The Voynich Ninja

(10-05-2019, 01:28 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, a long list of erroneous thinking does not rule out the possibility that Tucker could be right on a few of the plant associations.

In theory this is true, but New World plants in the MS can only coexist with the radiocarbon dating if either:
- the identified plants know global distribution or
- you cast Occam's razor into an active volcano and come up with a theory that adds too many unlikely and unproven assumptions

(10-05-2019, 04:48 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(10-05-2019, 01:28 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, a long list of erroneous thinking does not rule out the possibility that Tucker could be right on a few of the plant associations.

In theory this is true, but New World plants in the MS can only coexist with the radiocarbon dating if either:
- the identified plants know global distribution or
- you cast Occam's razor into an active volcano and come up with a theory that adds too many unlikely and unproven assumptions

It seems wind and ocean waves can distribute plant life across continents but the same cannot be said for animal life, which brings us back to the age-old question: Is it an armadillo or a pangolin?

The VMS depicts swamps:

i. "Found from South and Central America to Oklahoma, the armadillo tends to live in forests near swampy areas."

or 

ii. Pangolins "occupy an assorted range of habitats, from forests to grasslands to savannahs."

Conclusion: As the armadillos seem to have a greater affinity for swamps than the pangolins, a slight advantage goes to the armadillo.

The VMS depicts white women living in those swamps:

i. For 1438 or earlier, armadillo supporters claim it is was widely reported that Viracocha Inca, who ruled from 1410 to 1438, had a beard, ie. was at least partially white because native Americans did not grow beards.

or

ii. For 1438 or earlier, pangolin supporters are unable to produce a single depiction of the pangolin from any European manuscript and are also unable to produce any type of evidence for a European community living in southern Africa or southeastern Asia where the pangolins lived.

Conclusion: pending evidence to be supplied by the pangolin supporters, the advantage goes to the armadillo.

(10-05-2019, 02:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is it an armadillo or a pangolin?

Or is it a ram?

Doesn't matter. Since we don't know what it is, we cannot use it as evidence.

It's all one big hypothesis, based on small individual hypotheses.

(10-05-2019, 02:27 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(10-05-2019, 02:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is it an armadillo or a pangolin?

Or is it a ram?

Doesn't matter. Since we don't know what it is, we cannot use it as evidence.

It's all one big hypothesis, based on small individual hypotheses.

The strongest arguments for the armadillo do not come from Tucker but from supporters of the modern forgery theory, that is, from people who take a more scientific approach.

I think they didn't know what an armadillo was and that's why a depiction of the armadillo, but not any depiction of native Americans, got through (ie. is not included in an unknown amount of missing pages).

PS 1. The depicted armadillo is in the process of rolling itself up into a ball to protect itself from the gal who wants to use it to make a skirt. I'm not sure without looking it up, do pangolins also roll themselves into a ball for protection?

PS 2. I'm not so sure a ram is worthy of consideration. 

(10-05-2019, 03:32 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... do not come from Tucker but from supporters of the modern forgery theory, that is, from people who take a more scientific approach.

I don't know if you do it intentionally, but you are an expert in producing troll bait 

(10-05-2019, 02:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
It seems wind and ocean waves can distribute plant life across continents but the same cannot be said for animal life, which brings us back to the age-old question: Is it an armadillo or a pangolin?

...

This is not a scientific way to ask a question. You've already pre-decided what it might be, which means you might completely overlook the best answer.

A better way would be... "What can this drawing represent?"

Then you get possibilities like, pangolin, armadillo, aardvark, sheep, goat, mythical creature, heraldic emblem, satirical representation (e.g., political, religious, etc.), golden fleece, hybrid animal, agnus dei, and several others.

If you work through them, you can often shorten the list to the most likely possibilities. But don't make a decision about what it is yet. It would be premature.

Now take the next piece of evidence and investigate that and see how it relates the creature, to see if any of the results of THAT list and then the next and the next. You might have to investigate 1,000 or 10,000 pieces of evidence before you can come back to the first one and see potential patterns.


You said you've done 40 years of research, but if it was 40 years of cherry-picking and assumption-filtered investigation, then it wasn't really research. With the VMS, you have an opportunity to do REAL research.

(10-05-2019, 05:35 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(10-05-2019, 02:21 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
It seems wind and ocean waves can distribute plant life across continents but the same cannot be said for animal life, which brings us back to the age-old question: Is it an armadillo or a pangolin?

...

This is not a scientific way to ask a question. You've already pre-decided what it might be, which means you might completely overlook the best answer.

A better way would be... "What can this drawing represent?"

Then you get possibilities like, pangolin, armadillo, aardvark, sheep, goat, mythical creature, heraldic emblem, satirical representation (e.g., political, religious, etc.), golden fleece, hybrid animal, agnus dei, and several others.

If you work through them, you can often shorten the list to the most likely possibilities. But don't make a decision about what it is yet. It would be premature.

Now take the next piece of evidence and investigate that and see how it relates the creature, to see if any of the results of THAT list and then the next and the next. You might have to investigate 1,000 or 10,000 pieces of evidence before you can come back to the first one and see potential patterns.

