The Voynich Ninja

Hi all,

having read and skimmed almost half of all the posts here, on a level that I couldn't aspire to reach, I want to share my rough ideas in a nutshell and see:
- if they are presented before (probably they are, but on René Zandbergen's website and also reading here until now, I haven't seen them)
- if so, could you point me to the authors of them
- if not, feel free to "steal" them and use them as a basis for further research
- if my ideas are really so wildly crazy or not

As I said in my introduction: I am not a researcher, in the sense that I have studied the VMS, have experience in any of the fields needed to understand/decypher it or have a lot of time to dive into this (although I would like to). I am a scientist, but not in any of the fields needed to contribute on the level I am seeing here.

A rough outline of my ideas:

The purpose

From an analytical point of view, this section should be at the end as a conclusion from the bottom-up approach of decent scientific analysis, but I want to share it upfront:

- my idea about this mysterious manuscript is that it is written by a number of authors (see below) to represent experiences using different psychoactive herbs (herbal), representing the "visions" seen in those trips (astronomical, nymphs/biological) and the "final" (in the current order) section describes the use of them to get the best "trip" (recipes)
- the text is written in code (see below) to prevent others (outside of the "circle of friends/authors") from knowing its meaning and especially to keep the power of the Church away, in case the document would be found
- the manuscript was part of a group of people/friends/secret "society" (but on a much less organised scale) who had their tripping experiences together and wanted to share their knowledge only between them, like a private message

-> a group of people who would be considered "witches" or other pejorative names for people just experimenting with psychoactive plants the divine Nature is giving us

The authors

I don't believe the manuscript is produced by 1 author

- the text is very neatly written; smooth, elegant, shows experience
- the drawings are not of a very high quality tbh (I don't know how skilled people were in the 15th century, but they seem rather poorly done)
- the paint is horrible. It looks as if the beautiful text with the reasonable images is "screwed up" by someone painting over it without taking much care [has been noted of course, but I haven't seen it as part of a larger context/meaning]

-> I suspect at least 2, but rather 3 (or even more, taking "Currier A and B" as two "hands") authors

I suspect the authors to be friends/close people who share something between them

- René Zandbergen states on his last page: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - Meaningful or not - question 1 three options:
1 - Generally meaningful
2 - Meaningful only to him
3 - Meaningless

I want to add a 4th option: 4 - Meaningful only to a select group of people, not generally meaningful and not generally meaningless (to those outside yes, to those in the know not)

- the work, money and effort put in this document do not support option 3; why would someone spend years of his (or her, but I suspect the author(s) to be male) life (and people in the 15th century generally reached ages of 40/50 and not 70/80 as was more common towards the 17th-18th century) on a document that was meaningless, only with the HOPE of selling it?
- there is no documentation of the manuscript between ~1440-1460 (last age of C14 analysis + writing time) until the acquisition by Rudolf II 140-160 years later. Buyers of a document that was supposed to sell for a high price (because of the mystery of it) would record it, especially in the higher nobility ranks of the time. A document unknown for 140 years and then "suddenly" sold to Rudolf for 600 ducats doesn't make sense.
- first option is excluded; it would have been cracked already because of the thousands of (professional) eyes that have looked at it, especially using computers and all the languages around in the world today
- second option is not likely; the document only readable for the writer doesn't fit the difference in style between the text and drawings, but especially not the (bad) paint, not the time it takes to note his/her observations; too much effort, too little gain

The text/cypher

I have two hypotheses about the cypher:

1 - it is a cypher of real languages, but not -as I see everywhere!- 1 language, yet a combination of various languages/dialects/dead languages, spoken by the "circle"/group of people involved in this

Example - with a good friend of mine I had the idea to create some "secret" language that only him and me could understand. Both pretty polyglots (4-6 languages at least on a basic level) it would form "sentences" like "Je want muchas Häuser in nossos levens, shukran" - I want a lot of houses in our lives, thank you; having French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Arabic in 1 sentence. Repetitions of the same language in 1 sentence would make it even harder and the order of languages changed per sentence. Adding dialects (that were much more common in the Middle Ages) would complicate it even more; switching between Picardian and French and Aragonese and Spanish for instance. The right combination of language, producing the really obvious and strange "perfect Gaussian distribution" as analysed by Stolfi (I think it was) length of the words, could have been chosen on purpose.

What if the "circle" of authors were all (traveling) polyglots who picked up a variety of different languages/dialects, even from different language groups (Germanic, Roman, Slavic, Greek/Latin, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew) and combined them together in their way of speaking. Then codified/cyphered this to any non-involved ear strange combination of languages would be already quite un-understandable without the coding, but with it would be nearly impossible...

2 - the cypher/text is of a specific form where some characters ("letters") are indicative of page names within the manuscript of the form "4abtraarbw" referring to: 4th page/folio, a = first paragraph and b = second "word token". The rest ("traarbw") is fake "gibberish" put in to codify the Voynichese language.

