The Voynich Ninja

Hi GlennM et al,

What if the vms wasn't created to be sold, but contained mnemonics to recreate information that could be sold many times over. Then you would keep the manuscript for yourself in order to create things from it on demand, or whenever you had the materials to do so. Hence why you might make it illegible to anyone else, with seemingly fanciful plant diagrams and naked ladies bathing, possibly to keep others from knowing the information even if they managed to take it from you, and/or to hide that you had accessed the information in the first place. I am not speaking of women's health, since I see none of that portrayed. Instead, I could show you how to draw a map similar to a portolan chart without ever looking at another map, using quires 13 and 14. I am no expert on such maps, the vms has taught me this. Pretend for a moment that this is the case, even if you doubt my interpretation. Would this not be of value, especially at the time? These charts were sensitive and highly sought after, and so the information to create them would be fiercely protected. Similarly I think many of the plants are recognizable and with little (or larger) tweaks, can be redrawn even more realistically. Things like flax, teasel, castor, all useful in various ways for food, medicines, poisons, textiles, lubricants, erosion control, and other uses. It is possible perhaps that the writing is gibberish but I would like to think there is meaning that augments the visuals. I had not guessed, but the fact that experts have determined various scribes are involved could mean this was a family endeavor, or some other association of like minded people, an atelier, perhaps.  Again it would seem extra silly to me to have more than one person spending time decorating useful visuals with gibberish text, especially if it was meant for their own use. But to encrypt it, yes I could see that. The way we find it, things are out of order, flipped, refolded, missing, all sorts of things have happened which likely wouldn't have if an original creator had bound it, but they likely needed it loose so as to work on various parts at the same, or different, times. The later dating of the page numbers seems to support it having stayed in the family for several generations before the secrets of its use were lost. Five bifolios in Quire 13, the master scribe of the quire plus the other four scribes of the other sections? Seems right. That we are still in disagreement over its meaning or lack thereof means they were successful in keeping it to themselves, at least thus far. In terms of a key, i think it is one of those P vs NP situations, a solution may be quickly verifiable, (let's hope so) but not quickly solveable, especially since as you say the overall key would not likely be included with the encrypted work, and we are now confounded by the lack of certainty as to the original language, changes with time passed, and whatever cultural or individualized mnemonics that might have been employed to create the text, which might have appeared more obvious at the time. 

The idea of a cartographic atelier is covered here You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and suggests that a master with multiple apprentices and assistants would produce one chart a week, purposefully limiting profits to simply supporting themselves, in order to keep the price high over time, to keep themselves in business. So there was likely room for others to sneak into the market to take advantage of the growing demand, even with a reasonable handdrawn facsimile, especially if sold for lower cost to those who wanted charts but could not afford the more costly versions. Most charts that were actually used no longer exist, even for the "branded" versions, so we really have nothing to compare to to see if these exist, but it makes sense to me that they would, just as many things today have their corresponding "knockoffs" at lower prices, and one takes the risks associated with lower quality out of necessity and affordability. However I think the resulting map would be quite useful, as the mnemonics I see in the vms have generally been drawn to scale, preserving spatial associations, with some duplications to help with placement, which would result in a quite reasonable facsimile to my thinking. This in absence of whatever the text may add, which could be substantial.

Here is a chart from c 1327 which includes much of what I see covered in the vms. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and at least shows that such information existed to be copied, especially since again, most that existed are no longer in existence today, (this one itself was destroyed during WWII, we have only its image now) but more would have been available for copying at the time of the vms as they were obviously actively being produced at the time, as denoted by the contract info above.

Wow, what a complete response to my post. Even as I read it, I was thinking Nostradamus. He was in it for the money. By extension, if the VM was a template document, it suggests multiple copies of parts were marketed. As such, would we expect to find a " trail of crumbs" in other medieval documents that circle back to a person or group that produced cookie cutter information derived from the source manuscript? I certainly would think so. Further, the idiosyncratic nature of the source information and its translation is a fingerprint. Voynachese or at least the handwriting style should able to be matched.

I am going to tell on myself here. It is easy to take the position that the VM is all smoke and mirrors because I have nothing to prove. Diligent believers have the real burden and I appreciate it, but regret for their sake the lost time. 

If anyone who wrote up the VM with its invented character set, imaginative illustrations and did not use those devices to make more material for profit , then he, she or they were a fool, insane or too ill to work. It is simply too much of a project. As I alluded to before, people have masterfully hand forged a five dollar bill, but why go to that trouble? The same reasoning goes to the VM.If it were real and the cipher was lost, then it is useless, then and now.

