The Voynich Ninja

When I say expensive and elaborate, I'm not necessarily thinking of parchment and ink.
I'm thinking more of reactivating the tannic acid through a wooden cover that isn't there, but explains the wormholes, and only on the cover side, just to give the first and last page a darker appearance. And that with so much moisture that it works, but does not warp the parchment that it was once stretched.
For me, it's all the little details that he must have spent so much time on, and for what? These are just a few. It's also the interplay.
Maybe it's just thin coffee or tea causing the discolouration. A real expert would have to get involved here.

(13-04-2024, 06:09 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.When I say expensive and elaborate, I'm not necessarily thinking of parchment and ink.

I'm thinking more of reactivating the tannic acid through a wooden cover that isn't there, but explains the wormholes, and only on the cover side, just to give the first and last page a darker appearance. And that with so much moisture that it works, but does not warp the parchment that it was once stretched.

For me, it's all the little details that he must have spent so much time on, and for what? These are just a few. It's also the interplay.

Maybe it's just thin coffee or tea causing the discolouration. A real expert would have to get involved here.

I see what you mean by that, then. Well I am not sure why any such features, if artificially done, should be assumed to be "expensive [nor] elaborate".

It is a difficult effect to describe, but we have all often seen it: Something seems amazing, and we wonder just how it was accomplished to get it "exactly like that". But one problem is in the assumption that exactly what we see is exactly what was aimed for. Well yes, it may be difficult for us to then replicate "exactly that", but that is the wrong way to look at it. The creator may just have been satisfied with a darker or lighter effect, or more holes or less, or bigger ones, or smaller ones. Perhaps the parchment simply didn't happen to warp, because the moisture happened to be at such a level.... but a bit warped would have been fine, too. This all may just be how it happened to come out, and it might be a mistake to assigning a high degree of control or method, when none were needed nor used.

Imagine trying to perfectly recreate a Jackson Pollack painting, and when one fails, saying it was impossible for him to have done it, himself. No, there is a large degree of randomness to it, and a million Pollacks with a million years could not recreate one of his own works.

Another way to look at my point here might be by an example: Say I were to try and recreate the results seen here, but putting a wooden board over a sheet or two of parchment, adding some live insects, at a random humidity, and leaving it for a few days. Then when I check it, the parchment is darker than the Voynich f1r, there are more "wormholes", and the parchment is a bit warped. Does this disprove that this was done by a forger? I would say not at all... it is then a "proof of concept", and we can just assume some slightly different humidity, time, "worms", wood, whatever, had been used.

As for further expert input on more detailed questions about these features, of course I'm all for that. But as I've pointed out before, there is a great deal of forensic testing that has already been done, and I believe the problem is not as much a need for more testing, but a more pragmatic and less biased evaluation in the opinions derived from that testing. So yes, more testing... I would not hold out hope, though, that whatever is found is likewise edited, manipulated, and excused to fit "Genuine 1420". How can I say this?

- The radiocarbon results were averaged to be made into 1404-1438, based on an assumption the Voynich is genuine, and was made in less than ten years. But the results of the individual samples actually span 60 years or more!

- The McCrone ink analysis, wrongly claimed to perfectly support genuine and old, actually revealed several anomalies in the composition of inks and paints. Even in the very same report, McCrone suggests further testing to resolve these. This has not been done, nor even asked for.

- In the Yale Voynich publication, many anomalies and anachronisms are admitted to exist in the materials, content and construction of the Voynich, by the experts who examined it, and the tests they performed. Yet, these are either spun into being other than what they are, or are subsequently ignored, misstated, or selectively edited to appear to either not be there... all to, again, to support 1420 and genuine.

- Several test have been done, and not shared... such as multi-spectral analysis, of which only a very small sampling has been released. We still don't have the graphs from McCrone, and although I was finally able to get the radiocarbon report released after over ten years, it still does not include the graphs. There are higher resolution images of pages of the Voynich, that many have asked for, but have not been forthcoming. So there is much information "out there" which is not shared with "us". Why?

- ... and much more.

The point being, yes, more tests... but I would fear, as the history of this has so far shown... almost any test, with any result, will be morphed into the same story: 1420 Genuine European Cipher Herbal. And the few, like me, who notice this, when reporting on these problems, are met with disbelief. So call me a pessimist, but whatever the experts would say about those features you describe, would not matter much, as they would probably receive the same "processing" through a 1420 filter as everything else has to date.

