The Voynich Ninja

Edit: this was originally a reply to David's medieval nymph thread. Since it got into another direction quite fast I split it.

Hi David

I'm dealing with a rather dynamic two-and-a-half year old at the moment so I can't answer as elaborately as I should, but I'll give some initial comments already.

One thing I still don't understand is why people discard the possibility that the manuscript's imagery was copied from an older tradition instead of a 15th century creation. This is not a hypothetical scenario, it happened a lot. I will again refer to the various traditions of astronomical manuscripts, where we see 15th century copies of 9th-10th century manuscripts. These, in turn, were relatively accurate copies of Greco-Roman imagery. So once again, "ancient sources" is a valid possibility that should be considered as much as "medieval creation" and renaissance. 

What makes the Voynich different then? Well first of all, the fact that the in-between material has been lost, probably because the tradition was not mainstream in the first place. This means that the best parallels are found in the ancient artefacts which lie at the basis of the now lost tradition.

And secondly, the fact that the usual medieval adaptations have often not been applied. When medieval scribes copied older sources, they would often put contemporary clothes on the figures. Clothing is a huge cultural marker, so adapting it to a "modern" equivalent will make it easier to understand for your audience. This is why it's not unusual to see Hercules as an armored knight sometimes, or rulers as medieval kings. This has happened in the VM, but only in a minority of the figures.

Unfortunately, this solution is more complex than assuming a 15th century original creation. If the manuscript's imagery goes back to Greco-Roman originals (most likely first centuries CE, in my opinion), then which alterations were made in between? How many in-between copies have there been, and by which cultures? Were all sections altered equally? Did all sections originate in the same setting? When were the sections first gathered? Which alterations were still made in the 15th century copy that is left now? When was the text made the way it is now and why?

Anyway, if you can explain to me why even intelligent people like you discard the possibility that the VM might be a fruit of a tree with rather deep roots, I might learn something

Other points:

• I agree that the nymphs are vessels, not individuals. It is almost as if the manuscript uses the nude human form as a default carrier of concepts, without that human body itself having much significance. But isn't the usual medieval approach that such concepts are still tied to an individual saint or other figure? Also, they are usually clothed. We must look for situations where the nude human form is a "blank" carrier of meaning, like mannequins. The pose, position and any attributes are much more important than the actual person. I'd say that the word "person" doesn't even apply to Voynich nymphs.
  
• A while ago, when I asked for parallels in medieval art for the nymphs' proportions, I was surprised to get many suggestions from Romance regions, often some centuries older than the VM. This agrees with some of your observations. This might shed some light on the earlier medieval stages of the transmission of the material.
  
• The scarcity of christian thought and symbolism in the manuscript and the preference for nude figures is not something I find hard to explain . But it is indeed necessary to address this in any kind of analysis of the figures.
  
• The way the faces are drawn is something I've seen in other manuscripts as well. This should still be studied, it might again teach us something about transmission. But I'm afraid this way of drawing faces was relatively common - I can't say without several days of looking at faces in manuscripts first 
  

Quote: I'm dealing with a rather dynamic two-and-a-half year old at the moment so I can't answer as elaborately as I should, but I'll give some initial comments already.

Amen to that, bro.

Quote: One thing I still don't understand is why people discard the possibility that the manuscript's imagery was copied from an older tradition instead of a 15th century creation. This is not a hypothetical scenario, it happened a lot. I will again refer to the various traditions of astronomical manuscripts, where we see 15th century copies of 9th-10th century manuscripts. These, in turn, were relatively accurate copies of Greco-Roman imagery. So once again, "ancient sources" is a valid possibility that should be considered as much as "medieval creation" and renaissance.

For the simple reason that one would expect more sources to have survived. If one copy was made, why not two? Why are we not finding more references to this mysterious line of manuscripts across the corpus of medieval manuscripts we have access to? 

The copying hypothesis doesn't explain anything away. Either we find ourselves in a situation where only one copy has survived of an entire literary tradition (which isn't mentioned anywhere else) - or we have one mysterious manuscript written centuries before this copy, in which case nothing has changed, we're only pushing back the date of creation. Either way, it doesn't give us a clue as to the meaning of the text.

In either case, it's not my argument. My argument is that we are seeing medieval tendencies in the creation of the images, but that these images aren't being presented in the way we expect.

