The Voynich Ninja

(15-09-2016, 03:29 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Other examples from a 1594 book about fire-arms.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. BSB Cgm 8143

This is great! Thanks so much.

 Do you have an idea what material are they made with - clay, metal?

(15-09-2016, 04:01 PM)EllieV Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(15-09-2016, 03:29 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Other examples from a 1594 book about fire-arms.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. BSB Cgm 8143

This is great! Thanks so much.

 Do you have an idea what material are they made with - clay, metal?

I am sorry, Ellie.
I can read nothing of that ms

I'm not a native speaker and have no experience with this script, but it looks like the last word in the line reads "Holz", in that case it's certainly wood.

Thanks Koen, Marco.

According to Aristotle the nutrients in the body fluids are escaping through the blood vessel walls as does water through the walls of unglazed porous earthen vessels. In a possible anatomy context of this section of the VMs - porous clay pipes may represent blood vessels. This is just a thought - I am not asking anybody to agree or disagree.
The article found by Helmut refers to the object from the c1500 manuscript as porous clay pipes.
[attachment=619]

One consideration, though, is that the VM pipes have been left white on the outside, but red on the inside. I find it hard to imagine that such a difference is merely a result of shading. In that case, it seems to me as if at least one side of the tube has been treated - perhaps coated or even glazed?

(15-09-2016, 06:16 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One consideration, though, is that the VM pipes have been left white on the outside, but red on the inside. I find it hard to imagine that such a difference is merely a result of shading. In that case, it seems to me as if at least one side of the tube has been treated - perhaps coated or even glazed?

Could be.

(15-09-2016, 05:26 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not a native speaker and have no experience with this script, but it looks like the last word in the line reads "Holz", in that case it's certainly wood.

Koen, the word that you marked with ??? is "drechsler". These days, it's a surname, but in the middle ages, it meant a wood turner (as in the profession) or a wood turning tool (forerunner of the lathe).

---

(15-09-2016, 03:29 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Other examples from a 1594 book about fire-arms.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. BSB Cgm 8143

The text is describing how to take and prepare the ingredients (e.g., ash) for cultivating saltpeter.

---

---

[Edit: Addition (the forum software won't let me post this as a separate post)]

One of the things that stands out about the VMS, at a time when warfare was constant and was frequently depicted in manuscripts, is that it's devoid of traditional references to knights, armor, and weapons.


Saltpeter is almost always associated with weaponry (bombs and cannonballs have been around a long time in Europe and especially in east Asia) but it was also used for fireworks and, something I didn't know until recently, apparently it has long been used with kindling to make it ignite more readily.

JKP
The absence of reference to warfare (except for one exception where a woman appears to be taken prisoner), is one of the several items which set the manuscript's imagery apart from the way in which Latin European imagery envisages the world and I agree with you that it is not found.

On the matter of those pipes - it's quite some time since I treated that section but I also concluded that pattern indicated an impervious material, the type used for pipes and channels.  The most usual material was terracotta, though ceramic was also used. 

As I recall (sorry, I dealt with that section some time ago so I'd need to check) the earliest use of terracotta pipes was pre-Roman, and we have terracotta containers [in the form of canisters] made for other purposes too from that time.

It looks altogether as though the custom of marking that material and/or such purpose by adding lines of dots wasn't new even by the fifteenth century. 

Here's one of the oldest known examples of terracotta pipes, just for interest.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.



In the military handbooks, I'd expect that terracotta (or ceramic) canisters, if sealed, might be a form of bomb or hand-grenade.  Curiously enough, I've just published a picture of an object dated to c.12thC and which is thought to have served either as a pot-pouri jar or as a grenade. The museum opted to label it as the latter.

There are objects in the kitchen illustrations below that strike me as somewhat similar to these pipe things, with the three rows of "dots" and the way the upper and lower edges are depicted.

They are on the tables, to the right in both illustrations. These are more recent than the Voynich. I don't know where the first one is from, the Pinterest source just said Milan 1490.
Are they just some type of albarello? If not, what is their purpose?
Also, I wonder if these woodcuts may be derived from older illustrations? Either way I doubt there was any major change in kitchenware between the days of the Voynich and the date for these woodcuts.
Might they be relevant?

Could they be beakers like this one? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.