The Voynich Ninja

In the Rosettes folio, have a look at the (supposed) element in between (supposed) Europe and Africa. I forgot what element it stands for (Juergen explored this). Although the picture does not look excatly like the balneo section "circus roofs", but it has the same kind of a characteristic "spindle" in its centre. And I think that the element counter-clockwise from Africa also does.

Both cloudbands and "circus roofs" in the balneo section have spindles.

(11-04-2016, 09:24 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes Koen Gh, it is a Balneis, and I should have said so. What I meant is I don't know which specific MS this particular one is. The circular tent motif seems to be a constant across various versions. 
And throughout all of these suggestions, the questions remain: if the objects are tents, then what is the weird scalloped stuff going on underneath them? If they are pinecones, then why are they cut in half with a raised central pod?
It seems we have yet to find the right object...

I investigated these natural bathing places all over the world and particularly in Europe and eastern Europe and found scads of them that could be interpreted as similar as the VMS.

Note how some of them appear to have constructed walls?


Many of the natural spas and bathing places I located have those walls built with natural stones from the area (some dating to Roman times and earlier) and, as I mentioned, many have natural grottoes nearby.

Often you have to hike down, so you set up camp up top and you hike down hills, sometimes through cliffs, etc., to get down to the water, to the bathing spots. Sometimes they constructed steps and planks to get there. It really isn't much different from what happens today. People set up camp and hike down or into the area with thermal pools, springs, waterfalls, and otherwise flowing water.


So, I had hoped to locate the exact bathing area, but there are so many that have all these features, all over the place from Sweden to Africa, and from Spain to eastern Europe and beyond, that I didn't have much luck. The pictures are quite consistent with healthful bathing and recreational bathing of the time and many of the bathing areas had waterfalls, rivulets, and caverns nearby also, which might explain some of the "flowing water" and grotto imagery, and since some are from Roman times, there were pipes to bring down some of the water, as well, but there are hundreds of spots like this and many have green water or a combination of green and blue water depending on the layout of the pools.

The circular tub with the pole and the tent is just what it looks like, a medieval hot tub.

(11-04-2016, 09:24 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And throughout all of these suggestions, the questions remain: if the objects are tents, then what is the weird scalloped stuff going on underneath them? If they are pinecones, then why are they cut in half with a raised central pod?
It seems we have yet to find the right object...

I agree, and I think, looking at the entire page, that a symbolical meaning for the items on top shouldn't be excluded. If it was a tent under which people bathe, then there would be people bathing right under it. Interestingly, a similar thing can be seen You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., where water appears to "rain" from the scallops. Is this a Voynichy way of drawing clouds, or a symbolical "origin of water"? And if so, is the flowing water a river? And are the larger bodies of water lakes or seas? 

These are reasons why I lean towards a fully symbolical interpretation for this page. What that interpretation is, I don't know:

- The "poles" on top of the "umbrellas" are You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: the one on the left is round with a spike on top, the one on the right ends in an asymmetrical knob.
- What are the scallops, is there a reason why some are blue and some are white? Does this form a pattern? Is there a reason why some are dotted? Why does the dotted scallop pattern appear again on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.? 
- What are these cylinders, and why does the water flow freely in between them? Are the cylinders real or symbolical? Why do very similar cylinders appear again You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
- Why is there a patterned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. around the first "lake", and not the second one? Is it significant? Is it related to the rind found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Why are the nymphs in the top lake doing their best to stay inside of the outline, while the bottom ones stand more freely?
- And, most importantly, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

JKP - I must say I was surprised by the number of these bathing places in the Balneis alone. I thought it would be a smaller amount of well-known places, but it seems to have really been a "thing" back then - as it probably still is now in some places. 
By the way - I really wouldn't go in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Those guys don't look particularly happy either. 1/5 rating, and just because Jesus was there. Otherwise it would have been a 0/5. Won't visit again.

Quote:Koen gh
....These are reasons why I lean towards a fully symbolical interpretation for this page. ...

is my posting invisible, or am i ignored ?

Anton,
thanks for making this parallel with the rosettes folio. Your description of the central feature as a "spindle" got me thinking about spinning clouds, and I found these two myths might be relevant:
The first is the Norse story of the goddess Frigg, who was known for using her spindle to spin the clouds, producing weather and fate in general.
The second (which should interest Koen Gh) is that Athena, credited as the inventor of the spindle, spun a bedspread for Zeus out of a fleece of clouds.
There are probably more such legends that I am not aware of, but I think the notion of spinning using clouds as a material would be an interesting line of research.

JKP,
I find this comment, and your view of the structures as being depictions of grottoes etc.. really interesting. This would mean that the scalloped motif represents a mineral/geological feature: am I understanding your point correctly? 
If we pursue this line of thought, it seems like the next steps would be: To identify a tradition, or even another MS or artefact, in which rocks and other geological features are depicted in this scalloped/bubbled sort of way; and to find a reason why the tents appear to be laid flat on the rocks rather than raised above them. Have you looked into this?

Koen Gh,
all good questions, IMO. I especially wonder about the use of the cylinders in this context (which Ellie V. brought up on another thread). The "jellyfish" looks more like some kind of sieve to me... but if it is a jellyfish, then I definitely wouldn't want to bathe in that spring either!

(12-04-2016, 01:23 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anton,
thanks for making this parallel with the rosettes folio. Your description of the central feature as a "spindle" got me thinking about spinning clouds, and I found these two myths might be relevant:
The first is the Norse story of the goddess Frigg, who was known for using her spindle to spin the clouds, producing weather and fate in general.
The second (which should interest Koen Gh) is that Athena, credited as the inventor of the spindle, spun a bedspread for Zeus out of a fleece of clouds.
There are probably more such legends that I am not aware of, but I think the notion of spinning using clouds as a material would be an interesting line of research.

The interesting side is that not only cloudbands have spindles. I referred to the paper by Wastl & Feger, and they identify the element between Europe and Africa as Earth, and that counter-clockwise to Africa as Fire. Both do not refer to clouds. Air is identified to be opposite to Earth, and it does not have a spindle, nor it is represented by a cloudband pattern (while Water, the remaining element, interestingly is, - maybe its shape is not intended to be really cloudband here).

I think it is important that the aforementioned shapes in the Rosettes folio can be thought of as projections of the "circus roofs" from the balneo section onto a plane. Hence they may just represent two different depictions - planar and stereometric - of the same things.

It is also interesting to note that spindles are different. In f78r, the right spindle has a little ball on its top - like that of the Fire in the Rosettes. While the left spindle has something like a cross or maybe an onion atop of it - like the onion-shaped spindle of the Earth in the Rosettes.

So if some substance emerges from Fire, and some - from Earth, this actually may represent a Galenic perspective - like yellow bile and black bile, respectively.

---

Further, one may note that labels corresponding to the right and left "circuses " in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are morphologically similar. While the left one is labeled okchdldlo, the right one is labeled okchdy.

So okch or okchd may stand for a notion (bile?) while the remaining parts of the two vords - for attributes.

(12-04-2016, 12:48 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Quote:Koen gh
....These are reasons why I lean towards a fully symbolical interpretation for this page. ...

is my posting invisible, or am i ignored ?

 
Hi Davidsch,
neither ignored nor invisible! I didn't mention you by name in my reply about medicinal pinecone extract (should have in hindsight) but this was intended as a response to your post, since you said "it could easily be a pinecone".

With respect to the question of the whole scene being related to elixir of life and or ritual bathing, why not? I didn't reply to that part because the angle is already discussed in the thread you linked to and in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. started by Marco P, and doesn't really help us elucidate the objects we are examining here. How do pinecones fit into elixir of life/ritual bathing? They seem to be more related to urinary/stomach problems according to Dioscorides.

As for the link you posted relative to the pineal gland... this is based on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. theories, which is a cultish pseudoscientific philosophy born in the USA in the 1950's, and I would definitely not base any interpretation of the Voynich on anything they say unless it s confirmed by a more reliable source. Descartes also saw the pineal gland as a bit mystical but he's way too late to be of relevance to the Voynich.

Regarding the "tree of life" part, well, perhaps more of a shrub or bush of life? I don't see a trunk on these things.

(12-04-2016, 08:39 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.- What are the scallops, is there a reason why some are blue and some are white? Does this form a pattern? Is there a reason why some are dotted? Why does the dotted scallop pattern appear again on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.? 
- What are these cylinders, and why does the water flow freely in between them? Are the cylinders real or symbolical? Why do very similar cylinders appear again You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
- Why is there a patterned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. around the first "lake", and not the second one? Is it significant? Is it related to the rind found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Why are the nymphs in the top lake doing their best to stay inside of the outline, while the bottom ones stand more freely?
- And, most importantly, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I don't think it's a jellyfish. I think it's an exit pipe for the water.

My opinion... I think the VMS bathing area is a combination of constructed pools and natural pools, which would be consistent with many of these ancient bathing spots. Some of them even today have remnants of the rocks and old Roman pipes that contained some of the water and directed other parts of the water.

I spent months trying to find one that jumped out as being more similar to the VMS, but many of them are like this. It could be any of several dozens. There are many in eastern Europe, quite a few in central Europe, many in southern Europe (and beyond) all with the same basic features.


Unfortunately, some have had spas built over them (well, not unfortunate for those who go there to enjoy them), so their natural structures have been concretized and can't be matched to the VMS, but there are still many that are only semi-accessible (you have to hike in) and still retain their natural beauty and look much as they did centuries ago. Hiking in was no hardship to people in the middle ages. They thought nothing of walking 4,000 miles from London to Jerusalem and back again.

See page f75v. There are two umbrella fully disclosed and combined into one tent. There are drawn spokes of umbrella and two different tip.

PS
I always f71r1 associated with jellyfish, if you look at from Bottom side.