The Voynich Ninja

The problem with de VMS is that is too weird to be a language but too complex to be a hoax. Therefore it must be something else. For me it's a question of sight rather than sound, because it's a time when science has some magic and it's very important the power of the images and signs.
  I think the 'magical' script was generated with a volvelle and the autocoying process described by Torsten, but with the process goberned by astronomical rules, rules which I have not yet been able to know.

When I spend time researching the VMS I only look for clues among the cultural products of the first half of the XV century. The second part can be taken into account but with caution. I discard even the XVI century for seeming anachronistic for research. I believe that humanity can not escape from its time. We are all products of our time, and the people who made the VMS are for us like from another planet.
   I am convinced that the riddle can only be solved by doing archeology and trying to find evidences with parallels from the XV century.

For the time being, I think I've found four evidences:

1ª I've seen the glyph (o) repeated in a circle of the Voynich as if (o) stands for a degree of the sphere
2ª I've seen the (i) (ii) (iii) or stripes in the clock of the Voynich and in volvelles and astrolabes of its time as if          they were segments of the sphere 
3ª I've seen the shape of the glyph (g) and (m) in stars pointers of astrolabes of the same time
4ª I've seen the numbers 8 and 4 (this latter its Arab shape) in volvelles to mark Zodiac signs

I agree with seeing glyphs on astrolabes but in what format would they be arranged so that there is meaning? 



9 is used often to abbreviate in various texts and on astrolabes, and as JKP and others have stated, it is usually found in the right places to do so. But then we need to know what the other glyphs stand for to know what the words are. But it seems too rigid a system for that to work.

Yes some could be numbers but i doubt there are only 4s and 8s and possibly 9s if the abbreviation glyphs do double or triple duty. 

Maybe they all do double or triple duty, sometimes as letters or numbers, sometimes as symbols for concepts or words. But the trick is not just to say it could be, but to show that it is. And it has to be something that works across the whole manuscript.

So what kind of system could it be?

I was thinking of one that would encode place names along with distances and directions. But there are problems, if it is something like that it doesnt seem to fit any particular pattern that you could turn into a chart.

The more complex, the harder it would be to decode it, and although i do think they were trying to hide things in plain sight, i cant imagine a system being used that couldnt be decoded on the fly, since otherwise it would mean transcribing all the time to get any info out of it. Unless it was something like charts, where you would only use them once in a blue moon, like to create a new map if one got lost or became unuseable. But i dont see the pattern of it.

What do you think they could have been wanting to encode, that would take up so much space?

Hello Linda, the astrolabe you have inserted is anachronistic. It has the Zodiac symbols, an innovation of the second half of the XV century, but that did not exist in the first half when the VMS was made. For me, the lack of Zodiac symbols at that moment is what explains the possible use of numbers as Zodiac signs in the VMS, specfically 8 and 4. 
   I think there are only the numbers 8 and 4 (the latter its Arab shape) in the VMS. The 9-like glyph is not a number. For me is equivalent to (o) and (a), but these glyphs are not letters but stand for degrees and stars on the celestial sphere.

Thanks Antonio, i didnt realize there were no zodiac listings on the earlier versions. However they may still have used the 9 as an abbreviation in a similar manner. 

How would the 8 and 4 work to show the zodiac? 

Just out of coincidence i noticed the 4th outlet on the river tube on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has the 4 at the end, and also the 4th star in the local collection of circle centred stars of f68r1, although i think both are just coincidence.

Hello Linda, in three volvelles of which I talked in a previous post I've seen the numbers 8 and 4 (the latter its Arab form) stand for Zodiac signs depending on the hours of light in each sign. These volvelles are astronomical tools from the time of the Voynich. This is a fact, not speculation.   

  There has been and there is so much speculation about the VMS that I hold on to the facts as a castaway to his table. Why the letters d and l when what we see are the numbers 8 and 4?
  
  Sometimes I think it is necessary to start researching the VMS as if it were the first time we see it, from scratch.
A big Ockham' razor cut!

(20-03-2019, 06:51 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

  
  Sometimes I think it is necessary to start researching the VMS as if it were the first time we see it, from scratch.
...

I stopped assuming it was letters, and stopped assuming it was natural language, a few days after I first saw it. I thought it was at first, but that impression ended very quickly.