If these nymphs were all holding crosses or giving devotion to a central figure, there wouldn't be a problem, we'd all recognise the tradition and go with the flow.

Quote:When medieval scribes copied older sources, they would often put contemporary clothes on the figures. Clothing is a huge cultural marker, so adapting it to a "modern" equivalent will make it easier to understand for your audience. This is why it's not unusual to see Hercules as an armored knight sometimes, or rulers as medieval kings. This has happened in the VM, but only in a minority of the figures.

Perfectly correct. Why would this be? If it is a copy, why would the copyist do this on some and not others? Is the nudity important? Or are the clothes important? We have no way of saying with the facts at our disposal.

Why are there no more references to this tradition? Well, most of the elaborately illuminated manuscripts we study were made for rich patrons and cared for in libraries. This is why they survived and we can still see them. But the VM is described by the Beinecke library as a work in "provincial" style, which means that it does not appear to have been made in a major scholarly centre. Manuscripts made for kings, and copies of those manuscripts, were much more likely to survive than any "provincial" works.

If the foldout format, like you say, points towards a travelling profession, isn't it to be expected then that these documents survived less often? Constantly on the road, or god forbid, on ships? If the plants relate to intercontinental trade like Diane argues, and other sections to things like navigation, then it is normal that these documents remained under the radar. It's like Coca-Cola keeping its recipe secret: you don't want your competitors to know the way you make money. (I know the Cola thing is mostly marketing nonsense but you get my point). They would have been maintained by a select group of traders who manned routes which in essence hardly changed since the Hellenistic period, especially on the eastern end. 

So the problem is not that there are no more references to this tradition. The exceptional circumstance is that somehow one of these documents was copied in the 15th century and survived and is now the subject of this forum  And we don't know what to do with it, since it's the only survivor of its kind and on top of that we can't read the text.

The attractiveness of this paradigm is also that it explains why the documents were copied with remarkable accuracy, again (probably badly) paraphrasing Diane here: because they told one exactly how to make money by buying and selling goods, which ports to visit, how to maintain the crew and ship in exotic locales and so on. This means that an "update" would only be performed when conditions changed, and all other adaptations were undesired. Of course we see medieval influences as well, since copyists were only people and they saw what they saw through the lens of their world view. 

The reason why I do kind of elaborate on this is that it is extremely relevant to explaining the nymphs. If we allow for the hypothesis that the imagery have its base in the first centuries CE, then the nudity and relative absence of clear christian imagery makes sense, and is indeed to be expected. Especially if our explanation requires that the matter be copied relatively accurately.

Now I would understand the criticism if "medieval creation" offered a straightforward way to explain the nymphs. In that case, looking at the possibility of earlier sources would be far fetched, or at least unnecessary. But it doesn't. Our reality is that all explanations require some stretch of what we deem likely. 

There's a leaf in the small plants section that shows the shape of an African elephant more accurately than most medieval Elephant drawings. An exception to this rule is when the artist had seen an elephant in real life, which is usually a documented event since it was so rare to have one paraded through Europe. In Greco-Roman imagery though, decent elephants are not exceptional. Sometimes they even showed up at the gates of Rome. And the Romans got so hands-on with Northern subspecies that they drove it to extinction.

Just to say, there are many things in the manuscript that suddenly become normal if one accepts early sources as a base. And these things are weird when they have to be attributed to a medieval auteur. For starters, he'd have to be a heretic elephant expert who confused goats with sheep for Aries...

Hi Koen Gh,

I understand the theory you're presenting, and as you know I keep my mind open to extra-european possibilities, but to me the problem with this particular idea is the following:
If such a secret trader's guide book existed, wouldn't it's contents become utterly obsolete after a thousand years? You mention updates, but really, over 1000 years, we're not talking updates but massive overhauls.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. technology advanced, and the conditions in the various ports  would not have been subject to minor updates over such a period, but to major ones: centers of production changed, desirable resources fell out of favor and new ones were sought out, empires rose and fell, alliances were made and broken, places that were friendly could become hostile and conversely, and even the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (and therefore, the resources that could be grown in various places as well as seafaring conditions, such as prevalence of cyclones) changed considerably from one millenium to the next.

I would think that a guide to trading in the Orient written in 1017 would be utterly useless, and potentially even dangerous to a trader working in 2017, so why would it be different then? (I can only imagine the disasters a European trader would encounter if he relied on medieval facts to try and procure goods in Somalia or Iran today, using only medieval information!)
Why would someone bother to meticulously copy, let alone devise a cipher for a book of obsolete knowledge?

