science20.com/patrick_lockerby/the_voynich_manuscript_speech_notes_for_a_presentation-238198
I hope to get back to my researches and blogging soon. Meanwhile, a “speech note” to all here, in English:
grtg n sltatn t vnchos evvver !
The Voynich Manuscript Source is a Dictionary. The Rosetta Dictionary has not been found or it maybe destroyed or still yet in the Vatican.
6000 Vords Latin
otedy = Aquae water, rain
otol = arae nettle heat rash and sting, fire constellation,
and so on the glyphs don’t line up so no cipher or language frequency can penetrate it. These vords I found is from picture association with the MS-408.
Trying to solve the Voynich is an act of Futility.
I imagine a wealthy Astrologer / Gynecologist was the Author of the VMS. He kept his remedies secret and he only under stood the context of the language even if vords had several interpretations! The video explains my ideas in a concise manner. He was afraid to be a heretic and be burned at the stake so if he was caught his answer would be, he purchased it and was trying find someone who can read it.
This video better describes it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-aASSQoWeg
The quality of the scans of the Voynich are tremendous and thanks is certainly due to those who so carefully made those scans. However I appears to me that some small parts of the manuscript may have been missed on occasions. In particular it appears there are cases where part of the manuscript has been lost in the folds of the page i.e. the page has not been completely straightened out, so certain words/parts of drawings have been lost. Maybe these parts of the manuscript are lost anyway, so straightening would not help. I am not suggesting there is a small chance these missing parts will lead to a solution of the manuscript, but in an ideal world it would be nice to have them if they exist.
I arranged, composed and wrote this symphony and played all the instruments regarding MS-408 Futility Classic. I did hide a cipher in my music so that anyone in the future will have to figure it out. Have fun!
https://soundcloud.com/tommy-oneil-265181099/ms-408-futility-classic
Hurrah! Someone has deciphered the manuscript and Professor Bax was appararently on the right track.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/12/voynich-manuscript-did-bay-area-researchers-decode-mysterious-medieval-book/
Mark: I would say that the emergence of yet another Voynich Manuscript translation is almost enough to make me want to give up – not because the authors are right this time, but because they are so comprehensively wrong yet again that it’s as if I’ve been wasting my time trying to write about it.
There comes a point when you just can’t engage with this constant stream of Voynich foolishnesses without finding yourself being pulled backwards into its time-sucking maelstrom. And I reached that point several years ago. 🙁
I read the report and laughed heartily.
He writes a lot, but says nothing. Everything he wrote there, you can also read here at Nick. So far it is just a summary of the work of other Foreschern. Even Bax realized in 2017 that there was something wrong where he wrote in 2014. And that a kind of vulgar Latin has been spoken in northern Italy, is probably clear. Certainly not Chinese. It’s a bit like saying in Germany a kind of Germanic is spoken. Real petty thinking.
He writes: “that his shorthand method was developed and applied in medieval European monasteries”
Then there would have to be hundreds of similar documents, but it does not.
Let’s see what kind of system he puts forward, and especially what’s inside.
Ich habe den Bericht gelesen, und musste herzhaft lachen.
Er schreibt viel, aber sagt nichts. Alles was er da geschrieben hat, kann man auch hier bei Nick lesen. Bis jetzt ist es nur eine Zusammenfassung der arbeiten von anderen Foreschern. Sogar Bax war 2017 klar, dass da etwas nicht stimmt wo er 2014 geschrieben hat. Und das in Norditalien eine Art Vulgärlatein gesprochen worden ist, ist wohl klar. Sicher kein Chinesisch. Das ist etwa so wie wenn ich sage in Deutschland wird eine Art germanisch gesprochen. Echt kleinkariertes Denken.
Er schreibt: “dass seine Kurzschriftmethode in mittelalterlichen europäischen Klöstern entwickelt und angewendet wurde ”
Dann müsste es hunderte von ähnlichen Dokumenten geben, aber das tut es nicht.
Mal sehen was für ein System er da vorbringt, und vor allem was drin steht.