Idea - even a combination of those two possibilities could be the case, where one would say "look for the second word on the 4th page in the first paragraph and translate it into "Latin" or "French" or any other indicator of the language". That indicator doesn't need to be the full word of the language written out, it can be just 1 character ("t" in this example stands for Turkish or Finnish or whatever other language mastered by the people involved)

The script/"language"

It has been noted by various authors, especially René Zandbergen, that the author could be "not knowing what he writes and therefore doesn't make -huge- mistakes and no -real- corrections are made"

What has been described as "corrections" are usually retouches (as Stolfi calls them) on the ink; the dry pen is overwritten with fresh ink but following the same pattern; not correcting, just redoing the ink on the text and images because there wasn't enough ink in the pen and the text was too vague.

The smoothness of the text, constant lines (yet without a ruler) and consistency in the characters doesn't show:
- a delusional state [as has been proposed by some]
- "gibberish" -> the exact opposite is equally true; the writer did know exactly what he/she was writing

The "perfect" script

We don't have the "drafts", so it can be very well possible the writer(s) did make mistakes, but started over on a new vellum writing it correctly.

Even if the drawings are made before the text is written [and it certainly looks like that], it is possible to draw again and write correct script that time.

The age

Before I knew about the C14 dating, I, as an amateur, thought of an age around the 15th century because of the dressing style and hair of the people/nymphs drawn. I am not convinced that C14 dating is not falsified (can always be), but the two pieces of the puzzle seem to match.

The origin

As stated many times a Central-European location would make most sense. I agree with that and think the writer(s)/drawer(s) are more northern European. All (or most of them, I cannot claim to have seen all) nymphs have blonde hair. That doesn't point to an Italian, Spanish, purely Slavic or even (southern) French origin. "German" (a country that didn't exist in those ages), Dutch or Flemish origin would make more sense, maybe even Swedish/Danish.

As I suspect the authors to be travelers it could be the MS was written by a northern European but based on travels more south (Italian castle, mediterranean herbals) and in a different location than the birth place of the author(s) (e.g. Central-Europe).

Origin is European

It has been noted by some it could be Chinese/Asian but I don't see that; the people look European and especially the Chinese zodiac is different from the European one and that is used (although not starting with the common Aries sign).

The "Den Musdel" (or something like that) "widow" script is added later/by someone else than the main writer(s) (Currier A/B)

The text looks different, out of place and maybe added by some of the "circle" I suspect it belonged to that wasn't the main writer.

The author(s) must have been wealthy/knowledgeable

This has been stated in the documentary René Zandbergen participated in and I've seen it elsewhere. Because materials were expensive and labour cheap it has been suggested the author(s) was at least pretty wealthy.

- the vellum and or ink could have been stolen/inherited
- the writer(s) could have come from a richer family but were later considered "outcasts" and still could use the wealth of their famili(es) to produce an extensive manuscript
- the author(s) didn't need to be so "knowledgeable" in that age (where only a few universities were around, mainly in Italy); copies/interpretations from earlier works (which also could have been stolen/inherited/borrowed) but then "fantasised" into the current state ("unrecognisable" plants etc.)


Arguments against all this:

- I cannot be the first one with these ideas; I am a complete amateur [cannot stress that enough] and much more experienced minds have looked at it for years.
- I don't have any evidence to back-up these ideas in the text itself. I haven't studied it, I haven't compared it to other medieval texts, have done nothing substantial to be able to claim my ideas are merely more than... ideas
- the images of the plants are not recognisable as known plants immediately. It could also be a pro-argument as the plants drawn were only (necessarily) known to the group of people involved, but to support my thesis the document was written about the use of psychoactive plants and mushrooms (I think 1 has been vaguely recognised, seen it somewhere) it's rather weak.
- I don't know if the idea of a "look on page 4, first paragraph, 2nd word (3rd letter)" cypher idea was tested or even was probable to have existed in the 15th century. It seems not too hard (only to us, not understanding the language) so it could have been around, but I have no evidence to back this up. The Cardan grille was "invented" later (which is also a very easy decryption method), at least officially.

The possibility of a hoax

Although it doesn't look like it because of the work that's in it, it still could be. There are too many hoaxes around, especially in the world today, so it's always possible. The involvement of certain people suggest the possibility it was a hoax. Won't elaborate on that for the moment.

The possibility of the key already known

This is another possibility that seems likely. The Vatican has many secret files, not accessible to anyone and the 600 years of history could easily have meant that the manuscript has already been decoded (probably with a cypher that has been kept secret/destroyed on purpose) but that the language and meaning are kept secret by those "circles" or "societies". It could even have been descendants of the writers themselves.

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Please, shoot!

Cheers,

Tisquesusa

Hi Tisquesusa

Having myself entered Voynich territory only half a year ago, I would like to start this post by giving you one piece of advice:
Don't cement your ideas about the manuscript too soon, and be open to change your mind a lot. That's been my approach from the start: I work with hypotheses, but as soon as I get the feeling that an idea isn't quite right, it goes into the trash. Over the last few months I must have changed my mind a hundred times about various aspects, and I'm so happy I did.