And by the way, those provincial mariner books did survive: see the Michael of Rhodes MS I put in the library for one example.

I agree that especially certain parts of the trade routes would have seen violent changes, even if we take just the political situation into account. But those parts which have been maintained in the manuscript would have been relatively stable. If we assume that the material was actively kept up to date by professionals, they could do so with minimal changes. I also have no idea to what extent the contents of the text is original, if at all.  The current script is almost certainly relatively late. For all we know, the text comments on which parts of the images are still valid and which have changed, but that's pure speculation. 

Relatively stable things would include:
- celestial navigation (though over these time spans one would have to take precession into account)
- flood cycles and navigation of the Nile (canals changed but the flood cycle was only interrupted by the Aswan Dam)
- Useful plants in and around India, for example to repair a ship's ropes. Some of the plants in the MS are still used today by local villagers for similar purposes. Certain timbers, like teak, are still valued today. Certain spices, like saffron, are still as expensive as ever. 
- Many other things would also have remained the same. Many harbors remained harbors, and cities remained cities. Though of course others vanished as well.

The kind if information would not be something like "Johnny sells the cheapest wine in city x" , but rather something like "if you need to repair your ship in place x, ask for a timber the locals call dal tikku, it is the best for the hull."

Anyway to get back to the nymphs, this exactly is the reason why people have recognised the similarity between the VM and the Vat. Gr. Sol miniature nymphs. Of the latter, we know that the roots of the image are Hellenistic. I believe the same is true for the VM. This isn't so strange if one can let go of the idea of a 15th century auteur and think in terms of commissioned copyists instead.

David
When you say

Quote:we can't pin down a specific era or artistic tendency

I understand how you feel, but  I can't agree that this is a fair statement of the problem.

(I had thought to say more, but there's a problem with formatting - can't delete or backspace unwanted paragraph markers; cut-and-paste isn't working... and a few things of that sort.  Ntw - hope it will sort itself out.)

VViews,
As the person who - as late as 2012 - had to explain to the second mailing list that Egypt hadn't become a mythical land in the middle ages, and who first argued that the imagery was appropriate to a peripatetic profession and that, having treated the diagrams and other sections in detail, that the imagery appeared to me best explained as a traders handbook, of which the botanical section related to the maritime 'spice road' and the astronomical 'ladies' folios to the overland 'silk road' and who also (as I'm told) first introduced the matter of navigation in this context and - perhaps - also first mentioned Michael of Rhodes in connection with Voynich studies, I think I should support Koen here since he hasn't really had time yet to suplicate the historical and archaeological research which resulted in those conclusions.

Quote:If such a secret trader's guide book existed, wouldn't it's contents become utterly obsolete after a thousand years?

First, I think it's a misconception that all the content originated at the one time, and for the one purpose, or that it was all originally secret.
But to explain that properly, by reference to what we know of the history of trade between the Hellenistic period and the mid-fourteenth century is not possible.  The short answer, though, is no.  The sea-route by which pepper came to the notice of Hellenistic writers such as Theophrastus remained the route by which pepper came in Roman times, and still as late as the end of the fourteenth century.

In the same way, while information about ports and duties changes over time, as towns came and went, I myself have never argued the imagery inextricably linked to the written part of the text, and recently in conversation with a correspondent I gave it as my view that the written part of the text probably took its present form during what historians call 'the Mongol century'.

As I read further, I see you also made some of the same points, though about others I can't agree.  Once more, it isn't the sort of thing to be decided by what seems likely, but what is actually documented or otherwise attested.

Quote:centers of production changed, desirable resources fell out of favor and new ones were sought out, empires rose and fell, alliances were made and broken, places that were friendly could become hostile

yes, most of the above is demonstrable, except the notion that 'desirable resources fell out of favour and new ones were sought out'.
For the botanical section and its frame of reference... if you accept my conclusion that the plants are non-Mediterranean... the idea of fads and fashions doesn't really apply.  A plant that yielded fibre continued to do so and so on.  I think that for all its various failings, ethnology has, with archaeology, helped dispel the idea that we can apply to the older world the post-industrial society's idea of novelty and of "change and progress" as things constantly desired.