Nick: Have you had a thought or consulted anyone else on whether there is another manuscript held at the Bodleian or British Library or in a Cambridge University library or somewhere else, within reasonable travel distance of Oxford, that it is worth me taking photos of? Obviously the nearer it is to me the sooner I might be able to find the time to complete the task.
Mark: I’m still looking. I’ve been buying secondary literature on all the topics, a process which has sharply reduced the number of manuscripts I have open questions about. But I’ll post more soon…
The following article by Lisa Fagin some might be interested in:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/14/why-do-people-keep-convincing-themselves-theyve-solved-this-medieval-mystery
A quote from Lisa Fagin’s article that tallies with my thinking is the following:
“But most would-be interpreters make the same mistake as Newbold: By beginning with their own preconceptions of what they want the Voynich to be, their conclusions take them further from the truth rather than nearer. Their attempts to demystify the medieval past only serve to mystify it further”
I, sometimes, feel that there is a case for erring on the side of the more boring explanations for the manuscript rather than the more interesting ones, which I think many people do.
It took me a few days to read this whole comment chain. I’m a relative noob to the VMS scene, and Mark Knowles I must say I overall enjoy reading your posts, both here and on Voynich.ninja. There is difficult middle path to walk, I feel, between thinking about the VMS like a scientist with expectations and assumptions strictly reined in, and thinking about the VMS like an artist and letting the imagination run wild. I’ll only speak for myself, but while I acknowledge that thinking like a scientist is what’s most likely to get real answers, thinking like an artist is what motivates my interest in the MS in the first place.
I see a lot of criticism of VMS theories that goes something like, “Before I even go any further, you’re starting from what you want the VMS to be, and that’s a fundamentally flawed approach.” Yes and no. If we’re being honest with ourselves, I think the vast majority of scientific and scholarly inquiry is done with a hoped-for result in mind. Certainly this holds true for any formal scholarship underwritten with grant money, and I’d argue for most informal or amateur inquiries as well. For those of you able to chronically suspend any and all assumptions about what the VMS could be, and still have it hold your interest, congratulations; I’ll admit right up front I’m not consistently good for that, and feel this is a pretty high standard to hold most people to.
I think the first hard part for VMS theorists is remembering to test and attempt to falsify a theory first, and spend time fleshing it out (and in the process get attached to it!) only after it has resisted preliminary attempts to prove it wrong. The second hard part is admitting, to yourself and anyone else you’ve shared your theory with, that it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. This is a lot easier to do when you haven’t poured countless hours into a theory or convinced yourself it must be right.
To be a good scientist, engineer, or businessperson, one has to be OK with failure, because it’s just part of the learning process. I’ve never worked in academe, but one thing I’ve learned is that good academic programs are venues that allow students to fail with grace and try again, and socialize students into seeing failure and setbacks as completely normal. In amateur scholarship on a fringe topic, on the other hand, it can be a bit more like the Wild West. No rules may allow anyone to say anything, but let’s not forget that the Wild West was a culture of honor. Failing with grace is an oxymoron in true cultures of honor. I’m undecided about whether the VMS scene socially rewards level-headed theorists who fail with grace and integrity. If it’s not, I don’t think that’s a statement about any of the people involved, but rather an inherent property of a scene on the fringes.
I have a theory that I’m working on. (The VMS is written in Basque, by a traveling scholar or pilgrim from central Europe schooled in the Italian Humanist tradition. (S)he traveled to Basque country, invented a writing system for this then-unwritten and strikingly different language, and took dictation from some village elder after asking him questions about various weighty topics.) To test this idea, I’m going to make two charts with sliding magnet labels on a whiteboard. One will model Emma May Smith and Marco Ponzi’s algorithm for building a Voynichese syllable and word. The other will be based on R.L. Trask’s scholarship about how to build a Basque syllable and word. Interestingly enough, both systems are highly restrictive in terms of what graphemes / phonemes can go in what parts of a syllable and word. But do these algorithms match up, such that Voynichese *could* represent the phonotactics of Basque as spoken in the 15th century? That’s the question I need to ask before I do any more digging. I’m ready to conclude they don’t, and cancel any plans I had to teach myself intro-level Basque. If this theory fails, however, I’m not sure how well-received my presentation of it will be. Because if I present a theory that fails — whether dead on arrival or killed in peer review — I’m not sure how that will affect my ability to get anything I say about the VMS subsequently to get taken seriously. So I’m cagey with it.
