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It all started off with a plausibly-phrased story making an incredible claim via a dodgy animated GIF…

A March 2008 article by Ryan Ball in Animation Magazine claimed that the oldest piece of animation had been discovered: a 5,200-year-old rotating bowl from Tehran, a bit like an inside-out zoetrope depicting a jumping goat. When I saw this, I immediately wanted to blog about it: but there was something wrong about the 9-frame animated GIF at the bottom that held me back…

Reading a little more (as you do), I found a 2006 post on Neil Cohn’s Visual Linguist website (apparently the jumping goat bowl had originally been news in 2005) that deconstructed the GIF: the sequence of frames had been doctored to make it look more like an animation (a term Cohn felt wasn’t really justifiable) than it really was, because there were only actually 5 “frames” in the sequence on the bowl.

The last comment on Cohn’s page points to Alexis Chazard’s more appropriate 5-frame animation of the goat, taken directly (as far as was possible) from actual pictures of the bowl. There’s also a nice set of photographs from Iran that put the bowl more into context here.

All in all, I think it’s a huge shame that someone went to the trouble of mocking up a dodgy 9-frame GIF, apparently to try to oversell the animation aspect of the bowl. If that person had simply assembled the 5 frames exactly as they appeared (particularly if they had found specific evidence of an axis of rotation and had specifically taken 5 pictures at 72 degree rotation intervals, la la la), it would have been a perfectly acceptable demonstration. Basically,in a 5000-year-old artefact, nobody’s expecting Shrek to jump out at us, och no, Donkey. 😉

Incidentally, the first documented zoetrope came from the Chinese inventor Ting Huan in about 180AD: not many people know that, unless you’re a bit of a Wikipede (or should I say “Wikipedant“?) (or “Wikipedophile“?)

Voynich News just raced past the 2000 visitor mark (not counting mails sent to email/blog subscribers), which is nice: time to take stock and aim for a million visitors now, surely?

Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to do too many things at once, particularly with the arrival of a truly fabulous book from the American Philosophical Society (Vincent Ilardi’s “Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes”), which has somehow even been able to displace Thorndike Volume IV from the top of my reading list. I’ve also been writing an article, writing up more of the Treadwell’s Magic Circles evening, reviewing both Evelyn Welch’s “Shopping in the Renaissance” and an incredible web-based “booklet” that has to be seen to be believed… but I’m getting ahead of myself. You’ll see soon enough!

Here’s my current reading list: make of it what you will.

“Shopping in the Renaissance“, Evelyn Welch [just finished, will review here soon]

“Of Grammatology“, Jacques Derrida [100 pages in, which is about 98 pages more than most people… but it’s a desperately slow read]

“The Occult Sciences in Byzantium“, Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi [about halfway through: a fascinating (if piecemeal) collection of essays]

“Secrets of the Code“, Dan Burstein [150 pages in: an interesting compilation of snippets, but all a bit off-topic for a Voynichologist – I was more interested in figuring out how to to compile a Voynich reader, like a more text-based version of D’Imperio]

“PopCo“, Scarlett Thomas [50 pages in: will review this shortly]

“Lucrezia Borgia“, Sarah Bradford [I’ve not yet started this: but it seems to have lots of interesting Quattrocento texture to look forward to]

“Elizabeth’s Spy Master“, Robert Hutchinson [Not yet started]

“The Renaissance in Europe: A Reader”, Keith Whitlock [Not yet started]

“History of Astrology“, Peter Whitfield [Not yet started: I liked his “The Mapping of the Heavens” and “Mapping The World”, so I have high hopes for this]

A quick digression on the title of Enrique Joven’s forthcoming Voynich book, “The Castle of the Stars” (originally published as El Castillo de las Estrellas): and it’s all tied up with Tycho Brahe…

Once upon a time in 1572 (according to the article here), a supernova appeared in the constellation of Cassiopeia (you know, the big W-shaped one). Watching this in Denmark, Brahe realised that this was not a near-Earth object, but was in fact as far away as all the other stars, at a time when it was generally thought that this was impossible. Revolutionary stuff, and the book he wrote on the subject dramatically launched Brahe’s career into orbit.

Frederick II was so desperate to make sure his brand new star astronomer did not leave Denmark that he gave Brahe the island of Hven, the huge financial backing to build Uraniborg (“the castle of Urania“, named after the Greek Muse who was the patron saint of astronomy) to house his instruments, and then an observatory called Stjerneborg (“the castle of the stars“)… from which (I guess) Enrique Joven took the name for his novel.

Brahe also used the grounds of Uraniborg to grow herbs for his “medicinal chemistry experiments” (according to Wikipedia): Voynichologically, this seems somehow right, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, there was a short story in French by Al Nath called “Le chateau des etoiles” from Ciel in 1986: this was about Tyco Brahe.

Alternatively, there’s a place in Teba in Andalucia called “El castillo de estrella” (it says here) that commemorates a battle fought in 1330, with a confused (and mythological-sounding) linked story about Robert the Bruce’s heart in a silver casket being taken to the Holy Land. Errrrm… you had to be there, I guess. But I think I’ll stick with the Brahe version, if that’s OK with you?