Well on brighter days I'm more hopeful, and whether or not I am right or wrong in my fears for future testing, "yes" I am with you on hoping for it to come to pass.

So I assume that it was a book, so that I come to the same parchment with the same age. I will disregard the leaflets.
Since the pages must have been blank for the drawings and text to have been applied, this should be obvious. A cleaning of the parchment is visible.
General impression. Heavily used, worn.
Now you have to explain to me why a book should be worn if it was previously blank. Have so many people actually picked it up to realise that it is empty? Or is that a coincidence or part of the forgery?
Now it's getting to be too many coincidences, and for a forgery he's long overshot the mark.
Whether the parchment according to C-14 is from around 1400 or 1500 has nothing to do with a forgery from around 1900. The only issue here is the age of the source material.
How do you describe the general impression of the book?

(14-04-2024, 06:41 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So I assume that it was a book, so that I come to the same parchment with the same age. I will disregard the leaflets.

Since the pages must have been blank for the drawings and text to have been applied, this should be obvious. A cleaning of the parchment is visible.

General impression. Heavily used, worn.

Now you have to explain to me why a book should be worn if it was previously blank. Have so many people actually picked it up to realise that it is empty? Or is that a coincidence or part of the forgery?

Now it's getting to be too many coincidences, and for a forgery he's long overshot the mark.

Whether the parchment according to C-14 is from around 1400 or 1500 has nothing to do with a forgery from around 1900. The only issue here is the age of the source material.

How do you describe the general impression of the book?

Hi Aga: I'm afraid I again don't fully understand what you mean about the various points you mention here. We do have a language barrier I think. But I'll try, and correct me if I misunderstood you:

"So I assume that it was a book, so that I come to the same parchment with the same age. I will disregard the leaflets."

I think you mean you agree with averaging the dates to reduce the 60-plus range, because you, too, believe it was made into a book in under ten years. Of course I disagree with this, for a couple of reasons: First of all, it is science done in reverse. Normally, one would take data resulting from a test, and use that to determine what the object might be. In this case, rather than thinking it was a genuine book, one may think that random aged parchment was used from stocks of old parchment, with no regard for the age. It would make sense, as C14 dating was far in the future.

Instead, what was done was to FIRST decide it was a book made from parchment all from one time, and to fit this desired result, the wide range of dates were combined and averaged in order to come up with a shorter time span than actually discovered.

"Since the pages must have been blank for the drawings and text to have been applied, this should be obvious. A cleaning of the parchment is visible. General impression. Heavily used, worn. Now you have to explain to me why a book should be worn if it was previously blank. Have so many people actually picked it up to realise that it is empty? Or is that a coincidence or part of the forgery?"

I think what you mean is that the Voynich pages look worn, so how can this be if, as I claim, the Voynich was written on old, blank, pages? First of all, I am not sure why you believe they are "worn", nor in what way you think they are worn. That being said, even if the pages ARE worn, then why is the ink and paints applied to these worn sheets NOT worn? I mean, even accepting your premise of worn pages, how would that happen without also wearing down the ink somehow? But in any case I don't know that the leaves are particularly worn in any way, more than might be expected for old, unused parchment. They do have scars, and also holes. I've heard the parchment described as both high quality, and of low quality, but can't recall claims it is "worn".

I think you mean by "A cleaning of the parchment is visible", that it "would be visible" if this were a palimpsest. That is true, if scraped off, and you would be correct. I have made the point, however, that there are chemical methods of bleaching off inks of some kinds, to reuse parchment. I think they still call it a "palimpsest" though, when that is done. That being said, I don't believe this is a palimpsest for various reasons... just old blank parchment, probably found by Wilfrid in the vast unkempt stocks of the Libreria Franceshini in 1908.



"Now it's getting to be too many coincidences, and for a forgery he's long overshot the mark."

Well we disagree, and of course that is fine. I see it differently, and that there are no coincidences needing resolution: He found piles of old parchment, he cut it down to make a fake book, he made the ink, and he went wild.

"Whether the parchment according to C-14 is from around 1400 or 1500 has nothing to do with a forgery from around 1900. The only issue here is the age of the source material."

I'm sorry, I don't understand that part at all. Well maybe parts of it: I do agree the source material is "about" early 15th century, but would rather not use the pre-averaged processed date range of 1404-1438, and instead use the actual test result range which is 60 or more years apart. And as I've noted, I agree there is an issue with the "age of the source material", as it does not match virtually all the expert opinions as to what was applied to it. That is a fact, no matter how one wants to remove those experts... the dates do not match the content on it. So "yes" it is an issue, but I disagree with you as to what that issue is.

