The Voynich Ninja

Crescent moon with blue cap/veil can be found in some other sources. From Tubinger Hausbuch You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[attachment=3023]

[attachment=3027]

This is the one that looks like it has numbers on the bottom right. I mentioned this on the forum a couple of years ago but I don't think there were any responses.

It looks like 04 9° 9 (the glyph that looks like EVA-l is the old style of 4).

There's more than one way to interpret this, but one way would be day 4 of 9th month [140]9 (or month 4 9th day ___9). I suppose it could even be read in the other direction (day 9, 9th month --04).*

I tried to figure out if there were any lunar eclipses around this time but I can't remember what I did with the results of the search. It was years ago but I remember there being solar eclipses in April and October but I think I had to search quite hard to find specific info on lunar eclipses, March and September, but not September 9th (I have waaay too much data). It doesn't have to be an eclipse (or a date), but I felt that was a good place to start. There's probably more eclipse data online now than there was then, so it might be worth trying again.

But the problem with eclipses is they are only visible from certain locations, so it's not a trivial thing to try to geolocate them (plus the time of day factors in to whether one can see it). Eclipses are frequently mentioned in medieval manuscripts and sometimes there are calendrical charts working out when they will happen.

It also occurred to me that maybe it's just a date (like the date the manuscript was done), but the way it's tucked in with the drawing, it seems more likely it's related to the drawing in some way.

And... now I remember why I never finished this line of research... because it's endless. It's possible the first two characters are the common VMS "ox" combination and that only the last two glyphs are numbers (e.g., 9° 9) which could mean many things.

* Interpreting the ° symbol depends on context. In manuscripts, one often sees g° (grado) or m° (modo) as abbreviations but when it's next to a number, it frequently means it's an ordinal (e.g., 9° = 9th).

But if you follow the way the text wraps around the circle, it's clear that the text is written on the line. You have to rotate it 90 degrees ccw. Then they look more like weird a's instead of 9.

I don't think I've seen any "a" in the manuscript that look like that. Note the long s-curve tail. There are some pretty strange "a" shapes in the VMS, but they tend to look like "o" or like EVA-ch (which is maddening because there's almost no dividing line between them, it's almost like a gray scale).

But it was a VERY common style of 9 (with the loop not quite connected and the double-curve tail). In fact, that style of nine is at the bottom of the column text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , because the Latin "9" abbreviation was sometimes included at the end of the alphabet in pen tests.


One thing I noticed while creating my VMS transcripts was that the scribe was very reluctant in many cases to turn the sheet until it was absolutely necessary. I particularly noticed this when text was written within narrow bands in a complete loop. The text would start to slant at hand-turning angles until it was too far around to do it that way any more and then the folio would get turned and it would straighten out for a while until it came around a corner and it happened again. It occurred to me that this might give a clue as to how the scribe created the ms. On a table, it's not hard to turn a sheet. On a podium-style surface, it's a nuisance (you have to hold it or prop it).

The tiny loop (the one we associate with a degree symbol) is in the right orientation for reading it as a nine. The little "o" was usually slightly to the right of the letter (unless it was "q" abbrev., then the loop was sometimes directly over, but "q" wasn't shaped this way).


I'm not going to insist it's a 9, but it's drawn exactly right for a medieval "9" symbol (which was a common abbreviation symbol and also a numeral). Here are some examples so you can compare for yourself:

I can see what you are referring to, but that would be reading downward, when generally the letters are oriented around the circles.

When read in this orientation it becomes something like eva oqgy  The g is an open ended 8 with a tail, it is also seen near the top of f57v. I can only assume the y is actually on its side, but it is different than the other nearby y in that it is drawn in two separate parts, rather than hinged or attached. It kind of looks like a u or a c with a line drawn over it

EVA-g in the VMS wasn't written that way. It was written in the other style that was common (without the ess-curve in the tail). Look at the "9" in EVA-okardy just before it—that's the style that is typical for the VMS. Some scribes (not all) used the ess-curve 9 as a numeral and the straighter-curved 9 as an abbreviation symbol (and some did it the other way around).

And one needs to account for the little "o" that only appears here and which is usually either an abbreviation symbol (slightly to the right of a character) or an ordinal number symbol (which is also written slightly to the right of a character). The little "o" is written separately.

It doesn't look like EVA-d, it's all out of proportion and it wasn't written like that in the VMS. The glyph at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the Latin "cis" symbol and the VMS shape-mate is written as a continuous stroke throughout the VMS, in a way that is normal in medieval manuscripts. It's not written in two sections like the character on this folio, with the top loop added separately. The 9° does look like a normal ordinal number, however.

Even if it is the "-cis" symbol, as at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (which I don't think it is, I think it's two separate pen strokes), that would still be interpreting it in the vertical orientation.

Look at EVA-l. It's not written sideways, it's closer to vertical. If you turn your head sideways, it's way off the usual angle. If they are vertical (or mostly vertical), then the two bottom ones are closer to the medieval ess-curve "9" symbol than anything else.