The Voynich Ninja

Why do the Zodiac section, Q13A and Q13B all favor naked  nude female forms for their human figures? This is a question I have pondered often, and which, in my opinion, might provide some insight into the manuscript's underlying thoughts.

(In fact, only one part of the manuscript uses human figures which are not predominantly nude and female: the four-figure diagrams.)

When looking exclusively at Q13B (the central pool pages), the argument would be simple. The women are nude because they are bathing, and they are mostly women because communal baths or bathing sites for women are often no men allowed.

[attachment=3969]

Just some women bathing in two orderly rows, no big deal. We know of other manuscripts with more or less similar imagery (Balneis etc).

But then move to Q13A, and the situation becomes more complicated. Some of the figures are still standing in pools, but they engage in unusual activities like physical conflict, or they hold items we don't recognize, or wouldn't immediately associate with bathing or even medicine (thinking of the spindles for example). The bases on which they stand become more complex and hard to explain in literal terms. Symbols like cloud bands appear.

[attachment=3970]


Moving into the sub-subsection with rainbows and other elemental madness, things get even more complex. Still, everything is performed by nude human figures.

[attachment=3971]

Now in Q13, all but a dozen or so figures appear to be standing in at least a personal basin of water. But move over to the Zodiac section, and you see the same kinds of figures marching along concentric circles around their Zodiac symbol. For sure, there are exceptions (notably the circles with clothed figures), but the nude female appears to be the general rule.

[attachment=3972]

So what gives? I understand that bathing and even medicine may require nudity, but why are the same strange figures holding rainbows or queuing around a month emblem while holding stars? There seems to be some continuum in how easy or hard it is to explain the figures in a literal sense. Is it possible that Q13B (pools) is about literal bathing, while the same bathers also function as personifications (?) of days (?) in the Zodiac section?

My best guess?

They're not people. They are souls. That's how souls (dead people, mythical people, spirits, sprites, etc.) were drawn in the Middle Ages. I don't know if souls is the best word, but it's the best one I can think of at the moment, if it's used in the broadest possible sense.

JKP: that is exactly what I think is the best conclusion: souls, spirits, maybe "concepts", in a broad sense. Maybe "embodiments". There is no ideal word, but indeed I think the situation strongly suggests that they are not people. (I did my best to keep the opening post descriptive )

Further indications are that the figures have inhuman proportions (the heads are way too big for the body) but those are applied consistently so it seems more like a design element than the result of bad drawing. And their arms can twist in ways that are not humanly possible (contortionists aside).

Why female though?

In my interpretation they personify places, or regions. They stand in for the habitable aspect of the places, the collective memory of civilisations, and as such are not one soul each, but each signifies a conglomerate of communities over time. Mother Earth and all her children all at once. Demeter, Persephone and Hecate's multiple personalities, in the form of water nymphs. Virgo is an earth sign, represented by the goddess of wheat and agriculture. Combined with the idea of water nymphs, this embodies what humans exist upon, hence what civilizations are ultimately made of, populated fertile land with access to water.

Clothing indicates wealth and culture, and also longstanding nature of habitation. Headresses appear to denote physical features of the landscape. I am still working on those, but so far i am starting to detect some commonalities that seem to work out. Poses reflect history, occupation, and connections to other regions. Length of hair represents connection to the sea, the longer the hair the more seafaring the culture. Male nymphs appear to occupy alternate access points, which may indicate barren land or strategic areas not necessarily populated by civilisations, per se, but more as crossroads used by travelers and traders.

Thus i think the female aspect reflects a duality of purity and fertility which relates to places and their ability to sustain life. The male aspects seem to hint toward concepts which develop in societies beyond the idea of community, ie economics and politics, for instance. I think they are all generally unclothed to remove indications of culture, and to indicate that the conglomerate of souls includes those throughout all time and not just known history, the shared commonality of clothing then, is is the birthday suit.

Firstly, I think at historians prefer the term nude to naked in this case. Naked is often associated with the forced lack of clothing, with the shame and taboo that comes with such a situation. 
Nude lacks such connotations, and this is certainly the case in the manuscript. Everyone seems as happy as a anyone in an fkk camp! 
Secondly, there is a case to be made for the sexual overtones inherent in these forms. Long hair and swelling bellies, together with smooth white skin as depicted by the ability to blush (an indication of the person not having to carry out manual labour) were typical inductors of femininity in the middle ages, as we can see from sculpture and paintings of the time.
That is not to say that I detect any erotica in the book. Rather, the nymphs appear to be self confident depictions of assertive women. 
They most likely are, as jkp said, depicted animii.

