The Voynich Ninja

We all have seen it - strange pipes and women bathing in green water in weird pools:



I don't know if it was already discussed but I haven't seen such a discussion.

So would would you say about a theory that it's not about bathing at all but about eating and digestion?

The pipes and pools would be stomach, intestines, spleen etc.
The green colour makes also sense then. If you vomit, then it's often kind of green   so the artist could imagine the stomach as full of green liquid.

And women? Well, that's the hardest part to explain. I think we can exclude that the author was a cannibal   So maybe they symbolically represent "components" of the food we eat? Of course the author didn't know about proteins, sugars or carbohydrates so he could think of four elements (earth, air, fire, water) or somthing similar. Or maybe some cosmic forces ruling your digestion?

By the way, if you were a kid in the 80s you may recall this series where everything inside a human body was represented as busy little men. Could VM author do something similar?
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How do you think? Possible or very improbable?

(20-10-2025, 09:03 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And women? Well, that's the hardest part to explain. I think we can exclude that the author was a cannibal   

Given how little we know about the manuscript, I do not think we can so confidently exclude the possibility that the author was a cannibal!

I am only mostly joking here

As to your more serious point, I have passingly entertained the idea it is digestive, but I can't say I feel that or any other interpretation of the balenological section seems to be an unambiguous fit.

(20-10-2025, 09:03 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We all have seen it - strange pipes and women bathing in green water in weird pools:
I don't know if it was already discussed but I haven't seen such a discussion.
So would would you say about a theory that it's not about bathing at all but about eating and digestion?
How do you think? Possible or very improbable?

If you do a quick Google search, I'm sure you'll find all the old suggestions, including anatomy.
That should apply to this forum as well.

(20-10-2025, 09:03 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So would would you say about a theory that it's not about bathing at all but about eating and digestion?  The pipes and pools would be stomach, intestines, spleen etc. How do you think? Possible or very improbable?

More than probable... I thought that "everyone" agreed that many of the "pipes and tubs" in this section are barely disguised organs of the human body.  It seems quite possible that all of them are.

The question that is still open is whether they are just organs in disguise, or they are actually pipes and tubs that are built or drawn in the shape of the organs that the waters are supposed to be good for.

As for the merry ladies, since they have names, they probably represent definite persons, things, or abstract concepts (rather than being just decoration, like the ladies that one sees in other astrological manuscripts of the time). There are many possibilities... Like stars that influence that organ, remedies or gods that are good for it, famous people that the Author cured of that organ's disease, the Scribe's favorite female characters from Greek mythology, un catalogo egli è che o fatt'io delle belle che amò il padron mio... who knows...

Unless the ladies are just decoration, and the labels refer to the specific pipes and tubs that they are sitting on, wading in, pointing to...

All the best, --stolfi

(21-10-2025, 12:50 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I thought that "everyone" agreed that many of the "pipes and tubs" in this section are barely disguised organs of the human body. 

This could be argued for two or three instances, but it would require a lot of theorizing to spread this over the entire section, or even to more than a few folios. Q13 is very diverse and hard to view through a single lens. There is probably a reason why people couldn't agree on what to call Q13: biological or balneological. 

I think it's safe to say that, just like the rest of the MS, it is inspired by a range of works/traditions that can be broadly described as medical/medicinal. But just like the rest of the MS, it does something weird with these sources. And even within the strictly therapeutic framework, expecting the whole quire to refer to the human body ignores the striking similarities with balneological imagery (Balneis).

(20-10-2025, 09:03 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So maybe they symbolically represent "components" of the food we eat?

Another possibility for components that could be represented by the female figures are “chemical” substances in a kind of test tube. I don't want to go into detail about the theory here, but suffice it to say that nymphs enter and leave the “pool,” which could mean adding or extracting.

(20-10-2025, 09:03 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't know if it was already discussed but I haven't seen such a discussion.

In a previous thread I did propose that quire 13 was a deception intended to portray witchcraft. I am still of this opinion, that it was part of the authors' efforts to create a hoax manuscript on the secret sciences.

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(21-10-2025, 09:00 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This could be argued for two or three instances

OK, I agree that only f77r, f77v, f83r, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are definitely "anatomical".

But on several other pages - f75r, f75v, f76v, f78r, f79r, f79v, f80r, f80v, f82r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - the tubes seem to be more important than the pools or the nymphs. They take up a large fraction of the area, are drawn in great detail, and have quite varied shapes, sizes, fittings, flanges, rims, funnels, etc. And their curves, joins, and splits are more "organic" than "hydraulic"...

And the remaining pages still could be anatomical.  Only f78v, where the big tub has holes for heating fires, looks definitely more "balneological" than "anatomical" to me...

All the best, --stolfi

I wonder if our (modern) reading of "tubes" is always correct. Some pages are definitely more tuby than others. For instance, you say that the tubes seem more important on 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. , but I don't even see anything on there that I'd call a tube. More like streams of water. Nobody would think of the human body when presented with these two pages in isolation, so I think this may be an overstretching of the anatomical insinuations we appear to see on some other folios.

(21-10-2025, 12:14 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.you say that the tubes seem more important on 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. , but I don't even see anything on there that I'd call a tube. More like streams of water.

On f75r, there is a separate "waterfall" on the side of the "umbrella" at the top, that feeds a narrow channel that eventually joins the "water slide" near the  nymph with the "staff".  But there is also a raised rill with a scalloped parapet that connects the "waterfall" to the top of the "slide", along a curved path.  What is the point of that design?  Why would the Author chose to draw that detail? 

On f75v, the upper end of the "channel" at the top has a rim, as if it was meant to be a tube rather than a channel.   If it was just the channel feeding water to the pond, why would the Author draw it in the middle of the paragraph?  Or at all?

But beware that the drawings on this page, most other drawings, were You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  Thus one should not draw conclusions about the nature of the scene from just one or two details, which may have been added or grossly mangled by the Retracers.  Like that rim around the top end of the channel,  the wavy lines along it, and the long and narrow "island" in the middle of that pond (which apparently was one of their most dramatic hallucinations).

All the best, --stolfi