I wish all Voynich folios were as easy as this one!
Searcher wrote this:
Every of the four diagrams on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is connected by a tube with the sun or the moon, so every of them has some relation to one or the other.
And indeed, the diagrams have to do with the positions that the sun and the moon adopt between them. They are the planetary aspects, as anyone who knows anything about astrology well knows.
In this table from a Byzantine manuscript we see in a central column the planetary aspects in the form of pictograms:
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Except for the pictogram above that represents the sun, the others are the positions that it adapts with the moon: the opposition, the trine, the square and the sextile. It is the same thing that we see with the little heads in the f67v.
At the time of the Voynich, these pictograms did not yet exist, just as those of the zodiacal signs did not exist. They begin to be seen in the second half of the fifteenth century
(24-02-2022, 10:20 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It looks like Searcher's Coptic example uses the symbols as a form of sacred writing, reserved for invocations of the names of God, angels etc. "Around him are written various sacred names, including those of God the Father and the seven archangels, written in the style of the magical symbols we call kharaktēres, with decorative circles at their points."
That's interesting, thank you Koen! E.g. the name ΜΙΧΑΗΛ Mikail is easy enough to read.
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Quote:This may explain the ultimate origin of these symbols, though it takes us further away from the VM (early 15th century). From what I have read so far, it looks like the use in Hebrew texts was the same.
By the 15th Century the origin of this class of symbols was probably lost, but I guess the whole point of sigils still was some kind of written language to communicate with "magical" beings like angels and demons.
The single dots-and-lines diagram in the VMS could be a V, we know this symbol was later used for Aqua Vitae and this was possibly due to the initial V. Of course, it would be nice to find other uses of that specific symbol that pre-date the VMS (we know it was already used for constellations at that time).
EDIT: an interesting paper by Richard Gordon about Greek-Egyptian "charakteres" also mentioning their relationship with ciphers and invented alphabets:
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I think it is definitely a good idea to look for similar illustrations in other manuscripts. However I would suggest some caution as connected dots are a relatively common and easily found kind of drawing with very varied meanings. See the photo below:
Hello DavidJackson, since you live in the south of Spain, I'm sure you don't lack a sense of humor. Your interpretation of this diagram of You are not allowed to view links.
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The bald person could be a serf or an unlettered person; the hat symbolises a learned person; then we could have something like the legal profession (funny hairstyle!) and above some sort of Boss (Judge? Aristocracy?)
The reality is more prosaic. As Searcher said in his post, that diagram, like the rest, is connected by tubes to the sun and the moon in the central part of the page. I already said in my previous post that it is about astrological aspects. In that particular one, the opposition and the conjunction of the planets are represented (The sun and the moon were considered planets in the Middle Ages).
The little head with the pointy hat (
the learned person) is simply the Earth, which casts its shadow on the moon in that way in eclipses when it is in opposition to the sun.
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The faces form greek letters rotated in different degrees: pi, ro, chi and gamma.
Chi has a similar sound as latin i (please, greek expert needed
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In latin letters they are P R I G. By context they can be interpreted as perigaeum (if latin), or similiar word in other romance language. Perigee in english.
Perigee nowadays
is a type of apsis, an extreme point in an object's orbit.
I dont know if the meaning or perigee in the time when the ms was written was the same than now.
(28-02-2022, 03:18 PM)Juan_Sali Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The faces form greek letters rotated in different degrees: pi, ro, chi and gamma.
I do like the general idea. Note, however, that gamma is a mirror image.
(28-02-2022, 03:18 PM)Juan_Sali Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Chi has a similar sound as latin i (please, greek expert needed )
No Greek expert here, but that is certainly not correct.
(28-02-2022, 03:18 PM)Juan_Sali Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perigee nowadays is a type of apsis, an extreme point in an object's orbit.
I dont know if the meaning or perigee in the time when the ms was written was the same than now.
This is absolutely out of the question. The idea that orbits were not circular, but elliptical (and thus have a periapsis), was born with Kepler, almost 200 years after the writing of the Voynich MS.
I hadn't considered that option yet. Mightn't it also be P, U, X, L then?
The top is certainly interesting. There is the usual ambiguous identification. Are the letters properly squared on the page, or have they gone crooked, and lined up with a radial interpretation. 'Rho' certainly has; 'Chi' not so much. The 'Chi rho' sequence clearly has strong religious implications. What with the recent consideration of "New Jerusalem" in the Rosettes and similar possibilities with the rainbows, crosses and rings. Perhaps there is an element of disguised religious interpretation in the VMs illustrations. Perhaps the reader is familiar with armorial and ecclesiastical heraldry. The VMs artist certainly was. The religious were educated and the educated were religious.
It is the dual aspect of orientation that creates the ambiguity. Does the interpretation coincide with the vertical or with the radial orientation? It's the same trick used in White Aries to confuse the heraldic orientation of the Genoese Gambit. The VMs artist has various sorts of tricks that are used in the VMs cosmos, the mermaid and other illustrations. The use of dual interpretation of orientation shows that the deception is intentional. Appearance is ambiguous; tradition verifies structure.
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I will remake my previous post with your suggestions and new ideas.
The faces form greek/latin letters, 3 of them rotated in different degrees: pi/P, ro/P, chi/X. The forth as a mirror gamma and a L.
The bottom left image in T-O style can hide more letters: O, D, T/tau.
The options to interpretate them as letters are wide. They could form a unique word or different words combinating different amounts of letters.
An interpretation as several mentions to God:
PaPa, tau-ro (staurogram), chi-ro (chrismon), X (Christ), GOD, GOT.
I've not seriously considered this page, previously. The illustrations are so sparse that it seems there is nothing very clear to indicate a potential interpretation. It is easy to skip over this page. Perhaps that is the intention. The old Jedi mind-trick: "Nothing to see here. Move along" When, in fact, it is just the opposite in this case.
If the interpretation of the "chi-rho" sequence is accepted as valid, there could hardly be any clearer indicator of Christian religious interpretation, in terms relevant to the C-14 dates. Still dual interpretation creates ambiguity. And it is more difficult to recognize and correctly name something that is unknown.
When a valid interpretation can be established, and ambiguity and obfuscation get resolved, it is like a light turned on. Still, nothing in the VMs stands on its own. However, there are a growing set of examples in VMs illustrations, where this interpretation will add strong support to these other factors that favor the religious interpretation in certain images. What more could there be?
I did notice on the interior end of the 'rho' diagonal that there was a part of a solar representation. And also that it was matched by another solar representation on the 'gamma' diagonal. So, we have a pair of suns. The VMs makes use of parings. And what is the little rectangular item in the middle. Let's call it a map. And where do we have a map with two suns?? It's the VMs Rosettes. Is this going to help anything? Probably not. It might help if we could read.
As to 'pi' and 'gamma' - who knows? I read that images of pommegranates were sometimes associated with 'chi-rho' symbolism, <but, now I am joking>.