Others have probably spotted this, Voynich wallpaper->
https://www.curbed.com/2020/2/28/21154413/maximalist-decor-furniture-ideas
I am not particularly impressed.
Was anyone aware that Greg Hodgins of Arizona University was assigned by Library of Congress to undertake C14 Spec/anal on five marine maps or charts from 14th to 17th century in 2009. Same year he tested Rene Zs five slivers of VM vellum, with accompanying data input as to allow for any marine effect disparity on the colagen samples. I’m almost sure that Z mentioned having done that which is most reassuring, trusting that the equipment clean up team were on the ball in between jobs.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
Much attention in the manuscript is paid to the health of women for the purpose of giving birth to healthy offspring.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
I’m willing to share information.
“it’s been long speculated that a fatal curse will be unleashed on anybody who finally unlocks this terrifying language.” digitaltrends.com
Nick, I know your book was called the Curse, but I don’t remember reading that a genuine “curse” has long been speculated. On the basis of this I was contemplating ending my research, however not being someone who believes in superstitions I am inclined to risk it.
Mark: along those lines, I think it’s possible that the Voynich Manuscript was actually written by an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh, and that anyone who has physical contact with it (as I have) is doomed to have that Pharaoh’s Curse inflicted upon them. I can certainly attest that ever since writing my book I have indeed endured plagues of theorists, snarks and trolls, so I can point to a great deal of supporting correlative evidence.
I also think it’s possible that the Voynich Manuscript was a modern hoax by Wilfrid Voynich: but suspect that the Pharaoh’s Curse theory remains slightly more probable.
Curses are like that.
Carter was killed by the curse. Voynich died, too. It just took him a little longer because he didn’t understand the manuscript right away.
The curse with the Frog King where you have to kiss
And of course Sleeping Beauty with the 100-year nightmare.
Nick, maybe you have to let an armadillo kiss you to get rid of the Voynich curse. 🙂
Peter M: now you’re being ridiculous, armadillos are terrible kissers.
Learning by doing 🙂
@ Nick and all Voynich on Crack tologists
Nick please tell the guys at the Cigar & Vodka lounge that their Gem is available to the world and their secrets are lost grin 😉
One more go and this is not a One Way cipher in which JKP kept insisting to me that I cannot produce a remedy for the Voynich in that manner. So I actually discovered a reproducible Scytal Cipher which converts Voynich to Russian. Then use Deepl as a dictionary for it in English.
https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
The Voynich I do believe is a side by side transposition cipher! Yes I did just type that. Morse code Anagram & a Voynich to Cryllic/Russian to English Scytal Cipher utilizing Cryptools 2.0.
Here is a free link to my in depth VMS Russian Scytal Cipher. Here you can have it wiith the full Yale VMS manuscript, Voynich Reader, instructions, fonts. cvs file along with the Cryptools 2.0 program to help you decode the VMS; all included free no charge for anyone who paid for my books and did not. I feel I’m obliged to do this for the VMS Russian Scytal is reproducible, because this is it and I want happy people.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1w9w3mE9BFvVVMyDtU1MDyjs7rThWwvfq
uTube explains the process regarding the HAMMER CIPHER usage!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaY4N1imS7s
Anybody heard of the medical Doctor Antonio Guaineri? He seemed to have some vague acquaintance with someone else who I am interested in. Probably not significant. There is some info about him on the internet.
Mark: physician to the Duke of Savoy, wrote a book on poisons, that one? As I recall, there’s loads about him in Thorndike, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.