Okay David I changed the nakeds to nudes. I was vaguely aware of the difference but picked the wrong one, maybe because of the most recent connotations of the word "nudes"


The fact that hair style and headgear are preserved is compatible with the "souls" theory. Generally some of the souls wear e.g. crowns to denote their status in life (in a symbolic deviation from the important thought that all worldly goods are left behind).


While looking for an illustration of this I came across this one, with "woman holding ring" (looks like vanity) and "people in tubs" as a bonus.

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

[attachment=3973]

It is not only the fact that nude women are almost always depicted that is striking. The different postures are a recurring element that should surely say something ( especially the position of the arms ). But what this could be, is not clear to me yet. I can only assume that from the author's point of view there is a connection between these postures and nude women.


f80r

My guess is they're just plants. Most women have names of flowers. Heidi, Rosi, Margrit, Daisy, etc.
From medicine / alchemy I know, ...
Example: The nettle is a plant of Mars and should only be used in March, and you should cut it in the morning.
The blackberry bush until the end of May at the latest. Only flowers and leaves. If it has berries, it's worth nothing.
In order for the plants to perish, I have to prepare them in baths. Fermented or cooked. Distillate or hydrolate.
The cloud bands may represent evaporation from the sun, or thickening from heating.
Clothing or not. I can see it in time whether it's in full bloom or still sealed.
Seen together, plant, flowering state, processing, application.
Seen in this way the VM has the same process as other books.
So the blue-red cube ( 102v2 ) is probably tartar ( Weinstein ). A much used mineral from wine. Scraped from barrels or produced by interaction itself. ( Application Alchemy ).
For the author it was probably too easy and monotonous to draw only leaves. Therefore naked girls.

I think Koen was on the right track with the story of Philomena. The postures of the nymphs are, in a sense, acting out a story.

On other folios, I think the nymphs are calling attention to important points.

[attachment=3974]
This is how pictures tell stories.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. once explained from my point of view, with pharmaceutical background.

When I look at this page it tells a story, even if I don't understand the text.

1. picture top right. A person, probably male, stands in a barrel and scatters or receives something. I think he/she is sowing something. ( The sowing ).

2nd picture. It looks like a cap or tent. I refer to it as the hedge. This is the time where you protect the plants from weeds, pests ( snails, lice, birds ). Today one would probably use nets, greenhouse, chemicals etc. Use. Symbolically possible would also be an umbrella or a hand.

3rd picture. She holds something in her hand, directed upwards. It looks like grain. I call that harvest.

Fourth frame. And again she's holding something in her hand, but now it's looking down. I know from experience that one dries herbs or even tobacco hanging down. Interestingly, it's also standing in a kind of drain. As if she were saying, the water has to go here. It is also nice to see how the bundles of herbs are hung up in old pharmacies. I just call it the drying.

5th frame. Here she is in a ???, I have no idea what it could be. But the person raises one leg, stretching the arms away from the body. It looks like she's stamping something. The grapes and wine comes to mind. It could be that she wants to crush something here. With grain, she'd have to beat it to separate the chaff from the wheat.

6th frame. A person, possibly with two baskets. I see something falling out of the baskets, which is in three different sizes. Do they use baskets as a sieve? I think there is a separation taking place. Example: seed, leaves, root. Something like this.

This is where the processing should continue, like grinding, rubbing, cutting, chopping, etc. That is the reason why I think that the Quire has a wrong order.

If I look at picture 1. again, how he stands in his barrel and sows something, and if I connect it with plants, the step to the signs of the zodiac and the seasons with the symbolism is not far. And when I think that he even defined the beginning of spring clearly in the book, the whole VM has a harmonious course.

---

This also explains why it is more a plough than a bird on page 1.
Or in Quire there are 20 yellow and red stars.
Cause and cure. ( Determination of the disease - application of the medicine. )


When I look at the whole book there is nothing really strange except the text.