"How do you describe the general impression of the book?"

Do you mean my own impression of it? I've only seen it in person twice, and those times behind glass. Different pages were opened each time. I thought, as others have reported, that it looked very bright and colorful for such an old manuscript. The script is surprisingly tiny, something not obvious when scanning the scans of it on your computer screen. It looks tight, and meticulous.

As for the content, I think is it amateurish, and seems to me more of a parody of an actual ancient manuscript... or bits of many of them thrown together... than any real one. And the general style of the figures... the women... looks cartoonish, like the Katzenjammer style artwork and their ilk. And as I've said before, while it exhibits some elements of more sophisticated artistic talents, such as perspective, it seems as though the illustrator was not good at it, and needed to copy examples of illustrations properly done. In my opinion, overall, I've come to think of this as a poor attempt to mimic what the creator thought a genuine medieval manuscript should, or could, look like, while adding in some of their own fantastical elements to make it more "exciting".

It looks like a really bad forgery to me, I mean. Even back when it looked "real", I found myself excusing its faults... you can see it in the things I've written and said. Even back in 2009, only two years after being introduced to it, I had begun to believe it was some sort of "fantasy document", and not "real" at all. It was actually ironic, because I was invited to speak in the ORF documentary mostly on the basis of my microscope identifications. Perhaps they wanted me to talk about this manuscript with real microscopes in it... but by the time I was being interviewed, I had come to believe it they were not real, only influence by real ones.

Anyway, I've drifted and become wordy, as is my habit and fault. Sorry. But that is my "general impression".

Rich.

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You write "He found a pile of old parchment, cut it up to make a fake book, made the ink, and went wild."
If that were the case, you should be able to see it even with old parchment. The cut edges would then appear new and clean, but this is not the case.

Worn does not mean that the pages in the centre are dirty, but the edges. Especially the corners.
If you look at an old psalter, it is mostly the corners. That's where most of the spit sticks.
The VM also has this characteristic. Simply signs of use.
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So, according to your theory, he must have reworked it. There are no coincidences.

For me, the traces of use come from the time of Tepenec (and whatever their names were), when the book passed through hundreds of hands to be studied and examined.

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(15-04-2024, 07:06 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You write "He found a pile of old parchment, cut it up to make a fake book, made the ink, and went wild."



If that were the case, you should be able to see it even with old parchment. The cut edges would then appear new and clean, but this is not the case.



Worn does not mean that the pages in the centre are dirty, but the edges. Especially the corners.



If you look at an old psalter, it is mostly the corners. That's where most of the spit sticks.



The VM also has this characteristic. Simply signs of use.



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So, according to your theory, he must have reworked it. There are no coincidences.



For me, the traces of use come from the time of Tepenec (and whatever their names were), when the book passed through hundreds of hands to be studied and examined.

Well first of all, let me make an observation about a situation that has been apparent for over a decade now, in my own experience:



A person, unaware of the background (findings, evidence, whatever) about some area of Voynich research, only reads and knows, through no fault of their own, only the superficial and pre-digested mainstream information. That is, the information has already been winnowed down, processed into an opinion, and posted at fact... or, not posted at all, outside of a few less read blogs, like mine.



So then these people do not know the entire basis of my reasoning when I make a point. At the same time, the few people who have been around long enough to know that basis, do not speak up to explain it to them. So the point I make seems baseless to the person wondering how I could say what I do.



And then, when I give an answer, and it is necessarily incomplete... for I cannot write a chapter about each and every point each time, I must have some hope the person I am discussing these things with will know that basis, whether they agree or disagree with my point about it, or not. Their lack of full knowledge on the subject gives that person a false impression. They think it is I who "don't know" about some element of my idea, or assumes I had not thought of it.



This last comment of yours is an absolutely perfect example of this. The thing is, my simplifying the creation of the Voynich to, "He found a pile of old parchment, cut it up to make a fake book, made the ink, and went wild", was relying on your knowing some things to understand why I would say this. But from your answer, I see you do not. Here is the background:



Long ago, in various conversations in the Voynich Net Mailing List, and elsewhere, several people noted that SEVERAL (not all!) of the edges of SEVERAL of the Voynich pages/leaves looked much brighter, and straighter, than many of the others. They looked to them as though they had been cut more recently than the edges of many other leaves looked to have been*. Why? The issue gets dropped, and not repeated, as many do, unless and until it can be explained somehow. Since it is not explained, you don't hear about it.



