18-04-2026, 08:00 PM
Ladies, gentlemen, and unidentified beasts! For another thread, it became of interest for me to count the number of words in the Zodiac counter clockwise texts. The ALL CAPS signs are the sum of the 2 halves.
Folio Sign Word Count
TAURUS 159
AIRES 132
f72r3 Cancer 122
f70v2 Pisces 104
f72v3 Leo 85
f72r1 Taurus 81
f72r2 Gemini 79
f71v Taurus 78
f72v2 Virgo 77
f71r Aires 72
f72v1 Libra 72
f73r Scorpio 66
f73v Sagittarius 66
f70v1 Aires 60
Folio Sign Character* Count
TAURUS 947
AIRES 836
f72r3 Cancer 738
f70v2 Pisces 603
f72v3 Leo 539
f72r1 Taurus 493
f72v2 Virgo 491
f72r2 Gemini 461
f72v1 Libra 459
f71v Taurus 454
f71r Aires 442
f73r Scorpio 432
f73v Sagittarius 416
f70v1 Aires 394
*Includes the space as a character, counting the end of each of the three lines as a space.
I think the finding here is interesting if we're thinking about the intentionality of constructing the Zodiac pages. If we assume---and this may not be warranted on numerous grounds---that they were created with the text in mind, we would predict that the largest ones are the ones that got split. We see this! And we see the crowded ones that didn't get split. We also see one of the splits appearing at the bottom of the distribution, and the second half of each split appearing smaller.
Countervailing that, f72r1, f71v, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are all very typical, and f70v1 isn't wildly smaller than most of its peers. The size of the actual zodiacs seems to cluster around 440 +/- 55 characters, with three then being above that bound. This is closer to, but not exactly what I'd expect if the text were filling the space provided. To commit to saying the text were filling the space I'd have to say they made Cancer and Pisces more crowded, either by accident or to throw us off, but I also don't see signs they were trying to jam text in.
Given the small set and the fact neither word length nor character length are exactly standard measurements, and the fact that circles vary a bit, there's quickly a limit to what statistics can tell us, and I'm not terribly surprised to get a fuzzy result.
And so my question, numbers or features of the page, what do people see here? Did the words fill the circles until they were full or were the circles crafted as containers for predetermined words? For my part, the fact the spaces are reasonably consistent within a diagram but less so between them gives me the sense I'm looking at something planned to hold the text, but it's a subtle effect and my bias anyway.
Folio Sign Word Count
TAURUS 159
AIRES 132
f72r3 Cancer 122
f70v2 Pisces 104
f72v3 Leo 85
f72r1 Taurus 81
f72r2 Gemini 79
f71v Taurus 78
f72v2 Virgo 77
f71r Aires 72
f72v1 Libra 72
f73r Scorpio 66
f73v Sagittarius 66
f70v1 Aires 60
Folio Sign Character* Count
TAURUS 947
AIRES 836
f72r3 Cancer 738
f70v2 Pisces 603
f72v3 Leo 539
f72r1 Taurus 493
f72v2 Virgo 491
f72r2 Gemini 461
f72v1 Libra 459
f71v Taurus 454
f71r Aires 442
f73r Scorpio 432
f73v Sagittarius 416
f70v1 Aires 394
*Includes the space as a character, counting the end of each of the three lines as a space.
I think the finding here is interesting if we're thinking about the intentionality of constructing the Zodiac pages. If we assume---and this may not be warranted on numerous grounds---that they were created with the text in mind, we would predict that the largest ones are the ones that got split. We see this! And we see the crowded ones that didn't get split. We also see one of the splits appearing at the bottom of the distribution, and the second half of each split appearing smaller.
Countervailing that, f72r1, f71v, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are all very typical, and f70v1 isn't wildly smaller than most of its peers. The size of the actual zodiacs seems to cluster around 440 +/- 55 characters, with three then being above that bound. This is closer to, but not exactly what I'd expect if the text were filling the space provided. To commit to saying the text were filling the space I'd have to say they made Cancer and Pisces more crowded, either by accident or to throw us off, but I also don't see signs they were trying to jam text in.
Given the small set and the fact neither word length nor character length are exactly standard measurements, and the fact that circles vary a bit, there's quickly a limit to what statistics can tell us, and I'm not terribly surprised to get a fuzzy result.
And so my question, numbers or features of the page, what do people see here? Did the words fill the circles until they were full or were the circles crafted as containers for predetermined words? For my part, the fact the spaces are reasonably consistent within a diagram but less so between them gives me the sense I'm looking at something planned to hold the text, but it's a subtle effect and my bias anyway.