Quote:- my idea about this mysterious manuscript is that it is written by a number of authors (see below) to represent experiences using different psychoactive herbs (herbal), representing the "visions" seen in those trips (astronomical, nymphs/biological) and the "final" (in the current order) section describes the use of them to get the best "trip" (recipes)

This might be the part of your post I disagree most strongly with. I don't see any reason to assume that the plants are psychoactive (so many of them?). And the whole idea sounds a bit anachronistic to me. Too modern. Sure, there are traditions where forms of intoxication or ecstasy are recorded, but those are framed in a mystic or religious context. The star charts in the Voynich look too accurate and thought out to be the product of someone's "trip".

If you think there is still something to this idea, you might want to look for some historical context:
- How many types of psychoactive plants were know and used in the time and place you have in mind?
- Was there drug use? What kinds? In which circles?
- Were drug-induced visions ever described?

I think your idea is a perfectly acceptable "first impression" of the manuscript, but the more you read about it and the more you study it in detail, the more you will see that there is quite some depth to it, and that most sections are too well-structured to be the result of visions.

Quote:- the text is written in code (see below) to prevent others (outside of the "circle of friends/authors") from knowing its meaning and especially to keep the power of the Church away, in case the document would be found

This is a definite possibility. A group of people who used a certain way of writing that only they understood. Though the intent need not bee to hide the information. The script might also be a way to abbreviate information, or an attempt to adapt a foreign writing system. Or a blend of a desire for secrecy and efficiency and transcription and... I think at this point, nobody knows for sure and all avenues are still being explored.

Quote:- the manuscript was part of a group of people/friends/secret "society" (but on a much less organised scale) who had their tripping experiences together and wanted to share their knowledge only between them, like a private message

The problem I see here is that before the rise of the printing press, people would rely much more on oral tradition and their own memory. Manufacturing a manuscript was an expensive and time-consuming undertaking, a choice that wouldn't have been taken lightly. It would have been much more efficient and secure for these people if they kept their knowledge between them in their heads, instead of entrusting it to a visible, suspicious, cumbersome and expensive manuscript.

Quote:I don't believe the manuscript is produced by 1 author
I suspect the authors to be friends/close people who share something between them

I agree with these statements, but for a different reason. I generally agree with Diane O'Donovan's views on the manuscript (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). She argues that much of the manuscript's contents originated in the Hellenistic period and relates to the Eastern trade routes that connected the Mediterranean with places like India. The material was maintained, copied, stylistically adjusted... by the people who used it, i.e. people, professions or communities involved in intercontinental trade. Because of its immediate practical use (navigation, valuable plants, spices, timbers...) the copies were usually rather faithful. Eventually, this material reached Europe, where it was copied in the 15th century.

I don't agree with Diane about everything that happened in between the Hellenistic origin and the 15thC copy though. Generally, I recognize a stronger input from "mainstream" Greco-Roman culture, while she attributes more of the manuscript's imagery to later Eastern influences.

Either way, the view that the 15thC scribe(s) who made the manuscript we have now (MS Beinecke 408), were basically a human copy machine, is a minority view. As far as I am aware, Diane and I are the only active researchers who explicitly defend the idea that most of the manuscript's imagery was completed before the rise of Christianity as the dominant culture in the Roman empire.

But I think you are right in recognizing that the contents appear to have grown over time, and don't look like the work of one individual.

So in a way I also agree with your idea that the manuscript belonged to a group of people with their own conventions, and that is why it hasn't been understood yet. Although I attribute the fact that we don't understand the images to:
a) their great antiquity
b) the fact that they for a unique blend between of original Greco-Roman images adapted by later Eastern cultures who used the material on the Eastern trade routes.

The end results looks alien, but we can pick the pieces apart with effort and an open mind.

Quote:1 - it is a cypher of real languages, but not -as I see everywhere!- 1 language, yet a combination of various languages/dialects/dead languages, spoken by the "circle"/group of people involved in this

This is again pretty close to what I believe at the moment (I often add "at the moment" because I take pride in gradually adjusting my views whenever I have to )
My first series of blog posts was about how I think the "small plants section" was originally an attempt to teach Greek speakers the local names of various important commodities, like saffron, teak (timber), sugar... Either way, I think being prepared to find a variety of languages will help us understand the manuscript eventually.

I don't specialize in the origin of the actual script, so I won't comment on that.
Parts of the text may indeed refer to page numbers or coordinates or whatever, but that's also not my area of expertise - others here are better informed

Quote:As stated many times a Central-European location would make most sense. I agree with that and think the writer(s)/drawer(s) are more northern European. All (or most of them, I cannot claim to have seen all) nymphs have blonde hair. That doesn't point to an Italian, Spanish, purely Slavic or even (southern) French origin. "German" (a country that didn't exist in those ages), Dutch or Flemish origin would make more sense, maybe even Swedish/Danish.

The blond nymphs have mislead many at first sight.

Here's a Roman mosaic from North Africa, first centuries CE. You can find many more examples.