Nick: Yes, that’s the one. He was born in Pavia and had close ties to Milan, though he did practice elsewhere. I came across him when looking into something else. Around the same time though quite independently I stumbled on the hot springs in Acqui Terme. I wonder if the green waters we see in the Voynich are sulphurus hot springs; I daresay that has been suggested many times before. I have not studied or thought of the origins of the baths we see in the Voynich. I know there have been comparisons of the drawings with other manuscripts made, but I don’t know how much comparison has been made with real places.
M R Knowles: I’m pleased that you have gotten around to looking at Voynich’s nymph pools (baths) which you’ll forgive my saying so, a fine example of early twentieth century engineering knowhow not before. I have an idea that these plumbed pools may have been the brainchild of Wilfred’s brother-in-law and nephew Charles and Sebastion Hinton. The father and son were inventors of some repute who wisely registered their designs with the US patents office from the 1890s by which time they were both prematurely dead. Their inventivness was primarily accented towards outdoor leisure pursuits which enlisted an intricate knowledge of engineering, fluid compartmentalisation load sharing along with complicated mathematical principles with geometrical design implimentation. Charles’ other son George was at that time working as a mine engineer in Mexico, (Zimmerman Telegram 1917) later become the world authority on plants of that region.
I’d really love to see somebody with an open inquiring mind on the question of VM provinance and a better knowledge of research methodology than my own, tap into the US and British Patents/design registration offices to see what little secrets might be awaiting the light if day. I’m mostly interested in the origins of the Voynich aboveground clad pools eg. f80r etc., incorporating rubberised canvas lining where all support for materials is achieved by equalizing water pressure forvretention, dynamics of which were unconceivable in old Tony Averlino’s day. From around 1905 these types of ‘baths’ were being installed in gymnasiums around Philadelphia and coincided with Charles’ becom8ng involved at DC Patents Office. Hinton inventions of this time were the first ‘Jungle Jim’ kids playground device, a remote variable speed/curve baseball pitcher and the four dimensional Tesseract cube. You may not be aware that another Voynich relative a well known Britsh decorator and noted plant artist cum landscaper (castles/seascapes) paid visits to the US in connection with his work for Cunard or P&O lines prior to WW1.
NB. Charles Hinton died suddenly I think in 1907, Sebastion suicided in 1922. js
Here’s another final decryption of the Voynich:
https://www.rainer-hannig.com/voynich/
German professor Rainer Hannig (Egyptologist, Hildesheim)) claims to have found out, that the VM is written in some ‘speshul’ Hebrew.
Well, it’s nicely elaborated and even provides some readable and (more or less) meaningful translated text passages (see pdf download on the page). Seems to me rather similar to Bax’ approach.
Iknowiknow, it’s utmost certainly another drop in the “constant stream of Voynich foolishnesses”, but for the sake of completeness and since he made it to wikipedia …
Achim: thanks for that. I’ve (of course) had a good look at Hannig’s solution already, but it was so devoid of interest that I just couldn’t raise the enthusiasm to blog about it. 🙁
And don’t get me started on Wikipedia… 🙁 🙁
Good day!
Your site has information about the Voynich manuscript.
I am deciphering the Voynich manuscript and received a positive result.
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a We can say that the Voynich manuscript is an encyclopedia of knowledge that humanity needs today. I managed to partially solve the mystery of mount Kailas ( for example, its height is 6825 meters). The manuscript indicates the place where the Grail Is hidden, as well as the Font and Cradle of Jesus.
I am ready to share information.
With respect, Nikolai.
I am looking for a person, or even an organization, who will decide to responsibly continue to decipher the Voynich manuscript.
