The Voynich Ninja

Hi, I found some noteworthy similarities in some older Mexican works with the VM. I hadn't seen these discussed before and so and wanted to share. All the mentioned codices are written after the supposed VM origin time, so the VM can not have used them as inspiration.
 

These two images are from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, supposedly written from somewhere between 1547 and 1560 on European paper.

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The caverns in Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca are the Chicomoztoc, a mythical origin place for the Nahuatl people. The shape of the inner structure and the way the border of it is drawn in my opinion strongly resemble the structure on the VM rosetta. The fact that it is in a circle and that the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca drawing also contains this structure on top with intertwined half circle doodles, just like we often see in the VM further, as well as the plants on the outside add to my suspicion these could be related somehow.
Note that it's unlikely that this describes the exact same object, since Chicomoztoc is very specifically 7 caves, and the VM illustration has more 'cavities'

Another similarity I found in Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca is the following, again with a VM image on the rosetta:

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What struck me here is that both objects have 'grass'  growing out of them, and that the VM just like the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca example may have two 'pipes' coming out of it on the right hand side

You can find a scan of Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
It's quite the interesting book to go through, it's visually just as interesting as the VM in my opinion, but since we already know the language it probably doesn't get as much attention


Another interesting thing to look at are the books of Chilam Balam (17th and 18th century). Scans can be found here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
This book contains some astronomical diagrams which in my opinion resemble the VM in a few ways:

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For comparison, here's the VM images of sun, moon and these 'little circle guys' you see both in the VM and in the books of Chilam Balam

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Chilam Balam also contains a zodiac. I don't think it's an amazing correlation with the VM zodiac, but it's the worst either. It's at least a sign that the same subject material was considered here

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Another book is 16th century codex tudela, scans here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

This book contains some hebral drawings, some really cool but clearly unrelated aztec drawings and what particularly struck me,though I may be overimagining things some very similar folio numbers. I also noted some similarities in the script with the VM, particularly that a couple of words appear to start with something that looks very similar to the common VM word prefix: "4o". A couple of the characters also vaguely resemble the gallows characters we see in the VM.

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Finally, in codice dehesa from the 16th/17th century (scans: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), which apparently also discusses Chicomoztoc, I noticed a few characters that resemble a sloppy version of the overexaggerated gallow characters you sometimes see in the VM at the start of a page:

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Brief analysis

I won't say that any of these are slam dunk evidence for a new world origin hypothesis. There's quite a few counterarguments against it like the carbon dating, medieval european style, material properties, etc. You also clearly do not see what you see in most Mexican codices: displays of humans/gods in elaborate and distinctive mesoamerican style clothes and accessories and in general a Mexican style is missing in the VM.

But I do think there's a few signs in here that there may have been some shared culture between the VM and some of these Mexican codices which I cannot easily explain through the columbian exchange. Particularly, it seems unlikely that Europeans came up with Chicomoztoc or inspired Mexicans to draw it in this particular way, while the style and contents of drawings on the Rosetta appear unique within Europe and do not seem to have had much impact.

Beyond the visual similarities between some of the images and some of the script and the general sense of unfamiliarity, I think it's also particularly noteworthy that the contents of some of these Mexican works has a similar sort of feeling to the VM of being partially scientific and partially religious/occult without containing the more familiar western religious/occult symbols. Belief in a sun god was widespread in mesoamerica and it would not surprise me if the VM astronomical diagrams in the VM have some religious sun god connotations

Thanks for sharing these Mexican codices.

They are quite interesting. The art style is Mexican/Aztec (with some Spanish influences) and the language is local but the content and concepts are European, like Zodiac or celestial spheres.

So I wouldn't be very surprised about some similarities between VM and these codices. After all, they all stem from the same tradition.

Yes, many concepts are European in these codices and it is no surprise to see them after the Columbian exchange. But not everything here is European. Many Mexican codices like Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca discuss Mexican history and religion.

Where it gets interesting is not where Mexican codices show European elements that are in the VM, it's where they show things that appear similar to the VM while that thing is not common in European works. I believe the first example in Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca is a case of that, and possibly some of the script similarities fit too. If a cultural element is not commonly used in Europe, why would it reappear in the new world? It would not seem natural that the Spanish would have introduced it if it was unfamilliar to them too, they probably did not go around to show the Voynich manuscript to locals.

So is it a stylistic coincidence? Were the ideas brought there by the same niche group that was involved in the VM? If so, who? Was this stylistic concept common in Europe after all? Could the cultural impact have gone in the opposite direction? Was a Mexican person was somehow involved in the construction of the VM?

These caves and this particular visual representation seem to have appeared more often. This Mexican map (Mapa de Cuauhtinchan N° 2) has the same cave structure as in Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca (And possibly the same as in the VM) on the top left, while the idea of such a large foldable non-geographic map reminds you of the Voynich Rosetta. Perhaps the Rosetta is also more of a historic or spritual journey rather than a map of a place?

If anyone is interested, I've gathered quite a lengthy list of works from the new world, most from Mexico. Most of these are very unlikely to be relevant to research on the Voynich manuscript, but quite a few of these will be interesting to curious people for the different world they show

Some of the manuscripts in this list do have some script similarities with the VM, particularly he "tl" sign looks quite a lt like a galows character. However it seems fairly clear to me that the VM is not just plainly written Nahuatl, it's still way too different for that.

You'll have to forgive me that the list below is unorganized and probably contains some dead links