The Voynich Ninja

(03-08-2026, 02:05 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(03-08-2026, 07:00 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But this similarity of handwriting can be explained not only by the fact that the author was drawing on the contours. If this is a VMS scribe who has already mastered the art of writing in the Voynichese style, I believe that his handwriting will be influenced. In particular, this can be indicated by the letter e, which has turned into a similar e in the words.

This would be plausible only if the scribe had no experience writing Latin script.  

Which is not impossible.  In this theory, he would also have written the Zodiac month names -- and those do look like they were written by someone who was not used to Latin script.

But if he was used to writing Latin script, I don't see how writing any amount of Voynichese would have changed his Latin handwriting. 

All the best, --stolfi

Imagine a person who can write in Latin (no doubt), but who is not particularly good at it or simply does not like writing books.
This person was tasked with rewriting about 200 pages (well, or less, but not much less) in an unknown language with an unknown script, and the text had to be legible.
He will spend a certain amount of his free time practicing and rewriting this script.
During this time (if he didn't write anything in Latin at the same time), his hand will become accustomed to Voynichese. When he writes something in Latin again, he may unconsciously use the same characters or similar shapes. For example, he may write ce as ch.
The same can happen with fonts. If you practice writing in one font consistently, you may find that when you switch to regular writing, you can write the letters in a font that is more familiar to you, rather than the way you used to write them (this happened to me with Beneventan script. I can no longer write the letter e in its usual formstyle...).

(02-08-2026, 11:51 AM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I appreciate the write up. As for the supposed Q1 "?" symbol, I believe this is caused by the smudged/soaked stain from two EVA l symbols on 116r.

Prompted by @eggyk's post above, I added another image to the HTML report on the "Big Wipe-off" theory for page f116v. 

As @eggyk pointed out, on the multispectral images of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. one can see faint traces of the writing on the other side of the folio, f116r. However, to the Repairman, these bleedthrough or seethrough smudges should have been clearly distinguishable from residues of the lost writing. There is no indication that the "repaired" text was influenced by the bleedthrough.  Except perhaps that, as @eggyk suggested, the big question mark at the end of the aror Sheey line may have been induced by seethrough from the two l glyphs on line f116r.6, in soiin ol lCheedy.

    [attachment=16984]
    (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
    Text from the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (yellow), mirrored and scaled so as to match its position on an ulraviolet-light image (MB365UV_007) of f116v. The blue spots are holes in the vellum.

Conversely, the spill on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. did not seem to have had any effect on the text of f116r. We must conclude that the vellum itself was impervious to water.

There may have been a small amount of water entering from the top between 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. along a pronounced furrow of f116, near the middle of lines 1 to 3. That water may have caused a few glyphs to become fainter. However there is no sign of wiping on either You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or f116r, and the text must have remained perfectly sharp and legible once the water dried up.
There is however some superficial insect damage ("wormscraping") on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. along that furrow, besides all the worm holes visible on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. side.  I hope to discuss these points later, in a separate post.

All the best, stolfi

(Yesterday, 11:58 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(02-08-2026, 11:51 AM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I appreciate the write up. As for the supposed Q1 "?" symbol, I believe this is caused by the smudged/soaked stain from two EVA l symbols on 116r.

Prompted by @eggyk's post above, I added another image to the HTML report on the "Big Wipe-off" theory for page f116v. 

As @eggyk pointed out, on the multispectral images of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. one can see faint traces of the writing on the other side of the folio, f116r. However, to the Repairman, these bleedthrough or seethrough smudges should have been clearly distinguishable from residues of the lost writing. There is no indication that the "repaired" text was influenced by the bleedthrough.  Except perhaps that, as @eggyk suggested, the big question mark at the end of the aror Sheey line may have been induced by seethrough from the two l glyphs on line f116r.6, in soiin ol lCheedy.

By the way, great caution needs to be used when overlaying the entire width of the page. The parchment seems to have been in a slightly different orientation between different scans (how flat or bumpy (or stretched?) it was in certain areas). As far as I can tell, there is no way to overlay the entire page in a way that lines up with everything perfectly. 

Just to keep in mind when discussing which marks may have caused what, as these slight differences of 0.5mm or less make a difference. It's better to align a smaller area when looking for a specific mark as it's less likely that these factors will cause deviations. For example, here are our overlays compared to the multispectral scan for the end of "gasmich". Note how a tiny alignment difference actually makes quite a large difference. 

[attachment=16985]

I'm not trying to dismiss your overlay as "incorrect" or to claim mine as "correct" by the way, as neither is the case. There are also many areas in yours which overlay slightly better than in mine. 

(Yesterday, 01:05 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.By the way, great caution needs to be used when overlaying the entire width of the page. The parchment seems to have been in a slightly different orientation between different scans

Indeed the mapping from the Beinecke image of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to match the UV image of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. required a slight rotation and stretching.  The projective transformation that I found by matching four key points (hole corners) was

    [  1.0370  4560.6296  -159.9366 ]
    [ -0.0000    -1.9335    -0.0387 ]
    [ -0.0000     0.0268     1.8474 ]

which means 

  Xout = ( 4560.6296 - 1.9335 * Xin + 0.0268 * Yin ) / 1.0370
  Yout = ( -159.9366 - 0.0387 * Xin + 1.8474 * Yin ) / 1.0370

(Unless I am switching the X and Y here, maybe.) This is actually an affine transformation (linear map plus a translation).  The "in" coordinates are measured from the upper right corner of the Beinecke image, while the "out" coordinates are measured from the upper left corner of the UV image after

Quote: (how flat or bumpy (or stretched?) it was in certain areas). As far as I can tell, there is no way to overlay the entire page in a way that lines up with everything perfectly.