After 14 years of this Voynich thing rolling around rent free in my brain I have come to the conclusion that the script is of random gibberish. Yet there is a system to the madness!
https://youtu.be/ndKbX0P09CE
I developed a python piece of code which eludes to the proof for this and
below is a link to the zip file for the “Random Voynich Vords.exe”.
http://voynich.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=77&p=210&sid=9047f3e7446cee17d58eb42ef2315e32#p210
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18wn3SdYgbzymKOxG4ht34B4eXo31Z3oX/view
https://voynichman.freeforums.net/thread/70/medieval-sided-dice-voynich-manuscript
Nick,
have you seen this? It is available at ResearchGate and I note that there are also another 100+ articles concerning the Voynich manuscript available at ResearchGate in addition to this one.
PREPRINT (version 1.1, 20th september – 30th december 2020) 1 Voynich Manuscript: Numeric Enigma? Vladimír Matlach, Barbora Anna Janečková, Daniel Dostál Palacky University, Department of General Linguistics
Judging from my initial reading it seems to present a major advance in analysing the structure of the VM, but it is way outside my pay scale for me to attempt to evaluate the methods that have been used.
Byron: thanks for the link, but unfortunately that’s fifteen minutes of my life reading that that I’m not getting back. 🙁
I don’t believe there’s a single point of value or usefulness in the entire paper. 🙁
There is a key to cipher the Voynich manuscript.
The key to the cipher manuscript placed in the manuscript. It is placed throughout the text. Part of the key hints is placed on the sheet 14. With her help was able to translate a few dozen words that are completely relevant to the theme sections.
The Voynich manuscript is not written with letters. It is written in signs. Characters replace the letters of the alphabet one of the ancient language. Moreover, in the text there are 2 levels of encryption. I figured out the key by which the first section could read the following words: hemp, wearing hemp; food, food (sheet 20 at the numbering on the Internet); to clean (gut), knowledge, perhaps the desire, to drink, sweet beverage (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to believe (sheet 107); to drink; six; flourishing; increasing; intense; peas; sweet drink, nectar, etc. Is just the short words, 2-3 sign. To translate words with more than 2-3 characters requires knowledge of this ancient language. The fact that some symbols represent two letters. In the end, the word consisting of three characters can fit up to six letters. Three letters are superfluous. In the end, you need six characters to define the semantic word of three letters. Of course, without knowledge of this language make it very difficult even with a dictionary.
Much attention in the manuscript is paid to the health of women for the purpose of giving birth to healthy offspring.
And most important. In the manuscript there is information about “the Holy Grail”.
I am ready to share information, but only with those who are seriously interested in deciphering the Voynich manuscript.
Where do I send solved cryptography?
Ha B: anyone who wants to run a possible solution past me in confidence can just email me (nickpelling at nickpelling dot com, which is not exactly the hardest email to guess). Always happy to discuss crypto stuff!
This : Bir neçə gün əvvəl mən kontr-admiral Tex Settle NAS Lakehurst-un baza komandiri olduğu zaman (1946 – Sentyabr 1947), kapitan Corc Henri Mills (oktyabr 1947) olduğu zaman kapitan Çarlz Hansford Kendallın başına gələnlərə dair hər hansı ipucu tapa biləcəyimi düşündüm. 1949-cu ilin iyun ayına qədər).
Means this: 299 / 5,000 (from Voynich Manuscript- hope that helps. The language is called Azerbaijani- not used all that much. But is still used.
Translation results
A few days ago I thought I could find any hint about what happened to Captain Charles Hansford Kendall when Rear Admiral Tex Settle was the base commander of NAS Lakehurst (1946 – September 1947) and Captain George Henry Mills (October 1947). Until June 1949).
You mean now I am cursed ???
NP: reminds me; I’m still trying to figure out why this guy Kendall is so all fired important. Seems to have come to town from nowhere, in a blaze of glory ala the Hindenberg ’37
John Sanders: recapping, I’m trying to find a US Navy officer connected with NAS Lakehurst who (it appears) died as a result of injuries sustained in a very specific (and very secret) balloon flight. Given that Captain Charles Kendall was Flag Experimental Officer at NAS Lakehurst at that precise time (and a highly-experienced balloonist to boot) who was “sick” in late 1947 and died in mid-1949, you can’t really blame me for wondering if this was him. 😉
Nick, in 1947 the US military would have been preparing ways to closely monitor Soviet activities from the air and in a way that kept them out of range of aircraft and AA fire. A dirigible would have fitted the bill. It would only need enough fuel to manoeuvre into position and hold station. When the fuel load was expended it could then float to somewhere over Alaska on the prevailing wind where it could be landed. A sort of 1940’s U2. An attempt at what today is called a high altitude airship (maximum altitude 70,000 feet similar to the later U2 aircraft). The dirigible would be fitted with various antenna to monitor the Soviets and for communications.