Just to say something, what if the nymphs represent spirits or deities or... and those were imagined as "fair", as the gods often were? I imagine most people around you have dark hair, but if I ask you to draw some angels, you might make them blonde as well.. you don't have to draw them looking like your friends or neighbours

Quote:Origin is European

It has been noted by some it could be Chinese/Asian but I don't see that; the people look European and especially the Chinese zodiac is different from the European one and that is used (although not starting with the common Aries sign).

I agree with Diane that there are influences of Eastern culture in the manuscript - that doesn't mean that its origin is Chinese, or Asian for that matter - I don't think it is. Places like Greco-Roman Egypt saw many cultures meet and mix. Besides that, it often happens with images that have reached us from ancient times, that they have passed through the hands of different cultures in succession.

Quote:The possibility of the key already known

This is another possibility that seems likely. The Vatican has many secret files, not accessible to anyone and the 600 years of history could easily have meant that the manuscript has already been decoded (probably with a cypher that has been kept secret/destroyed on purpose) but that the language and meaning are kept secret by those "circles" or "societies". It could even have been descendants of the writers themselves.

This seems way too "Dan Brown" to me, but hey, everything is possible I guess

Thanks for the elaborated and quick answer, Koen!

Please don't take my general idea as something "carved in stone", "cemented" and "not with an open mind". I don't try to "close solution space" (as René Zandbergen is calling it).

But -especially as a starter and not experienced in analysing ancient texts (except from 1 off-curriculum paleography course at school, long time ago)- with a working hypothesis or a set of them it helps to structure research. Keeping all the options open all the time would make it far too difficult to analyse anything.

The part about the trips and visions is not necessarily anachronistic imho. Especially in earlier ages there were many more people interested in natural workings ("alchemy") than now. Circles of people described by others as "witches" or "sorcerers" or "shamans" or "part of a sect", etc.

arguments for this are:
- the description of some of the plants (poppies; papaver/opium, the mushroom and cannabis) -> will look into this more to have some more content to back it up
- the manuscript is imo not written during the trips/visions, but after it; describing the views, the relation with the body and the skies. As stated the text is neat, and doesn't show a delusional state.
- apart from 1 cross in the hand of a "nymph" the symbology seems quite neutral; no clear mentioning of existing religions (islam, judaism (except for the Kabbalah link suggested), buddhism)
- before the Reformation the power of the Church was large and it may well be the authors were atheists/agnostic and thus feared persecutions; the reason for the code and the plants being "fantasised" (but based on real plants)

Also I don't intend to present it as something "lacking depth". Trips and visions in the (post)modern age may be frowned upon (unfair) and seen as "shallow" (far from it), but in those times the use of plants was nothing like that. It was used as medicine and so why not as "medicine for the mind"?

Look for historical examples is a good suggestion. Although also that wouldn't mean it is (un)true. As the manuscript is so unique, also the thematics can be unique. That there are no other historical descriptions of visions and trips would not mean the possibility is ridiculous. Also maybe because those historical descriptions that were there are destroyed/lost through time.

Yes, of course the creation of a manuscript is time-consuming (hence the unlikeliness of a full hoax) but maybe the people involved in this wanted to get away from that oral tradition and have something written down. To pass the knowledge on to their children and/or others, deemed worth enough to enter the "circle" of people in the know about it.

The dark history of ~150 years (creation-Rudolf II) can be a hint. It can also mean the documentation of ownership is simply lost (as happened with the majority of the documents from those ages, especially in war-driven Europe) and it was stored somewhere in the archives of a buyer, but the records of the owner have been gone.

The "600 ducat question" (cf. The 1 million dollar question of the time) imho relies on the fact that it was presented as the product of the famous Roger Bacon. A ruler like Rudolf wouldn't pay such an amount for the work of some unknown author, even though it looks interesting because of its mystery, in those ages that money could have been spent on something more useful and/or from famous authors.

The point about "being expensive" I think is something that has the risk of "cementation", as you called it.

If I picture the 15th century society well, the stratification was like 80-90% farmers, slaves (!) and foot soldiers (who were mostly illiterate or low-literate), 5-10% merchants and salesmen and 5% what we would call higher middle class and rich now (doctors, lawyers, artists, clergymen, early scientists, generals, nobility, kings, etc.).

History in general is completely biased and skewed; the lives of the smallest groups have been described a lot and the vast majority of people remain anonymous or semi-anonymous (only church records of baptising, marriage and death). The fact that even birth dates of the higher classes of those times (and later) are unknown (see Wikipedia for numerous examples) confirms that.

To produce something as elaborated and skilled as the VMS, one cannot be "just a dumb farmer" and imho also not of that 5% top class of people (too much social control). The part in the middle, which was small I would say is the best guess; intelligent enough to produce this and not too fixed in location (although one must have a safe place to write it); so traveling merchants and related people.

There can have been people who had access to these kinds of materials (vellum, ink) but were not of the highest class, or the children of them. If the materials were inherited or even stolen, the authors could have been not wealthy and still produce something of wealth.

I agree, if the intention was to keep it oral (the most secret), there wouldn't be a reason to write the knowledge down. But if the intention was to keep it secret and share it with a group of people, it would.

Definitely good points about influences of farther away (western Asia, India, Persia, etc.) I think. I will check out Dianes website, thanks!