I don't know, it seems to me that if I had the means to make good facsimiles of documents in demand (or rather my own versions of such things as maps or herbals, as there is no actual copying going on here, just me jotting down encrypted notes about a document, then making my own version of it), and I could easily sell one a week, or the equivalent thereof, for profits that kept those also involved well enough paid or fed as the case may be, then I might not do anything further with my encoding system unless further secrets came to be known to me. 

I would likely not be in the same position again, having since become an entrepreneur, after having possibly gained my knowledge as an assistant to someone else's cartographic works, or been a friend of someone who did that who allowed me some time with it, or having found an old chart in some castle somewhere. Someone would likely show me another map along the way, and I might make more cryptic notes and or update my system. But I don't think I would sell my encryption system, that would be no way to keep my own encryptions safe. The documents i would sell would be translated back to whatever language of the people i was selling to. Therefore there would only be the documents of my family or atelier as the case may be that were encrypted, and only we would know how to read it, and hopefully we would all be trustworthy to each other. Likely if our maps or herbals were successful, we would likely continue to develop them and be cartographers or herbal publishers proper, even if we began with a mnemonic freehand cheat sheet. If I am correct about the vms authors selling maps, they could be some of the names mentioned in the history of portolans, most of which have no surviving exemplars. Otherwise they are likely in the unnamed, no examples group, and we are no further ahead in that way. I don't know about the herbals, but they would look more realistic in the sold versions, so might not be immediately comparable.

I think the reason someone might put effort into making a phony five dollar bill is they would be easier to pass, being less suspect than higher dollar phonies which are often more deeply scrutinized. Plus you don't make one, you make thousands of them, what's a few more if you have unlimited supply. It is not really comparable to selling facsimiles or my own version of something that i happened to sort of copy the first time, but not copy, more like try to remember as much as i could remember about it and turn it into a recipe for making my own version. It might compare somewhat to offering maps which are made more quickly than the standard ones (that are evidently made with templates, pinpricks, and soot)  and mine might not include all the place names known to date like the newest ones would, but i'd be selling at a lower price to find my own cut of the market acceptable to me and my fellow scribes. I don't know, just imagining a situation that could possibly explain the existence of the vms.

I don't think lost time on the vms is truly lost, I have learned things for having done the research, which is generally useful regardless. I think the vms is sort of a magic book that way, to have led to so many differing ideas and theories, but everyone is learning while doing so it can't be all bad.

Again, good points. Let us consider the following. Who would be in the market for a recipe or prescription consisting of plants which do not exist? One could argue that even though the called for plant was drawn incorrectly, it might be good enough for field foraging. I disagree, even back then awareness of confusing mushrooms and toadstools would put a reasonable person off of rolling the dice with alkaloid plants. Also, the maps appear to be star maps. My guess is that from childhood, most had sufficient dark skys and local lore to identify the zodiac from childhood. Not much market for that, but perhaps a market for astrological fortune telling. Since we cant read the VM, its anyone's guess. 
So far on the surface of it, the manuscript appears to be something a trickster fabricated in order to get into the deep pocket of a well heeled customer. I am not surprised. In those times, were not alchemists retained by those who wished to get even richer? Greed is infinite. Put another way, a fool and their money are soon parted. 

The VM would rise to entirely new heights if there were a single discernable thing about it that actually had value. Its not in the drawings, nor text. There is nothing that researchers can point to and say, there is some truth! There is nothing instructive. The nymphs are unexciting, the symbolism, if any is obtuse.

At this juncture, I am imclined to support the idea that in those times, having a book, any book, was a valuable prize. It made little difference if the owner was literate or not. A book meant, intelligence, accomplishment and amdegree of wealth. The owner of the VM, could pull it out and spin any clever yarn they fancied. Who could say differently.

(16-12-2024, 01:47 AM)GlennM Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So far on the surface of it, the manuscript appears to be something a trickster fabricated in order to get into the deep pocket of a well heeled customer. I am not surprised. In those times, were not alchemists retained by those who wished to get even richer? Greed is infinite. Put another way, a fool and their money are soon parted. 

I have no hard proof, but it doesn't look like a hoax/fakery to me. The style is quite unique, the images have no clear parallels. Normally I would expect a fake mystic or alchemy book to be in some familiar style of a known book, but with a lot of gibberish on top. Having familiar alchemy symbols, etc. Even as little as a Latin inscription on the first page saying "from the secret diaries of Albertus Magnus" would make it much more valuable, I think.

This reminds me, when I was a child there was a shop, next to where we lived, selling arcane martial arts books. I suppose most of the books were created by some modern "trickster", starting with a couple of frames from a Bruce Lee blockbuster and extrapolating from there, inventing styles and techniques. However, for them to be successful, they needed to conform to some established style and lore. It is much easier to sell a book if you can persuade the buyer that it contains some specific material. VMS doesn't seem to offer much here. There are plants and stars and nymphs, but it's not obvious how all of this is connected. I haven't yet seen a single other manuscript that I could describe as "basically it's the same as VMS, but in Latin".