Byron Deveson: one of the military groups with an interest in the project I’m trying to research (Project Helios) was hoping to use its parallel plastic balloon clusters as a manned platform to do sustained listening experiments at high altitudes. This was Project Mogul: with Helios’ demise, they pivoted to using constant altitude unmanned balloons (for which they had also been funding research in NY). Interestingly, the NY Mogul guys then quickly moved from using serial balloon linkage to Helios-style parallel clusters.
The practical problem with dirigibles was that the ones constructed back then really weren’t able to reach those kind of (scientifically interesting) heights, for a variety of technical reasons. As I recall, the US Navy only really started looking at (and funding) the basic research to fly dirigibles higher more than a decade later, so around 1947 balloons would have been the only practical platform for sustained high-altitude flights.
As I understand it, the project was scrapped on the realisation of the problems in the benefits for the military.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_%28ZRS-5%29
Nick: Would it be possible to restrict this thread to Voynich related matters? Possibly you could transfer the comments about Captain Kendal etc. to the other thread.
I know it is hardly my place to tell you how to run your blog. I just ask, because I keep seeing that there is a recent comment about the “Voynich Manuscript” only to find when viewing the comment, to my disappointment, that it has nothing to do with the Voynich Manuscript.
From the point of view of Voynich research and the use of genetics to identify authorship and/or historic ownership the recent discovery of the identity of the Somerton man has some relevance I think. This was done by a process of triangulation from a large set of possible individuals down to Charles Webb himself. This is exactly the process that was applied to identifying the Golden State Killer that I described on this blog or the Ninja forum. I imagine the use of this kind of technique for different applications, such as obviously identification of criminals for which there is no DNA on record as well as historical identification as we are interested in, will become more common and probably standardised. A concern that has often been stated regarding the Voynich manuscript is that with so many people leaving their DNA on the manuscript how can one possibly identify the author(s) or early owners of it. I have already suggested that by carefully selecting the site from which one takes the DNA this could be avoided to a very significant extent. However what the techniques used for Somerton man/Golden State Killer demonstrate is that it is realistic to work through large datasets of potential candidates or relatives to identify the person or persons one is interested in. So maybe even if we are left with a large number of DNA samples from numerous different individuals to work with it may be possible to exclude those people who are not of interest relatively quickly so as to leave just the historic samples of DNA
Nick,
As you know, I’ve been contributing to the study of Beinecke MS 408, now, for almost a decade and a half and have not tried to advertise my work here during that time.
There is, however, one page I’ve just posted to my blog which I’d be glad to have reach a wider audience so I hope you’ll forgive my adding a link to this ‘Voynich’ page on your site.
‘The Series of Voynich-Calendar Emblems is not a Zodiac Sequence’, voynichrevisionist.com [Page]
https://voynichrevisionist.com/the-series-of-voynich-calendar-emblems-not-a-zodiac-sequence/
Diane: it’s an opinion. And yet (as you know) it’s extremely hard not to see specific close parallels with zodiac roundels of the early 15th century, in the zodiac sign order. So even if there are indeed reasons to be careful, you shouldn’t really be annoyed if people see this as essentially a zodiac sequence.
Of course, Nick. As I say, it’s quite possible that stars on and near the ecliptic are referenced, but what we have isn’t “a zodiac” or even a zodiac with bits lopped off fore and aft.
I find the ‘hunt the zodiac’ style troubling because such essays pay so little heed to iconological and textual stemma. I fail to see the point of most. They begin and end by saying ‘It’s a zodiac’ – and that’s it.