So you then read my statement, not knowing that, and think, "Wow... Rich has no idea the edges are not cut, and not lighter". No, many do, apparently, look "new and clean". I never said all, you assumed that, not realizing this.



Again, not your fault. It would take a search of the Voynich.net archives, many comments on many diverse blogs, and my own blog. Here is one place in which I discuss this issue, and come up with one possible explanation. That explanation fits with other observations, including those made by Nick Pelling. He noted that scars and other features of the calfskin seemed to match up between two or so leaves. His "take" on this is that it shows that leaves were made from the same skins, in some cases. I give an alternate explaination to his, and posit that the leaves of the Voynich were cut down from full size sheets, to make the quarto Voynich: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.



By the way, this is also a perfect example, again, in which I listen to an expert... if anyone is, we should include Mr. Pelling. He, Rafal Prinke, Rene of course, the Comegys, Janick, Tucker, Bax, Elonka Dunin, Elmar Vogt, Klaus Schmeh, Philip Neal, Berj Ensanian, Greg Stachowsky, David Jackson, Diane O'Donovan, Robert Sherman and probably a dozen others, all have many valuable insights and observations, and a useful depth of knowledge... extending back decades, in some cases. But the thing is, we will not all agree on what they report actually means... not me with them, nor they with each other, to varying extents.



And by the way, you may note I've left off that list many newer people to the Voynich question, and some older ones. That is the subject of an up and coming post of mine, as I have seen a backslide in the basic knowledge of the Voynich, best represented by several of the recent Malta conference, and the panel which made it up. The "new crew" is just so filled with actual, demonstrable errors about the Voynich, which have been used in papers, lectures, and subsequent interviews and documentaries. And it is getting worse, not better. 



Once a foundation begins to crumble, the pace to total collapse only increases.



So back to you concerns about my claim there are cleaner looking, cut looking, edges. There are, this is a fact. We can all explain it different ways, if you read my blog post, you will have mine. Then in the future, hopefully, when someone mentions these... for whatever reason... you, and anyone remembering this will opine based on the facts of the matter, rather than simply, and incorrectly assuming that all the edges of the Voynich are old and dirty.



As for worn areas, in the way you describe and show, I am not sure why that would be an issue. There are many reasons for worn edges we can plausibly suggest: Yes, that the parchment was ill treated and stored, blank or not. That the edges were falsely aged through the manipulation of a forger (another case where I have an understanding as to just how common and easy it is to do this, as I have read almost every scrap about the history and practice of forgery on the planet, while you have not), or even, in some cases, in which the folded edges were from blank sheet of full sized folios in a partially blank work that was disassembled. And then, I can hear your gears turning, you are thinking, "HOW can he SAY THIS?". Well because I know of cases of old, unused parchment being found in old books and ledgers. And there are other features which could support this idea, too.



But this brings me to another point about our conversations, which are like a mechanical ratchet mechanism. You know what those are, of course... a wheel turns in one direction only, because of a spring ratchet held against notches in the wheel. The allegory goes like this: You ask a question, or challenge me with something I said. I bring up several points, and you ignore some of those, but challenge a couple. I answer those with several points, and you ignore several, and challenge a couple. And so on and so forth. The wheel then only turns in one direction... you never stop to explain, nor answer, all the points I bring up. There are many examples of this in our recent discussions, but this is an effect is a microcosm of the Paradigm driven state of Voynich research as a whole.



For instance, one of many, you didn't explain how, if worn by use, as you say, the pages are worn, but the ink and paints are overwhelmingly "fresh as a daisy". You went on as though I had never brought that up, let alone give your answer for it.



There are a good 40 or more major issues and questions that never get satisfactory explained... and hundreds or thousands of sub issues. I've been compiling a list of them, for another future post. By not being addressed, it gives the false impression that "There's nothing to see here", and the Voynich is all neat and tidily an controversially genuine and old manuscript, and "cannot be" a forgery. No, this is not the case at all, it has a raft of problems which are never addressed, or even mentioned. This then paves the way for some to make the false claim that forgery has been "dis-proven". This has often been said, even in print. On the surface, it seems to make sense... but only if one is unaware of the large number of anachronisms and anomalies that are never aired, never explained, never addressed properly if at all ... except by a few, like me. And then, over and over, when I am discussing almost any idea, I am surprised that the person I am having said discussion with, does not know the basis by which I've come to my opinions. But, I should not be surprised, really, it is truly the "State of the Art".



