The Voynich Ninja

(01-12-2025, 05:58 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.a team of what appears like simultaneously superhumanly precise and superhumanly sloppy retracers

The usual explanation for isolated dark glyphs or parts of glyphs in the middle of lighter ones, (and the occasional light ink poking out from under the dark one, like the infamous daiin on f1r)  is that the Scribe himself went back and retraced his own writing.  That implies that the original Scribe himself had the "superhumanly precise" ability to retrace glyphs...

Again, I see at least two, more likely three rounds of retracing.  The first one (my Rt1) was a deliberate restoration of practically the whole text.  This would have been done by a skilled scribe (or team) hired by the owner.  Possibly a scribe who specialized in restoring faded text.

This pass was was generally quite precise and thorough.  Just like modern restorers of oil paintings and frescoes, this Restorer tried to match the original ink color -- but that meant using a similar ink formula, not iron-gall but more like an ocher- or sienna-based tempera.  And tried hard to reproduce the strokes of the original Scribe, just as modern painting restorers do.

But this Restorer had to leave the tips of tails and plumes as they were, since their retracing would have to be slow and thus produce a thicker and uglier trace.  

This pass also restored the figure outlines, but only partly.  Presumably the owner felt that they were not as important as the text.  This Restorer missed some badly faded glyphs, and misread a few, "restoring" them as other glyphs or invalid weirdos.  Because, unlike the original Scribe, they did not really know the Voynichese alphabet.

Later passes (Rt2, Rt3) were done by Retracers who acted on scattered glyphs and words, and were "humanly sloppy".  They probably were owners of the manuscript themselves, rather than hired scribes.  They made more mistakes in proportion to the amount they "restored".  And one of them added spurious details to the illustrations.  Maybe he honestly thought he was improving the manuscript, maybe just for fun...

All the best, --stolfi

(01-12-2025, 10:52 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The usual explanation for isolated dark glyphs or parts of glyphs in the middle of lighter ones, (and the occasional light ink poking out from under the dark one, like the infamous daiin on f1r)  is that the Scribe himself went back and retraced his own writing.  That implies that the original Scribe himself had the "superhumanly precise" ability to retrace glyphs...

This is not the explanation I consider the right one, but nevertheless it could be trivial to add more color to wet ink, you can just touch the wet stroke anywhere with the tip of the quill and the new ink will mix in practically without affecting the shape. At least this works for ink on paper, I think this should work just as well on vellum. So, no superhuman ability needed for retouching fresh writing.

(01-12-2025, 09:21 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think I spent quite a while looking at the manuscript, I'm quite familiar with the script.

I spent a lot of time myself doing that (not sure it was a "good" time  ).  I helped Rene and Gabriel to edit their interlinear transcription, checking and transcribing a good part of it.  That was based on older images, mostly B&W.  Since the BL 2014 scans became available, I have re-transcribed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  

And I have been writing detailed descriptions of each page.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is still very messy and very incomplete but should give and idea.  Search for @f57v for a recent entry.   These notes may not be worth reading, but writing them forced me to look closely at every flower and nymph and star...

I had long noticed that there were late additions to the figures, like the "Habsburg" crown and showercaps.  Probably 25 years ago, no longer sure.  But it was only very recently that I realized that the original text and drawings are by now extremely faded, so that all the sharp dark ink is a later restoration.

Quote:All arguments to "mis-shaped", "redundant", "invalid", "nonsensical" presuppose that we somehow know the right correct shapes and designs. I don't think we do, and all these arguments are subjective based on one's own ideas about what the script should look like. For example, when there was a claim that \) character doesn't exist in the MS, I easily You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. just because I remembered seeing it.

And I have my own long You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. too.   And a booklet of sketches like these
[attachment=12775]
But now I recognize that most of those -- even when they occur 2-3 times -- are accidental malformations by the original scribe, or mistakes by the Retracers.

Even if some of those are legit symbols (like those in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. sequence, or "&" in modern English), assuming that they are errors until proved otherwise should not hamper any statistical studies or decipherment efforts.  Those studies must always take into account that there are many errors in the transcription files, including errors by the original Scribe.  Thus, for those studies, the MRT makes at worst a quantitative difference, by raising the expected fraction of errors in the input from ?.??% to ?.? times that...

All the best, --stolfi

(01-12-2025, 09:21 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As for the arguments to variation in ink shade, these can be just due to patchy/lumpy ink which may have also exaggerated over time due to different fading rate of different component of the original ink. I think I already posted an example of extremely spotty strokes from MSIs, here's another belowYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. There are irregular dark spots, which to me obviously show that the ink was not some homogenous properly mixed substance. There were some darker blobs in it, and larges ones would be spread by the quill and lead to distinct patchy strokes.

Yes, one of the inks has those dark particles.  This is visible in one of the high-mag images from the McCrone report:
[attachment=12776]
Such particles are not expected in fresh iron-gall ink.  Maybe they are lumps that form in ink after it is left standing for a while and oxidizes in the bottle.  Maybe they are droplets of some additive that separated out and lumped together as the ink dried.  

But maybe they are a black solid pigment, like coarse carbon black, that a Retracer added to a brown ink in an attempt to match the original ink color...

Note that some mottling is expected because the vellum surface is rough.  A translucent ink -- like the lighter ones in the image above (on the lower half of the right leg, and on the left leg) will collect in the dimples of the surface, and look darker there.   But the particles in your image, and in the darker ink above, are not that.

Frankly, I don't see how you can see images like the one above as evidence that Most of the Ink is Original...

All the best, --stolfi

PS.  You say you know the VMS as the palm of your hand.   Do you know about the visual gag of the transfolio nymphs in the Zodiac? 

The question is why he never repaired the entire symbol, even though the rest is just as thin.
Really poor work.
Or he'll just get some new ink and start again, which is the most likely scenario in my opinion.
No one repairs a roof in just one spot when it's leaking everywhere. It's just unlikely.

[attachment=12780]

Look closely. It's the same swing.
The same swing usually means the same hand and the inevitable result.
For me, it's the same person. And why doesn't he do the rest? It doesn't look any better.

(02-12-2025, 02:08 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.PS.  You say you know the VMS as the palm of your hand.   Do you know about the visual gag of the transfolio nymphs in the Zodiac? 

I certainly don't know the manuscript as the palm of my hand, because I keep finding new things there quite often.

I remember your post about the visual gag, if you are referring to the hole in the parchment and the hand of a nymph. In your scenario, was this gag copied from a draft too?

I just noticed this and thought I would share:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
If the hypothetical retracer guy existed, it looks like he created here letters not existing in the Voynich script  

And it would be an agrument that he was a lost lamb, having no real idea what is going on

I don‘t think it is possible that the retracing idea can be extended to such a mass of written words.
Several examples show „stronger ink“ at positions where the characters were definitely lined twice during normal writing, when ink was refilled or mixture of ink changed a bit.
Some full words are clearly retraced with a different ink, and all retracings in drawings are quite clearly add-ons, changing the meaning of those drawings or improving just retracers‘ favourite parts (boobs).

(02-12-2025, 12:01 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the hypothetical retracer guy existed, it looks like he created here letters not existing in the Voynich script  

I see nothing particularly unusual in these letters.