The Voynich Ninja

The seahorse hypothesis is appealing to modern eyes because we base it on actual seahorses we have seen, such as the one in the photo above in this thread.
The problem is that in medieval times the representation of seahorses is elusive, and when the seahorse/hippocampus is depicted it tends to be as a rather literal horse of the sea.



BL Harley MS 4751, f. 68r (England, 13th century)

I do find the possibility of the dragon turning out to be a hybrid/ chimera interesting though.

(05-01-2017, 11:46 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Might the "shell" just be a folded wing? That does leave the sea horse like head and the "fin" that connects the back and the tail.

I think so. I don't see any other way to interpret what's going on near the tail end of the animal. I've outlined what I see as the left wing (red) and the tip of the right one (blue).

[attachment=1053]

(05-01-2017, 02:11 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The seahorse hypothesis is appealing to modern eyes because we base it on actual seahorses we have seen, such as the one in the photo above in this thread.
The problem is that in medieval times the representation of seahorses is elusive, and when the seahorse/hippocampus is depicted it tends to be as a rather literal horse of the sea.

Okay, but does that rule out the possibility that someone managed to somehow see and draw an actual seahorse?  (Obviously I think the VMS is mostly derived from older and foreign sources anyway and should not be expected to follow the same conventions as other medieval books.)

(05-01-2017, 04:32 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Okay, but does that rule out the possibility that someone managed to somehow see and draw an actual seahorse?  (Obviously I think the VMS is mostly derived from older and foreign sources anyway and should not be expected to follow the same conventions as other medieval books.)

That's always an option. When I wrote about the octopus, squid, jellyfish... I also assumed a first hand witness as the originator of the images. Octopus are incredibly hard to find in medieval manuscripts, while they were abundant earlier.



The same goes for the elephant leaf, by the way.

The problem with the seahorse, however, is twofold:
- There is a strong "late" influence, evident from the dragon parallels. (When I say "late" I mean Byzantine period onward).
- I have not been able to find and decent 15th century or earlier depiction of a sea horse anywhere apart from in the Americas so far. In Antiquity it was also the literal sea-horse shown by VViews.

A purely eye witness based account is of course possible, but it's always more convincing if some parallels can be found..

Sam G,

A seahorse could of course be drawn from a specimen. Seahorses can get caught in fishing nets or wash up on the shore for example, and there was some experimentation with diving in the middle ages so... why not?. 

As for older/foreign sources: the hippocampus can indeed be found in older and foreign art, but again this tends to be a capricorn-esque kind of creature, whether we consider Roman, Etruscan, Greek (see the many images of the seahorses which draw Poseidon/Neptune's chariot, or of Nereids riding hippokampoi: they are all horses of the sea).

As we move further East towards India and China the sea-horse is progressively subsumed by the figure of the sea-lion, which assumes the same capricorn-ish appearance, but with a lion's upper body, and the water dragon, which displays the long sinuous body typical for Chinese dragons.

Perhaps you will be luckier than me, but I could find only one more or less realistic representation of a seahorse:

Cordoba, Spain, mosaic from the Alcazar gardens.
This mosaic dates back to Roman times (2nd or 3rd C). It is visible in the Alcazar gardens today BUT was placed there in the 20thC. I don't know if/how/where it was visible during the middle ages.

Ben there several times but never spotted that one. I imagine it's Arabic in origin.

(05-01-2017, 06:06 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps you will be luckier than me, but I could find only one more or less realistic representation of a seahorse:

Cordoba, Spain, mosaic from the Alcazar gardens.
This mosaic dates back to Roman times (2nd or 3rd C). It is visible in the Alcazar gardens today BUT was placed there in the 20thC. I don't know if/how/where it was visible during the middle ages.

Interestingly, that one has the body of a seahorse, but the head resembles that of an actual (land) horse.  In the VMS image it's really the head with the long thin snout that resembles a seahorse more than it resembles seemingly any dragon image.

Maybe it is just an unusual dragon, but it does seem that many illustrations in the VMS look like something they "shouldn't" look like more than they look like the thing they are supposedly based on.

(05-01-2017, 07:03 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Maybe it is just an unusual dragon, but it does seem that many illustrations in the VMS look like something they "shouldn't" look like more than they look like the thing they are supposedly based on.

That's something to always keep in mind. I also believe many, if not most of the images are supposed to mean two or more things at once. That's the very reason why almost everything in the MS defies immediate identification.

The thing is that "dragons" in earlier periods were usually serpents. This one has more in common with medieval dragons. So who knows when it was added or copied wrong or reinterpreted or...

An interesting avenue of research would of course be to see if there is any plant that was linked to sea horses, perhaps because they ate it or lived near it.

When Koen > Oocephalus mentioned wings, I remembered this one (BL Add MS 49999 f5v):

[attachment=1055]

Well, you'll remember my suggestion that this is a borametz or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.