I’ll admit it: I spend so much time (and money) servicing my 100-a-year non-fiction book habit, it’s been a while since I’ve strayed into the world of fiction. I did read Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” and “Digital Fortress” (yuk), just in case there was anything I should flag in my book (I mentioned his “O Draconian Devil!” and “Oh, lame saint” anagrams in chapter 6). Actually, the last novel I read was Susanna Clarke’s epic “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell“.

But with the 2008 Voynichian novel tsunami fast approaching us all, I thought I’d warm up for Michael Cordy’s forthcoming VMs book by reading his first book, “The Messiah Code” (1997): this follows the generic blockbuster template, mixing together fat themes (religion, gene therapy, gene paranoia) with thin characters.

Unfortunately… though the writing is pacy and spare throughout, Cordy’s plotting inexperience shows through everywhere. The book ends up like an argument between two kids playing cliche Top Trumps – who would win, the genius Nobel laureate geneticist fighting for his child’s life, or the ruthless, conflicted, 2000-year old super-rich Templaresque secret society? The perky female black genius Nobel laureate computer scientist from the ‘hood, or the shape- and gender-shifting unfeeling uber-killer with a surprising childhood secret? You feel like asking: yeah, and would Mechagodzilla kick the Transformers’ hollow butts?

In the end, for all its page-turning readability “The Messiah Code” is a book about ciphers, for that is what all its characters are – nulls, blanks, voids, zeroes. But maybe that’s the whole point: perhaps all that blockbuster readers want is a satisfying mental knot to untangle on the beach, and aren’t really interested in much beyond that.

At least Michael Cordy did his research properly, so the “science bit” largely holds up: and for that I was grateful (though a “terrabyte” did sneak in somewhere, *sigh*). But I hope he’s come a long way in the ten years since…

Two big news stories today, both of them far more amazing than fiction…

Firstly, a story about a Nazi cipher, allegedly by Martin Bormann detailing the location of a cache of gold and diamonds hidden in 1945. Dutch journalist Karl Hammer has written a book called De tranen van de wolf (The Tears of the Wolf), published by Elmar, which is basically a dossier of his notes. Much copied in the blogs, but here’s the source page (with pictures of the so-called “runic” cipher hidden in the rests in a piece of sheet music, as well as a series of numerals at the bottom which is doubtless discussed in the book). 224 pages, 17.50 euros here.

And secondly, a fascinating Wall Street Journal story about a cache of microfilms of early copies of the Qur’an being unearthed. For decades it was thought that they had been destroyed in the bombing of the Bavarian Academy of Science (which was housed in a former Jesuit college in Munich) in 1944, but the truth turns out to be much more subtle and complex.

It’s one of those strange things: if a novelist had used either of these two stories for their plots, he/she would probably be ridiculed for over-egging their cake, for going too far. I mean, Nazis treasure and a cipher hidden in music, or Nazis and the lost origins of Islam, really?

Incidentally, I’ve mentioned how my stomach turns when I see the word “Jesuit” pop up in Voynich-themed novels, and – as a historical literary commentary on the penny dreadful Jesuit cliche – that’s perfectly OK. But as with every rule of thumb, there is bound to be an exception, and perhaps Enrique Joven’s book is that: now that I found a better description of it, I can see that the Jesuit connection he appropriates is probably based on real history (I’m guessing the movement around Europe of the various Jesuit trunks containing the VMs), and so for a surprising change his Jesuit plot connection there actually makes good sense.

But this is really not to endorse every other Jesuit/VMs so-called plot “twist” out there: repeat after me, “it almost certainly predates the Jesuit Order, which was founded in 1534“… *sigh*

The proliferation of Voynich Manuscript-themed novels has gone way beyond being merely a vague pattern in my peripheral vision: it’s starting to become a bit of a plague.

Here’s another book, this time from Bilbao-based first-time novelist Iñaki Uriarte: published by Verbigracia in 2007, it’s called “La Piedra Filosofal” (The Philosopher’s Stone, if you hadn’t guessed), and weaves the Voynich Manuscript in with the Philosopher’s Stone and quantum physics. It is 394 pages long, has the plant from f2v and the top-left nymph from f82v on the cover, and there’s a sizeable (83-page!) extract here to whet your appetite. I can’t see an ISBN for it, and none of the book sites I looked at had a copy (even Amazon!), but if you fancy it you can buy it for 18 euros directly from the publisher via PayPal. Which is nice.

And there is yet another Spanish book (mentioned in passing by Enrique Joven) called “El quinto mandamiento” (The Fifth Commandment, which is “thou shalt not kill” [of course]), by Eric Frattini, published by Espasa-Calpe, ISBN13 978-84-670-2442-5. It seems fairly standard mystery thriller fare, with an elderly professor uncovering the secrets of the VMs, while a conspiratorial circle of eight (led by a corrupt cardinal) tracks down and murders everyone who the professor has talked to. There’s a bit of f67r1 Photoshopped onto the cover, along with the Florence Duomo, but unless I’m really badly mistaken it only seems to engage with the VMs in a very superficial way. 360 pages, 19.90 euros. You can read a machine translation of the first chapter here (click on the 2 3 4 5 .. numbers at the bottom). But Lord, spare me from having to read about any more evil Jesuit priests!

