The Voynich Ninja

I have sent an email to Raymond Clemens from the Beinecke Library requesting a C14 examination. That's his answer:

Quote:Dear Matthias,

At present it would damage too much of the ink to remove it for carbon dating (ink does contain carbon, but very little).  We have done XRF on the ink and there are no unusual modern elements (unlike the Vinland, that had a modern form of titanium dioxide).  If it becomes possible to carbon date the ink without damaging the mss, I will certainly consider it, but given the research done to date, everything says it’s a 15th century work.


Best,

Ray

There is an approximative method of dating iron gall ink:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But I'm afraid it is out of question because it seems somewhat destructive.


Anyway I had a few other thoughts about this floating around. I cannot claim a) that my understanding goes far enough to say this would technically be possible, b) that the cost & effort would be worth a try and c) that this hasn't been discussed before.

This all is more or less based about what I read about proofing authenticity and dating / locating of the materials of the Nebra Sky Disc (yes, at first of all it had to be proven that it is not "fake")


- Natural radioactivity in the iron oxide components of the iron gall ink

As outlined here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

not heavily refined iron should contain Pb-210, a radioactive isotope of lead with a half-life of 22.3 years. Mined iron ore usually consists of a lot of by-materials, including oxidized iron.

"(...) when no radioactivity can be identified at all, it is a certain conclusion that the metal under examination is older than about 100 years."


Alas, here we could slowly grow out of luck, given the timeframe for ruling out a "modern day" forgery.

Note: this is NOT about C-14, but simply measuring the remaining radioactivity in the compounds. I don't know about the amount of testing material necessary.

Side note: the conclusive paragraph of the article is very informative about "The effort required for a forgery".


- Source of the raw materials

This is about locating the origin of used source materials via isotope fingerprinting of trace materials, lead compounds etc. and referencing them against comprehensive databases of mining history and correlating them with knowns of trade history regarding trade routes & market places. In turn this can help narrowing down dating.

For example, the copper ore source of the alloy used in the Nebra disk was exactly located to a specific deposit on Mitterberg, Salzburg (the reference database contained 50.000 entries of mines).

The source for the gold alloy was found to be identical to ore of the Carnon river, Cornwall.

The method can be applied to pigments found in color compositions, like the Lapis Lazuli in Egyptian Blue was identified to come from mines as far as Afghanistan (for a nice diagram of pigment use see here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

I believe the method may also be applicable to iron oxide sources used for iron gall ink. The samples are there, the isotopes seem to have been identified. IMHO it would be almost impossible for a "modern day" forger to source material that would be identical to medieval sources.

While I can't help the feeling that the purpose followed in this thread is to "put a stop the modern forgery hypothesis", I would like to think that the outcomes of such research would help the greater cause, overall.

As said, I would very much appreciate an experts opinion on this.

In response to Wladimir D's comment about over-painting, I would like to add that there is a very simple and cheap, non-destructive method to see "what is beneath" called Infrared Reflectography. This could aim to solve the question of text-or-images (outlines and/or coloring) first.

The ability to pinpoint mines is interesting, I didn't know this was possible.

Might McCrone still have the samples or even data required to test this?

After Raymond Clemens' answer, I don't think there are any samples left at the McCrone Institute. Unfortunately the institute did not answer my email, otherwise we would know more now.

(24-11-2019, 12:36 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.After Raymond Clemens' answer, I don't think there are any samples left at the McCrone Institute. Unfortunately the institute did not answer my email, otherwise we would know more now.

ReneZ wrote: 

Quote:Micro-samples were already taken by McCrone and they are still being kept.

A good candidate for isotope fingerprinting could be Atacamite mentioned in the report, because it there are only 500 known deposits.

---

Also Palmierite:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (scroll down for the map)

It really pays to read the report again. Regarding the samples:

Disposition of the samples

The samples from the manuscript were forwarded to Mr. Andreas Sulzer (...). We retained the microscope slides and other specimen preparations in the event you may require further analysis.

Am I missing something, where are the figures mentioned in the published paper?

I get the feeling that this is only a scan of a cover letter accompanying the actual report PDF, as mentioned at the end before the tables. Has the full PDF been published?