Indeed the Beinecke images were apparently taken without any attempt to keep the vellum flat.  This can be seen on the Zodiac pages where the larger circles are slightly squeezed sideways while the smaller ones are almost perfectly round.  

Whereas the folios were at least partly clamped to some flat surface when the Multispectral images were taken.

Thus the mapping above is expected to get visibly wrong near the binding fold.

Still, the holes -- especially the two at the bottom right -- got matched with at most one penstroke-width of error.  That is my estimate for the maximum error of the mapping above.

It is quite possible that a more precise mapping, that accounted for the curvature of the Beinecke image, would get those two ls to coincide more closely with the big "question mark".  I don't dismiss the possibility that they were what got the Repairman to draw that sign.  However I still maintain that there is real ink there, not just the seethrough of the ls.

Quote:It's better to align a smaller area when looking for a specific mark as it's less likely that these factors will cause deviations.

But doing it this way increases the risk of aligning things that are not really aligned.  Are those two ls really aligned with the question mark, as in your previous alignment image, or are they in fact 0.5 mm to the left?

Quote:For example, here are our overlays compared to the multispectral scan for the end of "gasmich". Note how a tiny alignment difference actually makes quite a large difference.

The difference between your alignment and mine, in this area, seems to be about the width of one broad pensroke in the horizontal direction, and a small fraction of that in the vertical direction.  Which matches my estimate of the error, above.

These discrepancies would make a big difference when evaluating the influence of seethrough on a specific glyph.  But when one considers a whole word or line, these discrepancies do not seem relevant: overall, the "anchiton" text does not seem to be aligned or influenced by the seethrough.

Moreover, as I mentioned, the seethrough would be clearly indentifiable as such when looking at the real vellum, because it would be a bunch of fuzzy shapes, clearly on the other side of the vellum.  I can't believe that the Repairman would have mistaken them for remains of the original text, no matter how faint. Except maybe in one or two cases, like the "question mark".

All the best, --stolfi

(Yesterday, 02:07 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But doing it this way increases the risk of aligning things that are not really aligned.  Are those two ls really aligned with the question mark, as in your previous alignment image, or are they in fact 0.5 mm to the left?

By "smaller area", I meant the symbol in question + the text immediately around it, not just the area containing only those marks. For example: 

[attachment=16986]

You see that both the eva t (to the bottom left, and the bottom middle) are aligned, along with many other symbols. Even in such a small area though, a couple of glyphs are slightly off. That's because the further you go away from the place where you chose to align, the worse the alignment gets. I would imagine the text near the holes is the best matching on your scan, for example.

But you can see from this context - in my opinion - that the double eva l clearly corresponds to the marks seen in the "?". This can be seen with the matching text around the area. Whether a retracer drew a question mark or not is a different issue. 

And I'm not sure about matching the image using the holes either. This would only work if the parchment is uniform, which it is not. When matching via the holes it becomes quite clear that you will not be able to match all of the text this way. I highly recommend trying your exact process on the multispectral scans, if possible.

(Yesterday, 02:07 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.These discrepancies would make a big difference when evaluating the influence of seethrough on a specific glyph.  But when one considers a whole word or line, these discrepancies do not seem relevant: overall, the "anchiton" text does not seem to be aligned or influenced by the seethrough.

Edit, I missed this line, and agree with you on that.   I'm only mentioning this in case one image gets used to evaluate the influence for specific glyphs.

(Yesterday, 03:41 PM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.By "smaller area", I meant the symbol in question + the text immediately around it, not just the area containing only those marks. For example: You see that both the eva t (to the bottom left, and the bottom middle) are aligned, along with many other symbols.

Yes, indeed, in that image the flipped You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text aligns very closely with the seethrough on f116v.

Which image are using for the latter?  On the UV image, which I have been using, there is hardly any seethrough.  Is that a red or infrared image?

Quote:And I'm not sure about matching the image using the holes either. This would only work if the parchment is uniform, which it is not. When matching via the holes it becomes quite clear that you will not be able to match all of the text this way. I highly recommend trying your exact process on the multispectral scans, if possible.

Yes, the non-linear distortion due to vellum curvature will cause errors, because the holes are all near the edges. 

Could someone visit Beinecke, and, when the Librarian is distracted, pull a Dremel out of the pocket and drill a grid of fine holes, one cm apart, all through the whole book? As preparation for future scans? 

All the best, --stolfi

(Yesterday, 04:17 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Which image are using for the latter?  On the UV image, which I have been using, there is hardly any seethrough.  Is that a red or infrared image?

I'm using: "Voynich_116v_bands01-22_RF+FL_cal_faded_text_RB+UV_FL_8bands_PCA_R-1G-2B3_hue+20b_r90_BW_as_L_RGB" 
from the processed images folder posted by Lisa Fagin Davis (from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

and I have been using the 2004 scans for 116r as they allow a higher resolution (which also likely causes differences in our results if you are using the later scans for 116r, now that I think about it)