So… we have:-

• Enrique Joven’s forthcoming “Castle of the Stars“
• Iñaki Uriarte’s “La Piedra Filosofal“
• Eric Frattini’s “El quinto mandamiento“
• Thierry Maugenest’s “Manuscript MS408“
• Michael Cordy’s forthcoming “Garden of God“
• Richard D. Weber’s “The Voynich Covenant“
• Andrea Peters’ “I’m Sorry… Love Anne“
• William Michael Campbell’s “The Voynich Solution“

…and even as I type there are doubtless 10-20 more writers out there feverishly word-pureeing their Dan Brown-esque Voynich-based mystery capers, with nearly all of them struggling to find exciting new synonyms for the word “evil” to put before the word “Jesuit”. 😮

In some ways, this is all very flattering, for it surely means that our overall Voynichological “research programme” (for want of a better phrase) over the last few years has blossomed in a broad cultural awareness of the manuscript, an inky sea of ideas into which novelists feel free to dip their fountain pens. However, I think it’s also fair to say that most of these books do not engage with the VMs in a very substantial way, which – given all the work that we’ve done – is a bit sad. So on balance, I’m not sure whether to be happy or sad, which of the two emotions is the stronger… you’ll have to make your own judgment on that, I’m afraid!

The French Voynich mailing list I half-remembered and mentioned before turned out to be an online discussion forum on François Almaleh’s website (his main Voynich site is here, which I guess is the skeleton of the Voynich book he was writing back in 2003). However, this died in 2004: you can see a copy in the Wayback Machine here. And therefore I don’t think there is an active French Voynich mailing list at the moment, which is a shame after all the publicity gained there by the launch of the [near-]facsimile edition of the VMs “Le Code Voynich“. You can even see this in the Google Trends curve for “Voynich”: the big spike in the middle was the book release, and France remains at the top of the list of countries Googling for “Voynich”.

Some people have posted bilingual Voynich websites: but even if your French is excellent (as Dennis Stallings’ plainly is), this is a hard path to take and stick to, and one that removes a lot of the spontaneity of posting and updating web-pages.

Perhaps the simplest modern way to get ideas across to non-native-language readers would be to add a [Translate this page] button to your blog (as I’ve just done). Recently, I was even pleasantly surprised by the quality of Google’s automatic translation from Chinese into English (though admittedly I was expecting it to come out like a mangled shopping list): and doubtless this will keep being improved. But given that quality issues remain, I’d really like to be able to embed translation hints in my text, particularly so that I can continue to post in my polyglot oral tongue stylee: but I somehow doubt that this is on Blogger’s radar. I’m probably too early to this ball: but in 10 years’ time, who knows…?

PS: I think a link to this blog was posted to the voynich.de Yahoo mailing list: a big Guten Tag to you all there!

Two interesting Voynich news stories…

Firstly, I’ve had a blog comment and some emails from a pleasantly surprised Enrique Joven, author of “El castello de las estrellas” (his blog is here): his big news is the book has been picked up by HarperCollins US, and is due for publication in September 2008 under the title “The castle of the stars“. According to one Internet site, Enrique received a low six-figure advance (“$100,000 to $300,000). I’m very much looking forward to it! 🙂

Secondly, another Voynich novel is on its way… and it could well be a big one.Its author is Michael Cordy, writer of the international bestsellers “The Messiah Code“, “The Lucifer Code“, “Crime Zero“, and “The Venus Conspiracy“. His next book (ISBN10 055215699X, ISBN13 9780552156998, AKA “Untitled Michael Cordy“) is due for hardback release in “January 2008” from Transworld Publishers. The original title was “The Garden Of God“, meaning Eden, though (curiously enough) it is also what “Baghdad” originally meant. What are the odds Transworld end up giving it the title “The Eden Code” instead?

The synopsis of the Michael Cordy book is here: basically, the main character’s beautiful wife Lauren decodes the Voynich Manuscript, but ends up in a coma after someone tries to steal her translation, and so the main character ends up racing against a fanatical priest to reach the mythical “Jardin del Dios”…

I’m already getting a bit sick of these Jesuits and mysterious meddling priests (particularly as the Jesuit order didn’t start up until many decades after the VMs was probably written), but hey – novelists have to start somewhere, right? [Also: I couldn’t help but be reminded not a little of Thierry Maugenest’s 2005 novel “Manuscrit MS 408“, where two academics decoding the Voynich mysteriously fall into a coma, setting the story in motion…]

Whatever you think of Voynich novels, these are two potentially big novels with our favourite manuscript in a starring role, both due for release by Serie A mega-publishers this year. Perhaps I’m misreading the tea-leaves, but I do get the overwhelming feeling from this that 2008 is somehow destined to be the “Year of the Voynich” – not necessarily the year when it gets solved, but the year when it goes fully mainstream.