It might be, but it might not. The challenge is to try to describe what it is, and while I have some sympathy for the idea of a symbolic language (I have several ideas of how this might work), I'm not sure someone would fill up 200 pages of nymphs and plants and pools and biological-looking parts with astronomical coordinates.

Hi Antonio, 

I could see it being 8 and 4 rather than d or l, and a fresh look is good idea, but my question was how would it work, as in take an example of text and show us how it would depict this info, but i read back and see you dont actually have the mechanics of it sorted out, it is just an idea of these things being involved.

i read your word document, and can't say that i agree with your idea that quire 13 shows "how the stars come come down to Earth through the pipes and tubes of the Universe..." 

My thought had been that you had identified astronomically based coordinates that might link to my ideas about mapping coordinates. But i think now i was mistaken.

I found two of your volvelles



The first one is British, 1424 copy of 1386 Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn, not sure re the other. About them, you said

Quote:  In all three volvelles, the numbers 8 and 4 appear in the inner circle, up and down, four times, separated by a cross in the Zodiac signs Geminis-Cancer on the one hand and Sagitarius-Capricornius for the other. The numbers obviously are the hours of ligth: 8 plus 8 in the day of Summer signs versus 4 plus 4 at night, and 4 plus 4 in the day of Winter signs versus 8 plus 8 during the night.    In Aries and Libra you can see 6 plus 6 because there are the same hours of light in day and night. I think the Voynich uses only the symbols 8 and 4 and no the others (5, 6 and 7) because they aren't necessary. Once fixed the tropical signs (Cancer and Capricornius) you can place the celestial objects. What matters in the Voynich it's not the hours of light but the position of the stars in the sphere.

So in this I gather you are attempting to explain why there are no 5 6 or 7 glyphs in the vms, just 4 and 8, and it is these which are setting the signs of Cancer and Capricorn so that you can place celestial objects.

I looked up a volvelle deconstruction and interestingly enough they couldnt explain that part of it, other than to identify the crosses as the summer and winter solstices and the 6's as equinoxes and they figured its purpose is medical, to do with bleeding based on the moon phases, as evidently instructions are included with at least the 1st volvelle above for doing so.

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So even if it is daylight hours related, (one description i saw said it is the times of sunrise and sunset, which seems to make sense) the first problem i see is there are 4s and 8s for Sagittarius and Gemini too, how do Cancer and Capricorn get set without confusion?

I am certainly no volvelle expert, but it seems like these are more for converting solar days into lunar days to calculate things like the date for Easter and other movable feasts, than anything for determining where stars are located. 

You would certainly need more info than a two month stretch of the same number of hours to get a determination for a particular star rise, which is the only thing i can think of with regard to identifying a star based on number of daylight hours. So i dont see how this could work. Maybe if you use the part that tells you what time it is at night based on the moon age, but then we are not talking 4s and 8s anymore.

Am i missing something?

Hello JKP and Linda. I respect very much your opinion. Everything is conjecture and nobody knows what VMS says.
  My biggest concern since I started investigating it is to try to see the VMS with the eyes of a man of the XV century. And thanks to the images I elaborated my hypothesis about the script. Everything depends on the intepretation of the imagery. Each has its own.
  I do not see nymphs or anything biological in the VMS. Following the interpretation of Panofsky, I only see stars, astral spirits that come down from heaven to fertilize the herbs ans transmit its virtues. To reach the Earth they have to do it through pipes and tubes. There is no other way because the universe is like an onion with solid layers of glass. It is not the fruit of my imagination. It is the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmological theory.
   I sincerely believe that a man of the XV century would see it that way and I sincerely believe that this man would fill up 200 pages with magical astronomical coordinates.

(21-03-2019, 07:00 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I do not see nymphs or anything biological in the VMS. Following the interpretation of Panofsky, I only see stars, astral spirits that come down from heaven to fertilize the herbs ans transmit its virtues. To reach the Earth they have to do it through pipes and tubes. There is no other way because the universe is like an onion with solid layers of glass. It is not the fruit of my imagination. It is the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmological theory.

Agreed. Also, about the theme of water flow, I don't know how widespread it was but there was a belief in a great sea above the air, "mare superior". All the water that fell from the sky in various forms: rain, snow, hail (depicted many times in the VMs exiting the tubes) had to come from somewhere. Spirits of the air and water were there to manage all these wonders somehow.