But copies of earlier texts and mainly imagery would produce the herbals (or at least some of them) to be more recognisable, wouldn't they? Also here I think the working hypothesis about the purpose of the manuscript is important; it comes back all the time. Without one, everything is open and there wouldn't be any paths to choose. Apart from trying to break the cypher I think most of the work done was in the comparisons with other herbals/documents around in those times. The general "conclusions" are "they look alike, but are not it exactly". So then it wouldn't be a copy because a copy would produce at least some of the plants/roots to be recognisable or more recognisable than is the case now.

Also the script is clearly intended to be a code. The astronomical/astrological pages are the least secret and quite recognisable. But that may point to: "I don't care if someone recognises the zodiac, but I do not want an outside reader to know which plants (herbals) exactly to use and how (recipes)".

But influences from western Asia (not China/Japan) is a good point. I will try and see if there is any relation possible between the works of Avicenna and other famous Persian/Arabic/Indian scientists and the astronomical sections.

The script looks like influenced by Arabic/Farsi, so it may be a good lead.

What I don't think is that the book traveled a lot after it was written; the condition I would say is excellent, especially considering all the movement in the 17th century. Of course people were careful about books, much more than now, but traveling books (as traveling alchemists would use) imho would have signs of that. Also Kwakkel (the site Zandbergen linked to) has described that books would contain sand, leaves, signs of use/travel. This manuscript looks like it has been stored safely, not traveled after it has been written so much. Just 2 wormholes and no signs of water damage to the paint/ink. Some small stains/specks but that is normal for such a long time.

Thanks for the image of the Roman "nymph" mosaic. Yes, that could be the case; all the "nymphs" drawn as fair because they represent angels or goddesses. The image you posted looks strange btw. It is a man (clear from the face and even with a faint beard it seems), also the right arm (left in the picture) looks male, not female, but with breasts and female thighs...

The last point; "too Dan Brown"? I don't think so (have read 1 Dan Brown book (Da Vinci Code), but I wasn't thinking about that; it is written for the masses so quite bad anyway). Consider the gain (not necessarily financial; pride could be) of having solved the mystery but still keep it secret... There are also a lot of points against it; if the knowledge is there, why would the jesuits sell it to Voynich, running the risk it would have been in private hands and collections and not displayed as now (they didn't know in 1912 it would be made public (at least the images) by Yale). So it's just an idea, nothing more. I don't consider it the biggest possibility.

The theory of Rugg I think is not very strong. I don't dispute his knowledge and methods of analysis but in general I think calling it a hoax is an easy way out. It reminds of other riddles where people, not interested enough in solving them back out and shout "Ahh, this is fake, won't spend time on it" only because they cannot solve it. At the same time a counterargument is that it isn't solved still (at least officially) so it might be a hoax.

The work of Stolfi and others on the "perfect Gaussian distribution" is interesting. It can hardly be coincidence and could point to a very clever choice of languages or a fake language. Analysing people in those ages wouldn't have the knowledge or time to create those statistics, without computers. In this publication however the curve lines up almost exactly with Arabic: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (page 4)...

Nice to see you're a starter (although with more experience), that makes talking easier. I lack the jargon and only now start to learn it, mainly from Zandbergen's website.

Thanks again and you've given some good clues to dive into. I wish I could spend a lot of time on this, but so many interests and tasks outside of it that I cannot consider myself a "researcher" on the VMS (and probably will never become one).

The primary question to me is whether the VMs was intended to be and is able to be successfully communicative - or not? If it were a copy of an herbal, then it would contain plant names, the names of plant parts and instructions for their collection and use. There would be a repeated use of common terms. If star labels were star names, that would be helpful. But those efforts have not had much success. So the matter of communication is still up in the air.

This brings to mind the whole problem of how communication is established, specifically in the case of how an author formulates a text to transmit relevant content, *not* in the typical manner of straight forward communication, but in a way in which the intended message is hidden, yet recoverable by select others who are able to comprehend that form of communication.

One of Roger Bacon's rules was to disguise the existence of any encrypted text in the first place. An alchemical herbal from an unknown, foreign land would do that nicely. What foreign land was that, again? It's a ploy that totally works in the Middle Ages, but doesn't look quite as good from the current perspective.

How does one cross the chasm between an unknown language and something that can be understood? There needs to be some type of correspondence, a method to establish a connection. And what does that consist of? It needs to be something that is familiar to the author and coincident and consistent with that historical chronology. It also needs to be something that will be familiar to the reader. It could be something like a traditional or historical event. It also, for these purposes, needs too be something that can be hidden rather than stand out as plainly obvious. It needs to be an unexpected language accessible to both the author and the reader. (The prospective reader, as seen from the author's perspective.)

