The Voynich Ninja

It's basically the same as the previous book—the same contentious IDs and the same unsupported assumptions (even a lot of the same wording):

"The mysterious Voynich Codex has been shown to be a sixteenth-century Mexican manuscript, on the basis of the presence of New World plants and animals and the presence of Mexican landmarks. The evidence dates to a seminal 1944 note by the Reverend Dr. Hugh O'Neill, who reported the presence of sunflower and capsicum pepper in the Voynich Codex, clear evidence that the Voynich Codex must be post-Columbus because these two species are indigenous to the New World."


There's very little evidence, and no proof whatsoever, for any of their highly disputed identifications.


It's another House of Cards, where one assumption is piled onto the previous ones to create an increasingly unstable argument.


In the next part, they put down other Voynich researchers, and then they continue to claim they have identified unclearly drawn plants.

And they call this "botanical evidence"?

"However, botanical evidence indicates that the work contains New World plants... which contravenes the conventional wisdom based on the dating of the vellum."


I've said this before with regard to their articles and the first book, but I guess I'll say it one more time..

How can ANY reputable botanist ignore these facts:

• Many plants are circumboreal, including the more clearly drawn ones in the VMS (e.g., Viola, Nymphoides, Centaurea), and
  
• A very high proportion of plants that resemble VMS drawings have look-alikes on both sides of the Atlantic.
  

Which means their disputable plant IDs don't prove anything and certainly don't prove a New World origin.


I can't believe it. It defies comprehension that anyone calling themselves professionals could make statements like this.

It reminds me of the reply I got a while ago when I enquired the magazine's editor about his opinion on Cheshire's paper. The gist of it was: there are many different opinions about the VM, so anything goes. 

I think we're seeing the same here. In order to force-crack the mystery, otherwise intelligent, knowledgeable and capable people lower their standards of research.

I'd say they are also lowering their standards of thinking.

"Aztec palaces were centers of learning, unlike European palaces, whose elite were often uneducated and unbathed." Tucker and Janick.

Blanket statement.

I don't have time to look into this, but does anyone know which pigments were used in 16th century Mesoamerica?

There is some research on Maya blue, which has different components from the azurite blue (plus traces of cuprite) that were found in the Voynich Manuscript.

There is a brief article on the components of Maya blue in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. It's made from an "extract from the leaves of the indigo plant and a clay mineral called palygorskite". But there may have been other blue pigments used in the 15th and 16th centuries in this area in addition to Maya blue.


I can't be sure without more research (which unfortunately I don't have time for), but are Tucker and Janick ignoring the radiocarbon dating of the VMS and the components of the pigments?

It's disturbing that a high-priced "scholarly" book by people who call themselves botanists has so many of the Linnaean names incorrectly spelled.

I've only looked at four pages so far and there are already two botanical names spelled wrong:

• Saliva hispanica (this should be Salvia hispanica. Salvia is a very common species—a botanist SHOULD be able to spell this correctly without thinking).
  
• Lithophramga affine (this should be Lithophragma affine which, by the way, is a California plant that does not grow in Mesoamerican).
  

I'm not even a botanist and I knew at a glance that these were incorrect.


I've noticed that when they can't identify a plant, the authors resort to saying it's a combination of two plants.

Now, it is possible that some VMS plants are combinations (anything's possible at this point), but if that's so, then how can the authors be so definite about WHICH plants were combined when there are so many different possible combinations of stems, leaves, roots, etc.? And if there are combination plants, then how do they know the ones they identified as single plants are not also combinations of plants that simply look on the surface like single plants?

I now have doubts about their claimed professional knowledge. Why would a botanist make this statement?

"Those who need convincing of the concept of hybrid phytomorphs [the authors are referring to combination plant drawings] need only to examine fol. 90r, where a flower has been grafted onto a fern."   Tucker and Janick, 2019

Anyone who knows plants knows there are hundreds of species of flowering plants with fern-shaped leaves. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is one of the more obvious examples.

OMG. I can't believe this. Are these guys really botanists?

They have identified You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(Beinecke, or f90v2 on Voyager) as Osmundus regalis [sic] saying it's a fern with grafted-on flowers! (and they spelled the Linnaean name wrong, it's Osmunda regalis, not Osmundus).

Mistake after mistake after mistake.


Plant You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view./f90v2 does not have fern leaves!!! They are odd-pinnate leaves growing up along the stem. Fern leaves grow from the base except for a few like the bracken ferns and they don't look like this and of course they don't have flowers.

It's a seriously wrong assessment.

I think it's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (also called Phu) and it's a pretty good drawing. AND it is consistent with other medieval drawings of Phu, as you can see by the following examples (note that all of these drawings of Valerian have odd-pinnate leaves growing up the stem and most of them have flowers that split into multiple heads, plus there are more drawings with the same characteristics that I didn't even include):




I am, quite frankly, shocked. This is not a hybrid plant with a flower grafted onto Osmunda.

I don't care what the authors' credentials are. It's obvious these guys don't know plants. No competent botanist would identify this drawing as a fern (and they keep misspelling the Linnaean names). Even a casual gardener can see this is not a drawing of a fern.

(27-09-2019, 11:34 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd say they are also lowering their standards of thinking.

I stand corrected, lowering all standards
You got me at the thing about the palaces. Feels like engaging with this work is a waste of time...

The authors identified a little fuzzy sprig in the small-plants section as Huperzia beiteliana.

This is club moss. The plant snippet does resemble club moss, but there are about 400 species of club mosses and they grow all over the world, so how can the authors presume to narrow it down to H. beiteliana?


In the explanation for the next plant ID (another form of moss), the authors have incorrectly transliterated VMS chos cTharal into opchy Tcasal.  I don't understand why, but presumably they wanted to turn it into a valid Spanish word, and the explanation that it translates to māncuonoca doesn't work if one uses the existing VMS glyphs:

[attachment=3375]

They identify this as Huperzia dichotoma which is a HANGING club moss. If someone collected it in the wild, they would always see it hanging from a tree branch, not standing up. In the U.S., it is found only in Florida (it is red-listed as Critically Imperiled), and is rare to uncommon in parts of Brazil and Mexico. Since it is fussy about its habitat (certain kinds of tree bark), it has probably never been common.