But again, I'm not a paleographer.

[attachment=9574]

(15-12-2024, 09:50 PM)GlennM Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even as I read it, I was thinking Nostradamus. He was in it for the money. By extension, if the VM was a template document, it suggests multiple copies of parts were marketed.

Nostradamus lived in an age where printed material could be, and was, easily mass produced and marketed. 
The VM is from an age where material had to be laboriously copied and sold locally. Yes, there were scribe workshops who churned out study material for the universities, but they didn't work in whole books, just copying out and then renting the source materials needed for the basis of the courses.
The notion of creating a fiction for the mass market didn't, and couldn't, apply in the 15th century, it was impossible. 
Obviously, the notion of a once-off fiction for a specific unique purpose did exist.

You mentioned obfuscation. This is definitely something to keep in mind in the investigation of several VMs illustrations. What is obfuscation and how does it work in the VMs? Through ambiguity and trickery, through duality and a code shift

The investigation of the VMs cosmos has discovered interesting comparative illustrations in certain historical manuscripts, as you may know. And after having the parts identified, it's fairly easy to see that VMs cosmos as a fanciful, manipulated pairing of two diverse and distinctive historical constructs. Obfuscation occurs because of the alteration of appearance. Identification is possible because of the maintenance of structure. Appearance is subjective; appearance of the VMs cosmos was intentionally altered,  but structure is objective. The standard model cosmos in the 15th C. was a 'music of the spheres' type of structure. The fanciful VMs combination is almost farcical.

The cosmic comparison is one of several investigations with provenance between 1400-1450, compatible with the C-14 results. Collectively, this indicates that the VMs artist possessed, <altered>, and recorded certain information that is compatible with this era - probably genuine, possibly not.

Would you say that making an unreadable book and selling it with a cipher key was common back then? Tjere is not much sense in writing one book and selling multiple copies of the key. It makes little sense for the owner to transcribe the key and keep it with the book.It seems dicey. 

The VM may be put together like a pocket reference book, but it makes little sense to be one. An encrypted volume means that the key is kept elsewhere and the two need to be brought together, at least once. I would think that once decrypted, the owner would put in readable margin notes. That way, even if the book was taken and the key left at home, there would be something to jog the memory.

The VM does not appear to be refined enough, nor important enough to to be some sort occult work.

Finally, if the manuscript required a key to decypher, can you imagine the when the buyer decodes the text and it disappoints.

(16-12-2024, 01:47 AM)GlennM Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Again, good points. Let us consider the following. Who would be in the market for a recipe or prescription consisting of plants which do not exist? One could argue that even though the called for plant was drawn incorrectly, it might be good enough for field foraging. I disagree, even back then awareness of confusing mushrooms and toadstools would put a reasonable person off of rolling the dice with alkaloid plants. Also, the maps appear to be star maps. My guess is that from childhood, most had sufficient dark skys and local lore to identify the zodiac from childhood. Not much market for that, but perhaps a market for astrological fortune telling. Since we cant read the VM, its anyone's guess. 
So far on the surface of it, the manuscript appears to be something a trickster fabricated in order to get into the deep pocket of a well heeled customer. I am not surprised. In those times, were not alchemists retained by those who wished to get even richer? Greed is infinite. Put another way, a fool and their money are soon parted. 

The VM would rise to entirely new heights if there were a single discernable thing about it that actually had value. Its not in the drawings, nor text. There is nothing that researchers can point to and say, there is some truth! There is nothing instructive. The nymphs are unexciting, the symbolism, if any is obtuse.

At this juncture, I am imclined to support the idea that in those times, having a book, any book, was a valuable prize. It made little difference if the owner was literate or not. A book meant, intelligence, accomplishment and amdegree of wealth. The owner of the VM, could pull it out and spin any clever yarn they fancied. Who could say differently.

But what I am saying is that what i think might have been sold was not unreadable nor fanciful, and did not contain plants that don't exist. Only the crib sheets were unreadable and fantastic  (the vms) and they kept that for themselves, only to fall into other hands upon the death of the last one to have the knowledge to read it.  So you haven't grokked my meaning, so to speak. 

I am saying the vms was a personal family template for creating works that could be sold, more than once, with the idea being that if anyone found the crib sheets (the vms, or its pieces, as the case may be, since I don't think it was bound while in use) no one would know what they meant, or know that information had been taken from previous works, or what any of it was, just as we find ourselves now. I figure no one ever made a portalan chart without having first seen one before, except perhaps those who took the ship notes and made the first one. However the herbal parts could be from first hand knowledge, I don't know, I am just saying that I think they hid their main notes under encryption and mnemonic images, so no one else could make use of them, or know where it came from, so no one could accuse them of any wrongdoing, since it was probably sneaky to have made the portolan notes, at the very least.