Quote:shipbuilding technology advanced

I think that is an idea you'd have to define as well as justify.  Ships are either better- or worse- suited to a particular sea and a particular purpose, and a ship which is made better for certain needs in a certain sort of sea may actually become less well suited to other seas and other needs. But then I wasn't talking about the botanical section in relation to ship-building so much as maintaining a ship or caravan and its crew.  Because that's what most of the plants in that section are useful for.  I always work from the evidence offered by the primary object, through the archaeological, ethnological, art-history and other matter, from which I reach any conclusions.  Apart from anything else, I like to be able to show exactly how I came to hold an opinion on any point. 

Quote:climate...

VVviews, you're just guessing aren't you? 

In fact two important impacts on the maritime trade between Alexandria-Cairo and the Indian Ocean were (1) the shifting of the east African plate which raised the level at which the Nile entered the head of the Red sea and (2) that eruption which brought the 'mini ice-age' upon Europe. It certainly did occur in southeast Asia, but to see whether and how it affected imports of eastern products, one has to rely less on hypothesis and what seems plausible to oneself, and much more on the contemporary tax-records, mercantile accounts and so forth.  Not many Voynicheros seem to have that level of interest in history, or enough time to do research of that depth.

Quote:I would think that a guide to trading in the Orient written in 1017 would be utterly useless, and potentially even dangerous to a trader working in 2017 so why would it be different then.

First, if Koen is arguing that the written part of the text is a trader's account of the Orient written in the eleventh century (or earlier) then it's his take, and only he can explain why he thinks that might be so.

As for imposing the standards of the twenty-first century, with rapid travel, mass invasion by tourists and armies of anywhere the Google app provides a map for, and mass media and mass individual transport etc... upon the medieval east or west, it is a huge anachronism, sorry.
Look at it this way: when nineteenth century archaeologists went to Egypt, they noted that the customs of the people remained recognisably those described by Herodotus, even though Herodotus lived before Alexander the Great, and by the nineteenth century every formal aspect of the older Egyptian culture and of Greco-Egyptian culture - was long gone.

 

Quote:.. obsolete knowledge..

Is astrology 'obsolete knowledge'?  Is the book of Genesis 'obsolete knowledge'?  Are Plato's dialogues 'obsolete knowledge'?  Most of the texts excerpted to provide the little captions on Latin European mappamundi were 'obsolete' in that sense.

Quote:And by the way, those provincial mariner books did survive: see the Michael of Rhodes MS I put in the library for one example.

Oh, how nice of you.  You know, I think you must be the first person to have taken seriously my references to Michael of Rhodes and other navigators... or to the relevance of navigational and maritime practice, in general.

Thank you.  I hope more people will do the same in the time to come.

I'd have to say I agree with VViews when he argues that a thousand year old copy of a guide book would be useless - maybe he shouldn't have used the modern age as an example, but certainly a Roman era guide book would not serve in the late middle ages. Obviously certain items of knowledge are immutable - willow is good for headaches, this plant is good for fibre making, these shells make purple dye - but human geopolitical or technology changed so much that it wouldn't be useful. And again my question - why just one copy? Why no tradition, no reference, no other copies over a thousand years?

Note that I'm not attacking any suggestion that the knowledge or the influences are based on earlier times - I'm simply questioning the reasoning behind saying that it's a faithful copy of a centuries earlier work.

But Diane, all of your counter-argument to VViews are abstract theory. It all starts from Koen's suggestion, but there is no evidence either way to back it up, so let's not argue over the political history of the middle east- which is rather off topic to this thread- but return to the influence of medieval art in the VMS.

Quote:Koen:
Well, most of the elaborately illuminated manuscripts we study were made for rich patrons and cared for in libraries. This is why they survived and we can still see them. But the VM is described by the Beinecke library as a work in "provincial" style, which means that it does not appear to have been made in a major scholarly centre. Manuscripts made for kings, and copies of those manuscripts, were much more likely to survive than any "provincial" works.

Sorry, that just isn't true. Christopher de Hamel estimates that there are "upwards of a million medieval manuscripts" known and catalogued, and that's without tax records, government paperwork, notorial records and personal archives.

David: note the "elaborately illuminated", which is the critical part of my statement. At least the impression that I get is that very often when we see manuscripts with  drawings on every page, it is either commissioned by a rich person or a copy of such manuscript. But do correct me if I'm wrong.

I'll split this thread after submitting this reply