The Voynich Ninja

Hi everyone,
Following an expression of interest from ReneZ in the thread about Philomela/80r, I'm opening a thread about the poses in the Voynich manuscript.
I've slightly updated my You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about the subject.
In short, although there are hundreds of people depicted in the Voynich manuscript, the range of poses is very limited. The vast majority of them (haven't done a stat count but I'd say over 90%) are represented in one of seven basic poses.

Additionally, I haven't touched on the issue of models in my post, but I'd like to add here that there is an interesting book about the use of model-books of drawings in medieval art:
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I have gone through a few of the model-books mentioned in this publication's catalogue, but so far, none seems to comprise all seven poses.

I would say that pose of women  on f75v, of ballet. Maybe in the center stands the "coach" and the two groups of women are engaged in "water aerobics"?  


I am very interested in that transmits or displays an the left woman with a disproportionately long arm on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. page?

I have been looking at the poses of the nymphs in the zodiac section, but not those in the bio section.
This was around '99 when I was trying to figure out if and how the zodiac illustrations really refer to
celestial events (paranatellonta). For each degree, there could be any of the following:
- a star rising with this degree of the zodiac (the litteral meaning of paranatellonta)
- a star culminating when this degree rises
- a start setting when this degree rises (or sets)
- it is the longitude of the star.
The idea was whether the pose of the nymph would identify which of the several options it was....

At the time I concentrated more on the stars and their magnitudes (which I supposed to be reflected in the number of points of the star held by each nymph) than the poses, and intended to use it as a check in case I found a good match.
Of course, I never found a good match, except a qualitative one. The distribution of the magnitudes could be explained, but not the exact locations of the brightest stars. Thus I never got round to doing the check.

While all this may seem far-fetched, like a long shot, there is actually some sort of a precedent, namely the illustration I show here:
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These 'nymphs' have poses like in the Voynich MS, and these are related to some celestial event. Of course, there's only one per month. The colour of the nymph refers to day or night, as also reflected in the 'label text' in the next outer ring, which has a capital 'Nu' for night and a capital 'Mu' for day.

If the nymphs in the bio section tend to have the same restricted set of poses as in the zodiac, then this idea becomes much less likely (should I say: even more unlikely....)

Wladimir D.,
The object is hard to determine, as it is just a circle or ball-shaped objects. There are several other instances of such objects in the Voynich, such as on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for example, or possibly those on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . But I don't want to focus on that here.
The disproportionately long arm you mention is indeed interesting. It seems like a clumsy attempt at perspective drawing, or perhaps the artist forgot to draw the arm holding the object at first, then remembered to add it later.
If we look at this particular pool using the repertoire of poses, we have: one Brandish holding an object, nine Spectators looking on, and one Bend reaching down for something. Is Bend reaching into the water to find an object similar to the one Brandish has? Or has Brandish retrieved the object Bend was looking for?

ReneZ,
thanks for mentioning the Vat.Gr. 1291 illustration. It does show many of the Voynich poses: 5/7, but still missing are the Bend and the Hands-off poses. I checked out the Vatican's digitized manuscripts but alas it seems Gr. 1291 is not available online. It would be great to see more illustrations from this MS to check if perhaps the other poses are in there too on other pages.

Koen Gh.,
Interesting observation about the arm positioning. The two figures are clearly engaging with one another, but I am not convinced that they are actually shaking hands though: the hands appear to be touching but the artist has not represented a grasping gesture, which he knows how to do. The observation you make about crossed arms and the way their hands are touching actually leads me to entertain the thought that they may be engaged in a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .

Koen,

That image is of the 'handfast' ceremony as it was called in earlier English. It's a ceremony of marriage or (less likely) of manumission.

The object held by the male is the legal document.

The object which stands before them a specialist in early Roman iconography could answer more certainly (or I could if I did a bit more work) but it's either the sacred fire, or a type of container where you cast your vote (the die is cast) and so symbolic of the risks and intended permanence of marriage.

* * * * (pause)...

haha - I went to check wiki to get details (which I should know but have forgotten) of exactly how the ritual went... and found the source of your picture.

tut-tut. Shouldn't tease!

Haha I just googled something like "marriage ceremony history" or something to get that picture. I'm showing it because it illustrates a context where a man would hold a woman's one hand and give her an object with the other, resulting in exactly the same pose as in the VM. A similar ritual could explain this pose.

@VViews,

this MS doesn't have any similar illustrations.

Whilst the Gemini crossed arms discussion is fascinating, it's wandered OT from the original thrust of this thread which is Voynich poses not Zodiac imagery.
I think both threads are flagging up something very interesting, so have split the Gemini crossed arms thread into a separate discussion You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Onwards and upwards!

(05-05-2016, 03:00 PM)Wladimir D Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am very interested in that transmits or displays an the left woman with a disproportionately long arm on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. page?

Interesting. To me, it looks like a clumsy attempt to depict that the leftmost lady is passing or "offering" something to the next to leftmost lady (or perhaps to other ladies) while residing behind the next to leftmost lady. Whatever that means, but the position of the leftmost lady here seems to matter. The object itself... a bast wisp?

I haven't analyzed this scene yet but it does remind me of the judgement of Paris:

From theoi.com: The story begins at the wedding of Thetis to which all of the gods were invited, all except [/font][/size][/color]You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[color=#000000][size=xx-large][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif], the goddess of discord. When she appeared at the festivities, she was turned away, and in her anger cast a golden apple amongst the assembled goddesses addressed "To the Fairest." Three goddesses laid claim to the apple--Aphrodite, Hera and Athena


The scene would, as in all cases, not be a literal illustration but rather a mnemonic narrative to teach about something else, i.e. the true purpose of the illustration, whatever that may be.

The fact that the nymph that offers the object is actully hidden and makes it appear among the other ones is my main reason for assuming this interpretation at the moment.