At some basic level, communication is the recognition of pattern. The most basic pattern, to my knowledge, is simple pairing. The most obvious pairing in the VMs is Pisces, the *first* sign of the VMs Zodiac. Highly unusual to have Pisces (Feet) first, but the existence of pairing is expected, obvious and easily overlooked. Completely unexpected, the splitting of Aries and Taurus is so outrageous that their pairing isn't given a thought. Yet there it is, a simple signal, too bright to look at or to dim to see - unless you look right at it. For which, you need to know it is there. The examples compound among themselves to form the pairing paradigm. Perhaps it is subtle, but there is no debate on its existence in the illustrations. This pairing constitutes a method by which the author can communicate. The items of significance in the illustrations are those that are paired. So let the investigation only follow the path that is marked by pairs. No need to look far and wide. Pairing now reveals the unexpected language, which is heraldry - starting with the tub patterns at the top of Pisces and continuing to the traditional and historical fact of the paired Fieschi heraldic insignia and the red galero on White Aries (not by accident). The illustrations also contain various objective, positional confirmations of the author's intent.

In my view, the intentionally hidden, historical, heraldic references from the VMs Pisces and Aries Pages are not only evidence of communication, this is also clear evidence that it is the author's intent to disguise those communications and still the pathway is further marked by the pairing of patterned markers in the circular bands of text on White Aries.  A direct connection was drawn in the illustration. The intentional nature of this construction seems clear, but the ability to interpret this particular example of VMs text (or any other) is still sadly lacking. However, as it appears that the author has included this construction as a way to communicate something of his or her intent, some collective efforts of investigation should be focused here.

Just going over your reply in order (more or less):

Yes, I definitely agree that it's a good way of working to test hypotheses. I myself also prefer to test certain promising leads - feels like less of a vacuum. But it's important to keep seeing them as just that - ideas to be tested against the available evidence. I'm not saying that you're not doing that, but I'm giving the advice anyway because it helped me a lot when I got started. (My initial grand idea was that the bathing section depicted various ways for making alcoholic beverages, but it just didn't work because after some research I found out it would imply some techniques which weren't known yet at the time - among other objections).

I like that you pick up on the slightly androgynous appearance of human figures on certain Roman mosaics. They didn't stress the difference between male and female anatomy as much as we are used to. Penises were either very small or near invisible, both sexes were depicted with a similar width of hips, female breasts were not too large. One clear difference is that men often got a slightly darker skin tone. Of course none of this is a general rule, but it is a tendency in certain works of Roman art, especially mosaics and frescoes. 

It is clear that later copyists who had to copy from Roman artwork - often relying on things like remaining frescoes ad mosaics - had some problems with this as well. For example, Charlemagne started an attempt to copy the knowledge of the ancients, which resulted in among many other things these 9th century oddities:

[attachment=389]

(Gemini, Hercules, Virgo (supposed to be a female maiden), Virgo from another similar MS, and the male river god Eridanus - with boobs).

These were just the copyists' best attempts to render the images. Something similar can be seen in the Voynich, even though it seems to have made the choice to make most characters female. Just look at this guy for example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . You can see that there's been a lot of messing and correcting around the breasts, and the face is clearly male.

About the plants: I'm not an expert (there is so much to study when you want to get into Voynich studies - my own background is in Dutch linguistics so that doesn't help too much ), but I seem to recall that many plants which we associate with drugs today, were in those days mostly grown for practical reasons, like hemp for fibres etc.  If your idea is true, that would mean that some group of people knew and had tried over a hundred hallucinogenic plants. And were still able to compile a manuscript after all that

I know of various cultures that would have used a variety of drugs, but I would intuitively guess that the number of those known to any group of people wouldn't exceed a dozen of different kinds, although I might be wrong about that. Over a hundred just seems like a lot. If this were the case, you should at least be able to find which substances causing trips or visions were known in 15thC "northern" Europe. And how many hallucinogenic plants would have been available to begin with. There are hardly any mushrooms in the manuscript

I agree that the Voynich is probably a unique manuscript, and that there is nothing else like it. That doesn't mean that it should have been a unique creation though. Maybe it is the last surviving example of a whole pool of similar works - which is more or less what I believe at the moment. I see it as a last witness of a certain cultural product, rather than the highly individual composition of one group of people. But I think most people will share your views on this point - I defend a minority position in most cases.

Another example, I don't believe the whole Rudolph story is as likely s some thing it is. We know it from one guy writing a persuasive letter to Kircher telling about something another guy said years ago about something that happened many more years ago (can't be bothered to look up the exact numbers but it spanned several decades). It could be true of course, and it's an interesting lead. 

I actually agree with your description of the type or class of people that could have made the manuscript. People of a certain status and wealth, but unbound to the usual institutions. Like you say, people involved in trade. Although I lean this way because the manuscript contains information that was of immediate practical and economic use to those people, which is why it was maintained during all those centuries preceding the 15thC copying. Again, minority opinion though =)

I started out reading a whole lot of people's sites, including Diane's. She sure shows the manuscript in a different light, though her blog is hard to navigate for newcomers. Many of her posts kind of assume that you've been following for several years. I recommend using the search function to look for something that interests you - Like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for example 
You might for example also want to check out JKP's blog for some background. I think he writes very well: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Oh, when I say the material was influenced by other cultures, I mean of course the images and text as they existed in earlier sources. I don't think it's that important what happened to the 15thC manuscript (which I think is "just" a copy) once it was made - although in certain sections there appears to have been some overpainting going on, and you may be right that the marginalia were added later, as well as, like most believe, the month names in the "zodiac" section.

