The Voynich Ninja

(15-04-2017, 09:21 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sorry JKP, I was being frivolous.

What is interesting is to consider the type of material used. Is this ink or pencil? It's obviously a very different ink flow than that used in the main lettering.

If this is child scribbling - which I agree it looks like - what sort of implement would allow a child to scribble like that? A traditional ink quill would require constant re-inking and you would expect a child to blot constantly.

I think this is a good question. I've often wondered if it was drawn/written with something different from a regular quill. It almost looks like silverpoint, which was commonly used to draw before graphite-based pencils were invented, but I really can't tell from a scan.

Chicken scratches of the f86v3.
Can it be "Luminaris"? (Lumin.ris)
Luminaris (Lat.) - of a luminary.
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The larger part of the VMs pages is clean, therefore a few those pages that look quite stained make think that another (untidy) person tainted them with illegible scratches, stains and lines. But if it is mistaken? 
I suspect that the author of these scribbles is a great master of steganography and he/she is also likely the author of the VMs. I'd like to pay your attention to what a shape form the scrathes of the f86v3. It is not obvious from the first look and can be cosidered accidental, but look at the two scratches after the R-like (or Z-like) character in the bottom row, although they look just like accidental lines as a result of carelessness, but looking on the whole picture of scribbles we can see that they continue the bottom line to be connected with the top line in the end. Besides, as I shew in the previous post, I think the first letter "L" is the first letter for both "words" (lines). All these, as I suppose, form a shape of steganographical scratches - almond-shaped. 
[attachment=2010]
What can it be: a fish, an eye? Why is it here? As I wrote in the previous post, I interprete this illegible inscription as the word "Lumin!ris" doubled in two rows. I don't know whether it is true, but it is interesting that in Latin it is not only the noun in singular genitive (of luminary), it is also can be a form of the verb "lumino" (luminaris - Present indicative passive, lumineris - Present conjunctive passive). For example, "lumineris" can be translated as "May you will be able to see". Thus, the shape of an eye is a hint coonected with the text of the scribbles.
If it is true, it reveals the author of this "image" as a very interesting and ingenious person.

I don't know if the circle in the middle of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is considered as part of these so called "scribbles", but I had to revive this old thread to share this diagram I found in a version of La Sfera that was shared by Koen G in another thread (f21, link below)

I don't know if this pattern of diagram was typical in MS of the time. Maybe it is unimportant, but I'll share here it regardless.

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It looks like two lines of scribbles to me. It resembles the way children write when they are shown how to write their names in cursive but they don't quite know how to do it yet.

The T-O shape is much more even and controlled, probably a different person from whoever added the scribbles. AStobbart, yes, the T-O shape is quite common in medieval manuscripts.

(28-06-2020, 02:17 AM)aStobbart Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't know if the circle in the middle of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is considered as part of these so called "scribbles", but I had to revive this old thread to share this diagram I found in a version of La Sfera that was shared by Koen G in another thread (f21, link below)

I don't know if this pattern of diagram was typical in MS of the time. Maybe it is unimportant, but I'll share here it regardless.

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Yes i think that is a relevant pattern. Do you see the comparison with the other map on that page? The Mediterranean is like the vertical part of the T, the red sea or the Nile beside it would be one half of the horizontal, the Aegean/black sea/don river would be the other side. However the copy you posted is printed so is a later version.

Here is another version of that page, also a later version. There are many others. 



Contrast that with todays understanding, which includes a larger area. The smaller area was the ecumene of that time, or at least relatively recent, given people had already been to China. However the one on that page, as with the cosmos one at least, are inverted TO's which may mean they are not the Asia africa europe denotation but  water, earth, and inhabited earth, the latter being the ecumene of the time, which together is a larger view of the world. Or perhaps it is meant to be both, if you turn it, you can time travel a bit...the tilt reminds me of precession, another form of time travel, or time keeping of a long period. 

I don't know if it has to do with the scribbles though. I also think it is two lines of scribbles, not a shape. This might have been the outer back page of the quire when folded, from before being bound, which might be why it is extra dirty and has the scribbles, just like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the last page of quire 8, and same thing might have happened to both. Seems to be WS or VS or VR or WR over and over, on both.

aStobbart, the reason it was divided into three is because the Earth was divided up among the three sons of Noah.

I had a play with the scribbles on f86v3 across the TOmap and JKP's suggestion of a childs scribbles seems the best so far.
Perhaps i spent too many hours looking but it  looks like multiple signatures, a repeated pattern of english 'W.R' 4-5 times on the top line, maybe one 'WR' near the end of the 2nd line.
Did children practice their signatures then? Was a signature a thing back then?
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When you put it like that, it surely looks like writing. 
May it be possible that a later owner put a piece of note paper on the vellum and wrote something, not realizing is was leaving an imprint below?

Great image processing, RobGea. It’s much easier to separate signal from noise than the hi-res Beinecke Library scan.

Paging @LisaFaginDavis, an expert in medieval handwriting. I’d be very interested in hearing what letterforms she sees here.

My children are currently learning cursive writing. I blew their minds yesterday by telling them that there are cursive Chinese characters, whereby the brush or pen is not lifted from the paper until starting the next character. They wanted to know how such writing could possibly be legible. The answer is that the stroke order and stroke direction of Chinese characters is rigidly
codified. Figuring out what a cursive character is involves determining which lines were drawn before which others, which is easy if you look at the pen or brush trails.

Theoretically most writing systems have a standardized stroke order and stroke direction for composing all glyphs, and that was certainly true of the Roman alphabet throughout most of its history. Might the order in which the lines and loops of the scribbles on f86v3 and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. were drawn give some clue as to what letters were intended?