I don't really think people bought unreadable books just to showcase them unless they were super rich and the price was but a drop in the bucket for them and they fancied it somehow as a curiosity.  I don't think many people made fakes in those days either, at least not often. A quick look at the history of forgery shows most fakes to be written in readable languages and the fake part is generally the fact that the story didn't happen in real life or to the person selected as the narrator, not unreadable unknowable things that seem never to have existed. Today, sure, anything goes, for a buck. If it were shown to be a fake, my first guess would be that it was made on very old vellum in relation to the date made. As a kid I once tried to make a book filled with nothing but the word 'blah' ...repeated. I dunno why. But it gets reeeeally boring. Couldn't get past a few pages worth. I can't imagine writing hundreds of pages of meaningless stuff, in my best penmanship, especially if i had to turn a dial to find out which meaningless stuff i was going to write next, and not getting bored to tears. I have to think there is meaning in it.

The single discernable thing of value I see is a contiguous following of shorelines, rivers, and the largest lakes of the old ecumene, and i mean the places that were shown on mappa mundi for thousands of years prior. I don't see anything to do with China, for example, although it was known and already drawn on maps by that time, or about to be. It covers everything from Sagres Point to Gujurat, the North Sea to the Nile, along with alternate routes and some philosophical aspects with regard to all being connected. I think quire 20 is also involved due to it being in the same hand as quire 13, and back in the day when I first played with Voynichese.com I found far more similar words between them than between quire 20 and any of the plant diagrams, so I don't really think there are recipes at all in that quire, but more like historical notes, or ship notes regarding the the most popular ports of call. To me the symbolism of the nymphs is not obtuse, they are literal nymphs, not immortal, but extremely long lived, embodying not only the waters they are associated with, but also the populations of humans over time which have gathered to these various waters to the point where most never travel far from them and live out their lives in that general area. In that way they stand for regions, for cultures, for history.

This is not to mention all of the plant diagrams, which in their realistic unencrypted states would likely be very valuable as well, especially if the text was informative of their usage. Certainly moreso than today's web versions which basically spew out the same Wikipedia stump texts or continue to tell people things are poisonous because they were once confused with another plant hundreds of years ago...don't get me started on that!

The zodiac, you are referring to the centers of the circles, but what meaning do you think all the nymphs have in the other tiers? It sounds like you have thrown more than half the manuscript away in your mind, tagging it as uninteresting and valueless. Whereas I see that section as saying that the world is not 6000 years old, but hundreds of times older, enough for the sun to circle around (at least part of, since some is missing) the zodiac. It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. I think these are ages, not months, the months were written in later. Notice things like how the nymphs are clothed and inside wells or whatever (they hang around near water, right?) but then as we go back in time, into the previous ages, they are naked and nomadic. Notice that in Pisces everyone is naked but no one is nomadic, and in the center, the wells (or whatever you think they might be) are all knocked over but everyone still stays put. Doesn't this speak to some decline in civilization? The zodiac part is all the more interesting for not being horoscope related, (i agree that is boring) but related more to our view of it over millenia, at least that is how I see it.

With regard to the star diagrams, I am still trying to understand those, they remind me of those shown in Dati's La Sfera copies, (as do some of Quire 13's graphics with some of the geographical diagrams) some you can discern, others make their own versions of what they thought was depicted, and the full meaning was lost, or new meaning added (or new nonsense as the case may be). I would like to think they copied faithfully but perhaps the version they copied was one where the meaning was already lost. I don't know. Here are some examples of different copies. You can find more to compare here:  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(16-12-2024, 09:31 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You mentioned obfuscation. This is definitely something to keep in mind in the investigation of several VMs illustrations. What is obfuscation and how does it work in the VMs? Through ambiguity and trickery, through duality and a code shift

The investigation of the VMs cosmos has discovered interesting comparative illustrations in certain historical manuscripts, as you may know. And after having the parts identified, it's fairly easy to see that VMs cosmos as a fanciful, manipulated pairing of two diverse and distinctive historical constructs. Obfuscation occurs because of the alteration of appearance. Identification is possible because of the maintenance of structure. Appearance is subjective; appearance of the VMs cosmos was intentionally altered,  but structure is objective. The standard model cosmos in the 15th C. was a 'music of the spheres' type of structure. The fanciful VMs combination is almost farcical.

The cosmic comparison is one of several investigations with provenance between 1400-1450, compatible with the C-14 results. Collectively, this indicates that the VMs artist possessed, <altered>, and recorded certain information that is compatible with this era - probably genuine, possibly not.

My own example would be sea nymphs with arm spreads of 200 km, give or take, combined with water bodies shaded to look like kiddie pools, tada, bathing women.