We already know the manuscript’s quires were inscribed in the early fifteenth century. The codicologists, palaeographers and lab. people can pin-point where it was made if they’re not pressured by theory-propaganda.
So what do we learn? The best study, I think, was Koen’s following types from Michael Scot’s work forward in time. As it happens, I’m treating the July emblem as an exercise in iconological analysis soon, and will show that Scot may well have brought the ‘three-nose’ sort of crab with him; it gains its lobster-form later, first in Italian copies of his work, and thereafter where they are disseminated, with the Prague and the German copyists being generally more keen on whiskers. Why did the Italians make it a lobster? Wait and see.. 🙂
The language appears to be Amharic – its a semitic Romance language, it has both Hebrew and Ethopian connections, and it looks the same. I asked some people from there that speak that language and am waiting for an answer.
Nick ! Someone is impersonating me, I did not write the above with my name on it. I never even went to this page before. I think it is someone foreign.
The language appears to be Amharic – its a semitic Romance language, it has both Hebrew and Ethopian connections, and it looks the same. I asked some people from there that speak that language and am waiting for an answer.
Someone is impersonating me, I did not write the above with my name on it. I never even went to this page before. I think it is someone foreign.
The language appears to be Amharic – its a semitic Romance language, it has both Hebrew and Ethopian connections, and it looks the same. I asked some people from there that speak that language and am waiting for an answer.
Someone is impersonating me, I did not write the above with my name on it. I never even went to this page before. I think it is someone foreign.
The language the impersonator of Sharon J Lindimore is Turkish. I cant write Turkish, that was not me. What can be done? Thank you, not necessary to post, question to you. At least they did not say something nasty.
The language the impersonator of Sharon J Lindimore is Turkish. I cant write Turkish, that was not me. What can be done? Thank you, not necessary to post, question to you. At least they did not say something nasty.
Mark Knowles and Nick Pelling,
I’ve just seen comments you made in December 2019, mentioning Aldrevandin. I regret not having seen it earlier and have made belated acknowledgements (and a response) as comment/additional information below the 5,000 word essay which I posted at voynichrevisionist in 2021.
If either of you knows of some other precedent, I hope you will let me and my readers know where it can be read.
Hi Nick,
This is a bit irrelevant now as I’ve realised nothing like this is in the Voynich ms, but I was scrolling thru FB and certainly not remotely thinking about the voynich when this image popped up, I’ve uploaded it here: https://ibb.co/yn8NQvd. The colours and also those things down the bottom triggered off memories but I couldn’t figure out what it reminded me of and then realised it reminded me of the voynich. I think it’s mostly just the colours, reds and greens… but it’s a bit far out from the years the Voynich is supposed to be dated to. Anyway…
I suppose that this may be a bit superfluous, as most people are also checking the Voynich Ninja, but it has finally become clear that Villa Mondragone does not have the prominent role in the history of the Voynich MS that it was always believed to have.
There is a paper titled “Wilfrid Voynich’s acquisition of the Voynich MS, not in Villa Mondragone” at my academia site. A google search with “Zandbergen academia” is probably the easiest way to get there.
A position not without precedent.
Rene Zandbergan: I seem to recall mentioning Wilfrid’s Mondragone VM false flag aquisition some time back. My suggestion then was that he’d come up with the idea based partly through prior knowledge of other unlisted book in its collection and, by a convienience in the form of an aide-memoire through business dealings with a soon to be self exiled Mexican biblophile Manuel Mondragon at Manhatten Hotel NY 1912/13.. PS. General Mondragon subsequently retired to Mondragon in the Basque country near San Sebastian and died 1922. Don’t know who got his book collection though probably his glamerous artistic daughter Carmen (Nahui).
Inside here, yes, there are UAP information, but there is information about how the government tried to solve the Voynich manuscript. You can use the numbers to request more content from the FOIA. https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Frequently-Requested-Information/Unidentified-Flying-Objects-UFOs/