About the plants being recognizable - I think that's the problem of there being no remaining examples of its tradition. It is unique in that way.  A common problem in Voynich studies

I also don't believe it's a hoax, and that has always seemed like the least likely option to me. I think those who still defend a hoax point of view are very much a minority nowadays. At most, it might be possible that some of the text is "filler", though I still don't see why one would do that... Like most, I think there is some meaning to the text, but it doesn't all have to be natural language - it can be abbreviations, numerals, coordinates... whatever.


Well anyways, I can also recommend that you don't hesitate to make a new topic whenever you have a question or wish to bring up a point. People here are very helpful and they like to talk about the manuscript.

Hmm, the "Quote" button doesn't seem to work here. I get a message it's quoted, but the field remains empty...

Quote:Just going over your reply in order (more or less):

Yes, I definitely agree that it's a good way of working to test hypotheses. I myself also prefer to test certain promising leads - feels like less of a vacuum. But it's important to keep seeing them as just that - ideas to be tested against the available evidence. I'm not saying that you're not doing that, but I'm giving the advice anyway because it helped me a lot when I got started. (My initial grand idea was that the bathing section depicted various ways for making alcoholic beverages, but it just didn't work because after some research I found out it would imply some techniques which weren't known yet at the time - among other objections).

Sure, thanks for the advice, always appreciated.

Quote:I like that you pick up on the slightly androgynous appearance of human figures on certain Roman mosaics. They didn't stress the difference between male and female anatomy as much as we are used to. Penises were either very small or near invisible, both sexes were depicted with a similar width of hips, female breasts were not too large. One clear difference is that men often got a slightly darker skin tone. Of course none of this is a general rule, but it is a tendency in certain works of Roman art, especially mosaics and frescoes.

Funny, when I attended the Gymnasium ages ago I didn't remember them being so androgynous.

Quote:It is clear that later copyists who had to copy from Roman artwork - often relying on things like remaining frescoes ad mosaics - had some problems with this as well. For example, Charlemagne started an attempt to copy the knowledge of the ancients, which resulted in among many other things these 9th century oddities:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.   

(Gemini, Hercules, Virgo (supposed to be a female maiden), Virgo from another similar MS, and the male river god Eridanus - with boobs).

Wow, looks really strange. When I saw that "Eridanus", I thought of male Medusa...

Quote:These were just the copyists' best attempts to render the images. Something similar can be seen in the Voynich, even though it seems to have made the choice to make most characters female. Just look at this guy for example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . You can see that there's been a lot of messing and correcting around the breasts, and the face is clearly male.

Ah thanks for the link. I heard about the Voyager" but didn't see the link yet, very helpful.

This was the folio that reminded me of the 15th century. And indeed, this looks like the author made a male first and then tried to femalise it, also with the face paint.

Quote:About the plants: I'm not an expert (there is so much to study when you want to get into Voynich studies - my own background is in Dutch linguistics so that doesn't help too much ), but I seem to recall that many plants which we associate with drugs today, were in those days mostly grown for practical reasons, like hemp for fibres etc.  If your idea is true, that would mean that some group of people knew and had tried over a hundred hallucinogenic plants. And were still able to compile a manuscript after all that

I know of various cultures that would have used a variety of drugs, but I would intuitively guess that the number of those known to any group of people wouldn't exceed a dozen of different kinds, although I might be wrong about that. Over a hundred just seems like a lot. If this were the case, you should at least be able to find which substances causing trips or visions were known in 15thC "northern" Europe. And how many hallucinogenic plants would have been available to begin with. There are hardly any mushrooms in the manuscript

Yes, the idea was very wild. I looked at it all day today and see other points of interest. And indeed 100+ seems too much. I have a new idea that I am exploring.

Quote:I agree that the Voynich is probably a unique manuscript, and that there is nothing else like it. That doesn't mean that it should have been a unique creation though. Maybe it is the last surviving example of a whole pool of similar works - which is more or less what I believe at the moment. I see it as a last witness of a certain cultural product, rather than the highly individual composition of one group of people. But I think most people will share your views on this point - I defend a minority position in most cases.

I think your point is very valid. We are biased by history in the sense that what we don't have, we don't consider. I am trained in thinking like that so I agree very much that it may have been part of a larger "set" that is all lost and only this manuscript survived. Great point. And usually the majority is wrong, so no worries.

Quote:Another example, I don't believe the whole Rudolph story is as likely s some thing it is. We know it from one guy writing a persuasive letter to Kircher telling about something another guy said years ago about something that happened many more years ago (can't be bothered to look up the exact numbers but it spanned several decades). It could be true of course, and it's an interesting lead.

Hmm, I remember that Zandbergen researched it pretty well, so I take his analysis seriously.

Also then the question arises; how did Tepenecz get it? His name is on the manuscript so if Rudolf wasn't the owner, how did he get it? And it makes sense that Rudolf owned it for a while, as he collected exactly these kind of documents.

