The Voynich Ninja

I can't help but think that "the project" came first though. Some of these constructions must have taken an enormous amount of planning. Like an exercise in creative mnemonic techniques. 

Those few plants that are easily recognizable without VM antics almost look out of place. Like the viola, it almost looks like it's from a normal manuscript.

What I've noticed about the handful that look naturalistic is that they don't look like 15th century drawings. After comparing thousands of drawings, they are more similar to ones in the mid-16th century.

So, for a long time I pondered whether it was a 16th-century manuscript (or a 16th-century fraud manuscript) but I don't think so, the other indicators don't seem to fit.


So then I looked carefully at the drawings that were closer to those in the VMS (the more real ones) and what they had in common (with each other) was that more attention was being paid to naturalistic drawings taken from real plants, rather than following all the traditional (not-so-real) ways of doing it. I think the person who drew the plants knew something about plants, observed plants more carefully than people of the time and after thinking about this for a lot of years, this seems to me the more likely explanation of why the more real drawings of VMS plants resemble those from a few decades later. If you're copying from a plant (or dried specimen), the result is different than if you are copying from a traditional manuscript.


The trend was already there. The original Greek manuscripts had quite good drawings (e.g., Juliana Anicia), but then the "dark ages" set in plant-manuscript-wise, and a lot of strange things happened over the next few centuries, probably because many were copied by medical students rather than botanists and artists, and the drawings got pretty bad, but toward the end of the 14th century, there is improvement, and by the 16th century, they were taking a more botanical approach. The VMS is not out-of-place in that sense if one is willing to accept that looking at plants rather than older manuscripts was a bit ahead of its time.

Either that or they had a really good source. I lean towards this option since I'm getting the impression that the VM is an exercise in advanced information processing. 

But yeah at times it's "too" accurate, like the scales on the water lily root we discussed earlier.

(19-08-2019, 07:51 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I can't help but think that "the project" came first though. Some of these constructions must have taken an enormous amount of planning. Like an exercise in creative mnemonic techniques. 

Those few plants that are easily recognizable without VM antics almost look out of place. Like the viola, it almost looks like it's from a normal manuscript.

The flowers are upside down, which could be a reference to the crucifixion of Peter...

The crucifixion of Peter is an interesting idea for the upside-down flowers.

I thought it might be because sometimes you have to bend the stalks the other way to flatten them for a herbarium specimen (I've had to do this myself on occasion), but if the individual drawing is a part of a larger symbolic whole, then it seems possible.


I guess we could even look at 1v the same way...

The root has always looked to me like a cross between a bear claw and a lump of fabric, coarse fabric. I thought fabric might mean a dye plant (like Hyperikon/Hypericum, which is used for the red dye in the leaves... note how half the leaves are red) but maybe it could additionally be a reference to a shroud or other cloth (like the cloak that was taken from Jesus to humiliate him or a temple veil as was depicted hanging from a rod by loops which in those days would probably be rope or fabric loops).

When Koen suggested that the Viola illustration does not seem to have any relation with the Arma Christi, or Christian imagery, I wondered, and it was not difficult to come up with this suggestion.

I don't believe it myself, but I hoped that it would start people to think.

Is this real? Or are we just projecting ideas on the illustrations?
Where is the boundary between the two?

I remain undecided but I am much more skeptical now than at the beginning. If it were really so, that "all the arma Christi are there" on "adjacent folios" then it is hard to ignore it, but it hasn't quite turned out that way so far.

I think this question is easier to answer than many others (not easy, just easier).

If eventually a full narrative, in some kind of rational order, is found in the plants, where the individual plants relate well to the whole, then evaluating it will not be as troublesome as individual IDs with no relation to what is around them.


Right now it's guesswork, but the pieces might fall into some kind of order with a bit of time and effort. If there's something there, there's a chance of finding it.

I realized you were just trolling, Rene, don't worry.

And by the way, I don't consider an upside-down flower head in the same category of "oddity" as something specifically drawn as a spike or as a double-helix.

There are small oddities and there are patterns that can possibily be discerned. So the best thing to do is observe and prioritize them and see if there are broader patterns.

So the plant that is in Arma Christi illustrations is identified by historians as hyssop.

The Hyssop we know has long graceful stalks, small leaves in rosettes along the stem, and a long flower spike with delicate violet-blue flowers. It's a fragrant somewhat shrubby Mediterranean/Caspian plant sometimes used for tea.

In the Middle Ages, it was sometimes confused with Ros Marinus (which we call Rosemary, a plant that also has small leaves and longish stalks).

Sideritis hyssopifolia is also somewhat similar to Hyssop, with long flower stalks and small leaves.



The "hyssop" of the Bible was used for ceremonial cleansing but its identity is disputed and it may not be the plant we call Hyssop. A couple of examples:

Hebrews 9:

"For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.""

Exodus 12:

"Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. "You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning."


From John 19, we get the connection to the Arma Christi:

"After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth."