The Voynich Ninja

So each nymph was basically a day or "degree" or "division" by the zodiac calendar which was different from the Julian calendar so it is not a one-to-one match.

12 signs × 30 days = 360 days
Real solar year ≈ 365 days

Most nymphs have only one associated word or only a few words at most.  It can't be giving a lot of information.

I do not think the zodiac pages in the Voynich Manuscript are a standard generic zodiac calendar.  I think they are more like a process or possibly a schedule for some kind of medical treatment or medicine preparation.

Just as a potential example:

St. John's Wort Oil (used for burns, cuts, etc.)

Chop the flowers and then soaking in wine or vinegar for 3 - 10 days
Strain, then add to oil 
Place jar in the sun for 40 - 70 days

(16-02-2026, 11:04 PM)pjburkshire Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Most nymphs have only one associated word or only a few words at most.  It can't be giving a lot of information.

Could be numbers. I mean that's what you see on other zodiacs of the time, and is strinkingly missing from the VM.

(16-02-2026, 09:17 PM)pjburkshire Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I counted the zodiac nymphs.  There seems to be a nymph missing on f70v2 Pisces.  I've counted multiple times and I only get 29.  Is there a nymph hiding somewhere that I am missing?

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is an attempt I started 20 years ago to make a detailed verbal description of the VMS.  It is still very fragmentary and terribly messy, but the Zodiac pages are mostly covered.  Search "@f70v2" for the objective description of that page, and then "Stolfi's theory" further down for my theory of how that diagram was drawn -- and, in particular, for why it has 29 nymphs, 30 labels, and 31 stars, while all other diagrams have 30 (or 15) of each (except that a couple of stars are missing there).

All the best, --stolfi

(16-02-2026, 11:04 PM)pjburkshire Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So each nymph was basically a day or "degree" or "division" by the zodiac calendar which was different from the Julian calendar so it is not a one-to-one match.

12 signs × 30 days = 360 days
Real solar year ≈ 365 days

Indeed the most obvious explanation is that each label/nymph/star refers to a one degree of arc on the Ecliptic, rather than one day of the year.

That would be an "astronomically oriented" way of looking at the Zodiac, where each sign is defined as an arc of exactly 30 degrees.  Since the Earth takes ~365.256 days to go around the Sun, it covers each of those arcs in 30 x 365.256 / 360 = ~30.438 days on average (a bit more or less depending on the season, sine the Earth's orbit is not quite circular and its orbital speed varies).  

For practical "consumer" astrology, those times are rounded to an integer number of days, so that some signs end up with 30 days, some with 31; and one needs five or sometimes six of the latter to keep sync with the astronomy.

Zodiacs based on 360 degrees rather than 365 days have reached the "consumer market" in other cultures.  I won's say which, but you may guess...

Quote:Most nymphs have only one associated word or only a few words at most.  It can't be giving a lot of information.

My guess is that the labels are names of the stars that are in a certain position (say on the meridian at midnight) when the Sun is in the corresponding degree of the Ecliptic. 

In fact I believe that the only meaningful content of each diagram is the text rings, the ordered list of labels, and the correspondence of the arc covered by the diagram to a Western Zodiac sign and to a Western calendar month.  Note that these two pieces of information cannot be both accurate, so at least one of them is only approximate.

I believe that everything else on those diagrams -- nymphs, stars, tails, tubs, circles, and the central icons -- is just decoration, and carries no additional information.

We don't quite know the order of the labels, but it must have been determined in some way. Like, "always start at 12:00 in the inner band and read clockwise, then do the same in the outer band".  Or whatever.

All the best, --stolfi

(17-02-2026, 02:45 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
My guess is that the labels are names of the stars that are in a certain position (say on the meridian at midnight) when the Sun is in the corresponding degree of the Ecliptic. 

That only makes sense if you assume that the star-like images in the Voynich Manuscript are representations of stars in the night sky.  I do not.

(17-02-2026, 03:04 PM)pjburkshire Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That only makes sense if you assume that the star-like images in the Voynich Manuscript are representations of stars in the night sky.  I do not.

They all look very much like the stars in the Cosmo diagrams that also have images of the Moon and Sun.  And a diagram in that section (f67r2) shows what can only be phases of the Moon; while the next page (f67v2), besides Sun and Moon, shows what look like schematic diagrams of constellations as seen in some other manuscripts.

Thus the natural assumption is that the Cosmo section is about astronomical stuff, that the stars there are indeed stars, and that so are that stars in the Zodiac section.  The claim that they are something else would require some evidence...

(The stars in the Starred Parags section, on the other hand, seem to be just bullets to mark the parags.  It is hard to imagine that they could carry some useful information, astronomical or otherwise.)

All the best, --stolfi

The zodiac nymph+star images may represent the degrees of the zodiac. There are thirty degrees in each zodiac sign, and in classical astrology, the degree of the zodiac played a role in 'establishing' a person's character or fate in life. 

The main question was which degree was rising at the horizon at the moment that a person was born.
This is known as the ascendant. (In modern popular horoscopes, the ascendant has been replaced by the Sun sign. For this, you only need to know the date of birth, not the time).

The degrees of the zodiac were associated with stars, or small groups of stars, that were rising at the same time as this degree. These could be observed, or more easily calculated because you could actually see them. These were called 'paranatellonta'. The correspondence depends on the latitude of the observer.
There are numerous manuscripts that list (or illustrate) these correspondences.

Also other celestial events could be associated with paranatellonta, for example the culminations (highest point in the path along the sky, i.e. due South) of stars or planets. 

This association is an interesting hypothesis for the meaning of the Voynich zodiac, but of course we don't know if this is the case.
Most interpretations that have been offered over time are based on personal taste rather than good reference / comparison material.

There is a good example of paranatellonta that has been mentioned on numerous occasions, which is the lapidary of Alfonso X. It is a magical-astrological lapidary that, like other more scientific ones, indicates a medicinal use for each stone but with reference to the power of certain stars of the degrees of each zodiac sign.

  In the illustrations of this lapidary we see the same zodiac wheels as in the Voynich with an almost identical arrangement, except that each degree is occupied by the figure of an angel and not a female figure. In the work of Alfonso X, a Christianized lapidary, the star or stars that hold power over a particular stone are indicated in the same degree as each angel. In the Voynich Manuscript, it is the female figure who holds a star, indicating that this star holds power in that zodiacal degree.

  In my opinion there is a clear correspondence between both works, given that in the Voynich it is likely that what is being shown is the power of each zodiacal star over the plants of the herbal. It should be kept in mind that in the medicinal treatises of the time, herbs and stones were treated equally.

(18-02-2026, 10:58 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is a good example of paranatellonta that has been mentioned on numerous occasions, which is the lapidary of Alfonso X.

This famous MS illustrates the relevance of the degrees of the zodiac, but not so much their association with asterisms (stars or small groups of stars).

For that, excellent examples of illustrated manuscripts are Vat.Reg.Lat 1283: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
or Pal.Germ.832: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
(the relevant part starts on f36).

This topic has already been discussed at length in this forum, with links to other manuscripts, but it may be new for quite a few currently active participants.