You said you've done 40 years of research, but if it was 40 years of cherry-picking and assumption-filtered investigation, then it wasn't really research. With the VMS, you have an opportunity to do REAL research.

By the epoch 1404 to 1438, the rebellions against the Church of Rome were completely crushed and Catholicism reigned supreme, resulting that the religious beliefs of the Catholics were expressed in many manuscripts of that epoch. The VMS, however, not only reflects virtually nothing of the Catholic religion, it establishes several links to a rebel religion that was stamped out some two hundred years earlier. In those circumstances, it makes sense to look through the VMS to see if it depicts anything not normally seen in Europe.

Enter the mystery animal of f80v. You see it here on the top left:



Just to the right of the mystery animal, you see an armadillo, which is an animal native to the Americans and never seen in pre-Columbian Europe. Notice that the mystery animal and the armadillo both have scaly skin, similar looking ears, similar looking hind legs, and a short tail. Six hundred years ago, there were many species of armadillo in the Americas, many of which are now extinct, but at least one species of armadillo without bands is still extant.

Below the mystery animal, you see a pangolin, an animal whose native habitat is southern Africa and southeastern Asia. It too has scaly skin, but unlike the mystery animal, it has ears that are hard to detect, thick hind legs, and a very long tail.

So, what is this mystery animal likely to be?

i. an armadillo?

ii. a pangolin?

iii. a "mythical creature" that looks like an armadillo?

Recall Koen's Razor.

***

JP, for me, the identity of the mystery animal isn't so doubtful that it would require the more rigorous approach that you suggest. That's not to say that it is definitely an armadillo, only that the possibility of it being an armadillo cannot be ignored.

I've never ignored the possibility of an armadillo. THAT'S THE  WHOLE POINT. I make lists, and then I look for other information that helps confirm or deny the data. I'm not crossing off any of the possibilities until I know more.

Look at some of these medieval drawings of animals. Some of them are impossible to identify without the labels (one of my favorites is the ants that look like bears):

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The VMS illustrator probably didn't do too badly when copying from exemplars (e.g., zodiac symbols), but it's possible some of the drawings came from his or her imagination, and thus we don't know how far they diverge from real animals.

.
As for your argument of pangolin versus armadillo, you honed in on ears, but you didn't provide a convincing argument for the scales. The armadillo has plates (they overlap in bands) and the scales are fused (not overlapping), the pangolin has overlapping scales, so in this respect, the pangolin is more similar. Also, the claws on the armadillo are longer and more obvious than a pangolin.

Personally I'm not convinced it's either. I think it could be a badly drawn fleece or mythical animal, and Koen has even proposed (with a pretty good argument) that it might be an aquatic animal (note the tail). I'm completely undecided, so everything stays on my list for now.


Take a look at this piece of jewelry, long legs and curled horns, so not a good match overall, but look at the fleece. It's created as scales. I've seen medieval drawings of sheep and goats that look this way, with scaly-textured coats:


Image Credit: Armourandcastings.com

Armadillo species are often defined by the number of bands on their back. I've said before, in Dutch, German etc. they are called "belt-animal". In many other etymologies, they are called "armored ones" or something along those lines, the armore referring to the large plates. It has no real scales, just bony plates.

The pangolin on the other hand, has scales.

That's irrelevant, however, since in medieval beast books, scales plus a forked tail means "this animal lives in the water".

(11-05-2019, 01:57 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Enter the mystery animal of f80v. You see it here on the top left:



Just to the right of the mystery animal, you see an armadillo, which is an animal native to the Americans and never seen in pre-Columbian Europe. Notice that the mystery animal and the armadillo both have scaly skin, similar looking ears, similar looking hind legs, and a short tail. Six hundred years ago, there were many species of armadillo in the Americas, many of which are now extinct, but at least one species of armadillo without bands is still extant.

Below the mystery animal, you see a pangolin, an animal whose native habitat is southern Africa and southeastern Asia. It too has scaly skin, but unlike the mystery animal, it has ears that are hard to detect, thick hind legs, and a very long tail.

So, what is this mystery animal likely to be?

i. an armadillo?

ii. a pangolin?

iii. a "mythical creature" that looks like an armadillo?

iv. A rutting ram, but which is not real, but signifies the western side of the Alps up to about Lake Garda, its horns pointing at Venice from the lower eastern edge of the lake The scales are reminiscent of mountains on maps, and are painted green to signify mineralized runoff. This is consistent with various springs being found along the edges.The tail is forked because the landscape is as such, a river forks in that area. The leg of Switzerland is the front leg, Milan is the foot, the mouth is Lake Como,  the back leg is a valley near the center of the curve, or perhaps indicatesTurin. The back leg may indicate Genoa.





Note how none of the maps show the Austrian Alps. The second portolan rendition shows the fork in the rivers, where the tail is. These are actually  later versions but the 1375 Catalan Atlas shows the same features and has pangolin-like scales for mountains. I just could not find a closeup of the alps at the moment.

Just thought i would show that although it may look like an animal, the story could be quite different, but we can't really know what it is meant to portray until we can read the text and hopefully it will give us context.