The Voynich Ninja

I may not have explained that well enough.

In that post, I was talking about combination searches.


If you search for Virgo that is male and standing, it is usually a good discriminator of traditional zodiacs. In other words, IF you search for Virgo that is male, the Capricorn that comes up is usually a traditional seagoat (rather than a 4-legged goat). Also, some have wings. 

Here is an example of a search for male Virgo (the older ones may not look as male as modern males because they have long robes and long hair but they are male, sometimes you have to compare the hair and robe to Aquarius and Sagittarius to see if it is male or female). There are also a few that are androgenous, impossible to tell if they are male or female, but I tried to screen those out of the search (not sure if I got all of them). 

After doing the search for male Virgo, I looked at Capricorn and discovered that out of c. 100 hits, about 85% have a traditional seagoat instead of a 4-legged goat, so male Virgo leans strongly toward having traditional Capricorn.

[attachment=4463]

Closeup of a small selection of male Virgo:

[attachment=4464]


So my statement in the previous post was not to say whether the majority of traditional Virgos were male or female. I was saying that if you search for male Virgo, it becomes an indicator for some of the other signs.


It takes a lot of combination searches to figure out which ones are indicators and which ones are not. And what works in one direction does not always work in the other.

On a separate, but related topic, I did some research into why some of them are androgenous.

I don't know if this explains it, but what I found was that in classical times, when goddesses were held in high regard, it was not uncommon for men to voluntarily be castrated so they could join the esteemed goddesses in the temples. Maybe that influenced classical art. I'm not sure. I just know that androgeny is common in a lot of classical imagery and a small portion of zodiacs appear to have this characteristic, as well.

Also, for a long time, males played females in theatrical productions (both east and west). I don't know if this had any influence on iconography.

(20-06-2020, 04:16 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On a separate, but related topic, I did some research into why some of them are androgenous.

I don't recall where I read this, but wasn't this because the word "virgo" sounded male to non-native Latin speakers? May have been mere speculation.

Either way, VM Virgo is not the most unambiguously feminine character. The body appears female (if the pointy thing is a breast), but the hat and hair style are closer to those of male Gemini. One could say that the hair is done up because an older or married woman is meant, but would this not be against the spirit of Virgo?

Zodiac faces for ease of comparison:

[attachment=4465]

Hello JKP thanks for the detailed comments, you seem to have access to many different sources.

I also just discovered your blog so I will have to catch up with the current state of the VMS investigation.

Also feel free to avoid this question if it's redundant or it has been answered before, but is there a concensus on why the VMS has two sections dedicated to aries and taurus? Are there other examples of manuscripts where this happens with these two particular signs?

(20-06-2020, 04:31 PM)aStobbart Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.but is there a concensus on why the VMS has two sections dedicated to aries and taurus? Are there other examples of manuscripts where this happens with these two particular signs?

I don't know if it's a consensus, but I think most people prefer the explanation that for some reason, these signs were split in half. The main argument is that they each have half of the usual 30 figures around them. So halving rather dan duplication. 

As to why, that's a different question. The simplest explanation is that it's a matter of optimally dividing the drawings over the available space. That somehow four halves fitted better than two large circles. But there may also be a qualitative separation between both halves. After all, the animals are not identical. 

This feature is unique to the VM.

See here for the summary of this thread: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Hello, aStobbart,

It was Rene Zandbergen who pointed out to me that Aries and Taurus each have 15 + 15 nymphs around them while the others have 30.

So, it's possible that Aries and Taurus are two halves of a whole.


As for similar zodiacs, I have not seen anything that is exactly like the VMS. Only a few have figures around each of the zodiac signs. Some have spokes with text in them, but what I have seen so far is never exactly 30 (or 15 + 15), they always seem to vary in number.

There is an interesting one from Bologna (Morgan MS M.511) in which the first 5 signs are doubled in the sense of having (within the roundel) two water bearers, two fish, two rams, two bulls, two sets of twins, but then, starting with Cancer, they each have one. It's almost as though someone came along when the illuminator reached Gemini and tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Um, er, you know, you don't have to double all of them, usually only the fish is doubled".

The rams are occasionally doubled  (head to head) because the theme is butting rams (this can also be seen in Morgan Ms M.700). It's not surprising that [font=Arial]Morgan Ms M.700 has a pair of rams because the animal (nonzodiac) section has an illustration of butting rams, as well. But it also has a pair of crabs (not crayfish, however).[/font]

[font=Arial]It's not uncommon for constellations to be mirrored in Arabic manuscripts (the idea is to show what constellations look like from the inner and outer viewpoints), but this happens rarely in western manuscripts.[/font]

[font=Arial]Here's an example of the Perseus constellation mirrored in an Arabic manuscript:[/font]

[font=Arial]https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0195558/800wm/C0195558-Constellation_of_Perseus,_mirrored.jpg[/font]

[font=Arial]And here is Leo mirrored:[/font]

[font=Arial]https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0195434/800wm/C0195434-Constellation_of_Leo,_mirrored.jpg[/font]

Koen, VMS Virgo looks very androgenous to me too.

I gave up trying to decide if it was male or female for the same reasons you mentioned. The body looks female, the hat and hair (and thick neck) look male.

Perhaps it is deliberately androgenous. Perhaps two people are represented. I really don't know.

I've pointed out before the duality of night - day zodiac cycles, in which certain attributes are diurnal and others nocturnal.
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I think if you reread earlier parts of this thread you'll see other good ideas put forwards by Marcop and others.

Conceptually similar Zodiac sign illustrations to those in VMs found in Ms. C 54, dated 1457-1487 (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

The VMS uses the lizardy style of Scorpius, rather than a Scorpion. There is a subset of zodiac figure styles that includes these reptilian-style Scorpio images.

There is also a group (mostly English) with dragon Scorpius, and another group (mostly south-central German and eastern France) that has turtle scorpion, which is probably Tarasque-inspired.


I have almost 700 medieval zodiac series. Most of them are complete, so the collection includes almost 8000 images.

Here are some of my blogs on the VMS zodiac symbols:


VMS Sagittarius:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Scorpius:      You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Libra:           You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Cancer:        You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Evolution of zodiacs:     You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Sagittarius:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Leo:             You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Aries:           You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Taurus:         You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
MS Libra:              You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Gemini:         You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Scorpius:       You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Male Tunics & Hats:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Aries:            You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Sagittarius:           You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Sagittarius Bow:    You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Scorpius:       You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Mapping zodiacs:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Human archer:      You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Pisces:          You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Gemini:                You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Cancer:         You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
VMS Taurus:         You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Male Tunics:        You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Illustrative traditions:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Zodiac style:          You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Evolution/migration of zodiac illustrative traditions:   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.