* Another click of the ratchet wheel is this: Those examinations, tests, whatever, are rarely to look for things that might hint at forgery, it goes, generally, in one direction only: Genuine and old. This is normal, paradigms defend themselves, like an organism. Read Thomas Kuhn. Anyway, if the Voynich were examined for all newer, cut edges, and using Pelling's observations, and those of others, as to possible alignment of those pages, my hypothesis could be tested. A "virtual Voynich" could be built of what I suspect are the larger folios the pages were cut from. This, too, is an oversimplification of what could be done, and the evidence that would support or contradict said hypotheses. But it will not be done. Do I have to suggest why I think that is, or do you know my answer by now?

Can we move discussion of Rich's forgery theory to his own thread?
I wanted this to be a separate thread devoted to the discussion of Expert Opinion in general. Rich thought I created this thread to discuss his theory, but I didn't.

1. i am not providing any evidence, these are just observations.

2 I differentiate between stain and wear. Stains have edges, wear and tear do not. See difference between centre edge and bottom corner.
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3. the folds caused by folding the rosette side alone leave questions unanswered if it was cut from a sheet. Cut edge or not.
4. all impressions are where I look. It must have been a very good forger to take everything into account. And then there is the C-14 Joker. That doesn't make it any better.

We've had a lot of this before with Klaus Schmeh. Back then still under Peter M.

I'll really leave it at that now.
Greetings Peter

(15-04-2024, 04:26 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Can we move discussion of Rich's forgery theory to his own thread?
I wanted this to be a separate thread devoted to the discussion of Expert Opinion in general. Rich thought I created this thread to discuss his theory, but I didn't.

No, Mark, I did not think you "created this thread to discuss" my theory, and I believe you know this. I was simply answering questions posed to me in this thread, by others, relating to my theory. And also, as you even have admitted, this thread was begun... partially... in response to my own blog post touching on the use (and not) of expert opinions. So the thread is entwined with that theory, and any other theory, really. The issue of the use of expert opinion impacts absolutely every single facet of the Voynich investigation. That it veered off into questions and challenges to my hypothesis was not my doing.

Trust me, I'm used to this. I understand that you and others would rather not be presented with the "uncomfortable" possibility this is a modern fake, but long ago David assured me that the Ninja's would not suppress discussion on this topic. Moving the modern forgery ideas to a place away from this, or other general discussions, when those discussions necessarily touch on this possibility, is suppressing them.

And again, it is a reflection of the key point here: The dismissal of forgery possibilities, and the testimony which arguably supports it, rather than discussing that openly. The question I would ask you... or you might want to ask yourself, is "why?" you would want to do this? Why does it seem to bother you so much? And that is a general question, too, which I've often wondered on... the most "out there" theories are openly discussed, on all forums here, and elsewhere, and there is little or no complaint. But Modern Forgery is always a hot potato, eliciting an almost visceral, emotional, hatred. Is it really because it is so impossible, as constantly claimed, or actually because it uncomfortably plausible to those who would find a forged Voynich outcome very distasteful? I could cite many cases which point to the latter case being possible.

Let's not mention the elephant in the room, and maybe it will go away?

It does not bother me one bit that the Voynich might be real. I'm not at all affected by what the Voynich is, I can't make it any thing, it is what it is, and that is wonderful to me. If you and the others are correct, I will have a toast with you, and actually, be very relieved that it is over. I would not want to, and never try to, hide anything pointing any evidence of genuine... should any such evidence actually turn up (that last was a joke!).

I always relish in the discussion, because I want to know the findings and opinions of everyone else, too. Yours, also, of course. I would not suggest that your input... or Aga's, or Rene's, or anyone's... be relegated to the basement. Why would you wish that upon me, and my ideas?

Rich.

Rich

At comment #16 in this thread you injected your forgery theory into this thread.

You said "Of course this refers to the thread discussing my recent blog post, "I Do Listen to the Experts: Do you?", which elicited a large number of comments here at the Ninjas."

It didn't specifically refer to your thread it referred to a general discussion of which your thread was a small part. I didn't want this thread to be filled up with your theory. You have your own thread already.