The Voynich Ninja

Those figures represent the attributes of the gods. Jupiter is depicted with seven planets, because he is lord of the solar system.
Then we have Venus as love, Mars war, etc

@ VViews:

As to the counts, you may also wish to adopt/check my counts of f68r1 and r2: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (refer to Section 4)

Here are some older examples. The one in the middle is Norman or English from c. early 14th century. The one on the right is Aquarius with the geomantic pattern (with six dots) on the lower right.



        

Geomancy (divinitation) was a natural off-shoot of astrology (forecasting) and many of the astrology texts of the 15th century have these geomantic patterns drawn next to symbols for constellations. They are sometimes drawn with dots, sometimes with stars.

JKP
That Norman manuscript is very interesting. Can you provide its details?

VViews

While the number and disposition of stars on that 'sphere of Jupiter' might have been meant to be significant, it could also just be a generic form, meaning only that Jupiter ruled the heavens.

- not that there weren't translucent star-globes. Raphael put one in the hand of Zoroaster in his "School of Athens."

(01-11-2016, 09:47 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP
That Norman manuscript is very interesting. Can you provide its details?

...

British Library. They're not sure of the date or location, but they are estimating it's late 13th or early 14th century, Normandy or England.

If I recorded it correctly, it's Additional Ms 18210 folio 93r.


I just checked a political map for those years to get my bearings. Edward I was in power, France was beginning to overthrow the northern territory around that time, so the manuscript was likely created during Edward I's reign (the end of the Anglo-Norman period), or soon thereafter, and probably finished before the 100-Years War.

(01-11-2016, 01:53 AM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-11-2016, 12:21 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note that here we have the Moon in the centre, not the Sun. And the number of "designated " stars (Pleiades counted as one) here is 11, which is more than the number of (then known) planets.

Anton,

This is true, and as I said I didn't post this as a claim that this is Jupiter... but if I were to try and find another way to look at the problem,  the two ("jupiter" and "moon") could be connected in the Voynich illustration because they are the only two planets being observed in that sky, the others being stars.
Forgive my ignorance on this point, but what are the arguments given in Voynich studies for why the moon is connected to the Pleiades anyway? All I've read is P. Han's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. explanation for that.

Hi VViews, a while ago, this subject was discussed on the site of Stephen Bax:
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In the context of the Persian / Zoroastrian astrological cosmogony, the curve could correspond to the eclipse dragon Gochihr (sometimes also identified with the milky way). The connection with the moon is obvious, since the moon plays such a fundamental role in eclipses.

According to some interpretations, the head of this evil dragon is identified with the seven planets. But the relevant Bundahishn passage does not seem to support this interpetation (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Anyway, it's interesting that the seven planets are among the evil forces in this myths.

Quote:Various new demons arise from the various new sins the creatures may commit, and are produced for such purposes; who make even those planets rush on which are in the celestial sphere, and they stand very numerously in the conflict. Their ringleaders (kamarikan) are those seven planets, the head and tail of Gochihr, and Mushpar provided with a tail, which are ten.

You will also find You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that the seven heads of the apocalypse dragon are related with the seven planets. 


There are other aspects of this Persian myth that could be relevant for f68r3:

• The Zoroastrian thought of the heavens as divided in four quarters, each of them with its own leader : Tishtrya (Sirius) is the General of the East Sadws (Antares) is the General of the South, Wanand (Vega) is the General of the West, Haftoreng (Great Bear) is the General of the North.
  
• The leader of the North is a group of seven stars. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. means "having seven signs" or "the seven bears".
  

See You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by W. B. Henning.

Marco -
Are you sure it's "seven bears" and not the seven [stars of] the [Greater] Bear?  It would be interesting to know how much f the Zoroastrian astronomical tradition had reached Europe by this time; I wouldn't have expected it, but medieval learning can be quite surprising (witness the Babylonian and other deities illustrated in Seznec). I've also re-read recently Dmitri Gutas' work, in which he treats the importance of astrology in early Baghdad, and the perception in early Islamic thought that Greek astrology had all been originally Zoroastrian.  Still, I think the image that writes 'Jupiter' above the starry sphere means simply that Jupiter is ruler of the starry sphere. 


JKP
I think you have the details right.MS Additional 1820 is Here's the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for MS Additional 18210
No author given for that treatise on geomancy.  It is characteristic that English and northern French works display so little difference that the provenance is given - as you said - as "England or France (N)" and the date range for the section of the compilation containing that page is between the last quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century.  

Thanks for posting it.

(02-11-2016, 03:18 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the context of the Persian / Zoroastrian astrological cosmogony, the curve could correspond to the eclipse dragon Gochihr (sometimes also identified with the milky way). The connection with the moon is obvious, since the moon plays such a fundamental role in eclipses.

According to some interpretations, the head of this evil dragon is identified with the seven planets. But the relevant Bundahishn passage does not seem to support this interpetation (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Anyway, it's interesting that the seven planets are among the evil forces in this myths.

Thanks for this MarcoP, the Dragon is a very interesting connection!
While I was playing around with the online equatorium I posted in another thread, I noticed that a part of the Draco constellation (Caput Draconis) was used to calculate the latitude of the moon, using strings.

JKP, this also ties in to your observations about geomancy, because Caput Draconis is one of the geomantic figures.

I wonder if the star cluster we see in the Voynich illustration might be somehow related to all of this...

(16-11-2016, 07:10 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-11-2016, 03:18 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the context of the Persian / Zoroastrian astrological cosmogony, the curve could correspond to the eclipse dragon Gochihr (sometimes also identified with the milky way). The connection with the moon is obvious, since the moon plays such a fundamental role in eclipses.

According to some interpretations, the head of this evil dragon is identified with the seven planets. But the relevant Bundahishn passage does not seem to support this interpetation (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Anyway, it's interesting that the seven planets are among the evil forces in this myths.

Thanks for this MarcoP, the Dragon is a very interesting connection!
While I was playing around with the online equatorium I posted in another thread, I noticed that a part of the Draco constellation (Caput Draconis) was used to calculate the latitude of the moon, using strings.

JKP, this also ties in to your observations about geomancy, because Caput Draconis is one of the geomantic figures.

I wonder if the star cluster we see in the Voynich illustration might be somehow related to all of this...

Hi VViews,
I agree that the subject is very interesting! I would like to read more about these “string calculators”, if you could provide a link. Please note that “caput draconis” is different from the Draco constellation. The constellation is close to the North pole of the “heavenly sphere”, while the head and tail of the Eclipse Dragon (caput and cauda draconis) are the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., i.e. the two points in which the apparent orbit of the Moon intersects the ecliptic (the apparent orbit of the Sun). 


Since geomantic figures are made up of exactly 4 rows each containing one or two points, there are exactly 4 figures having seven points (rubeus, albus, letitia, tristitia). The relative position of the points is of fundamental importance: it is the only way in which geomantic figures with the same number of points can be distinguished from each other (see Agrippa's illustraion posted by JKP).


The seven stars in f68r3 seem to me to be arranged similarly to traditional illustrations of the Pleiades: one at the center and the other six more or less regularly around it. I think this is one of the the many old observations about the Voynich manuscript that are still around because they are well founded on the available evidence.

These images are from a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..


The "seven planets" idea, or the possibility of other asterisms such as Ursa Major, are certainly worth pursuing. It would be interesting to find more medieval visual parallels both for the seven star and the overall structure of the diagram).

PS: I just noticed that there are a number of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with a crescent moon and seven stars (the attached one is by Hadrian). I don't know if this has been previously discussed about f68r3, nor what the stars mean. I will have to research more about these coins