Quote:I actually agree with your description of the type or class of people that could have made the manuscript. People of a certain status and wealth, but unbound to the usual institutions. Like you say, people involved in trade. Although I lean this way because the manuscript contains information that was of immediate practical and economic use to those people, which is why it was maintained during all those centuries preceding the 15thC copying. Again, minority opinion though =)

Yes, immediate practical use, but not while traveling I'd say. The book is in a much too good condition for that. Imagine in a time without umbrellas, on a horse traveling around. The MS doesn't show signs of such a life.

Quote:I started out reading a whole lot of people's sites, including Diane's. She sure shows the manuscript in a different light, though her blog is hard to navigate for newcomers. Many of her posts kind of assume that you've been following for several years. I recommend using the search function to look for something that interests you - Like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for example 

Thanks, great blog post / article! Well written and researched.

Quote:You might for example also want to check out JKP's blog for some background. I think he writes very well: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Will check it out, thanks.

Quote:Oh, when I say the material was influenced by other cultures, I mean of course the images and text as they existed in earlier sources. I don't think it's that important what happened to the 15thC manuscript (which I think is "just" a copy) once it was made - although in certain sections there appears to have been some overpainting going on, and you may be right that the marginalia were added later, as well as, like most believe, the month names in the "zodiac" section.

Yes, the "aberil" immediately stood out.

But do you think it was a direct copy of other work or the authors did have other herbals/astronomical books and were inspired by those? Because that seems to make more sense to me. A direct copy of a larger lost set could be, but the code and "irrecognisable" plants do not seem to point to a direct copy?

Quote:About the plants being recognizable - I think that's the problem of there being no remaining examples of its tradition. It is unique in that way.  A common problem in Voynich studies

Yes, but then the problem becomes even bigger; if the "original(s)" of which the VMS is a "copy" would also have "unrecognisable" plants, then what is the use of it?

I've read before and agree with that option that the plants are shuffled; roots of plant A with leaves of plant B and flowers of plant C. I checked some of the plants and have even some options for what they could be (f9r, f31r)...

Quote:I also don't believe it's a hoax, and that has always seemed like the least likely option to me. I think those who still defend a hoax point of view are very much a minority nowadays. At most, it might be possible that some of the text is "filler", though I still don't see why one would do that... Like most, I think there is some meaning to the text, but it doesn't all have to be natural language - it can be abbreviations, numerals, coordinates... whatever.

Yes, agreed.

Quote:Well anyways, I can also recommend that you don't hesitate to make a new topic whenever you have a question or wish to bring up a point. People here are very helpful and they like to talk about the manuscript.

Thanks, I will. The forum policy seems quite strict with "1 question per topic", but maybe I could post a short list here, in general talk? I am reading the forum too, but it's sometimes hard to follow the jargon. And experienced people may be put off by my beginner questions (I can hear them screaming at the screen: "Buy a book!")

Quote:Also then the question arises; how did Tepenecz get it? His name is on the manuscript so if Rudolf wasn't the owner, how did he get it?

First of all, I'm not saying that Rudolph did not own the MS. But I would rate the odds of him having really owned it lower than Rene does (we've had a discussion about that in some thread here before). 

It all comes down to whether or not Marci's tale was exaggerated. Rene argues that he was likely telling the truth, since he hasn't been known to lie about other things. On the other hand, I think that the whole Rudolph twist may have been an exaggeration on Marci's part, because his letter clearly had a persuasive intent. He wanted the great Kircher to study this book seriously and unravel its mysteries.

The fact that it has indeed been owned by de Tepenecz might actually explain how a possible exaggeration happened. Maybe the book was obtained by de Tepenecz for his own collection (which he had). People had other ways of obtaining books those days than inheriting them from Rudolph

Quote:But do you think it was a direct copy of other work or the authors did have other herbals/astronomical books and were inspired by those? Because that seems to make more sense to me. A direct copy of a larger lost set could be, but the code and "irrecognisable" plants do not seem to point to a direct copy?

I think it's a direct copy, and possibly the copyists didn't even know what they were copying, just like a human copy machine. That is a point most people find very hard to grasp: that it is possible that this book was manufactured without any intellectual input in the 15th century.  (As always, I add, with some minor exceptions.)

This happened all the time, and the Aratus manuscripts are a beautiful example of that. If the copyists knew  exactly what it was they were copying, they wouldn't give Eridanus a pair of breasts. You can even see the misconceptions evolve, for example in Hercules imagery. The constellation of Hercules was sometimes depicted fighting a serpent. He would then hold his lion cloth like a shield, the lion's face towards the serpent. In some cases, the copyist would draw the lion's face a bit too human-like, and in the next copy, you would see Hercules holding a human head.

Which, after a number of copies, by 1450, resulted in this beauty: Hercules bringing his own hostage as a shield to fight the serpent.

[attachment=390]

Now imagine that this picture is the only thing you have without any context, and without having access to other Hercules imagery. Something like that is the Voynich - in my opinion. It requires a lot of digging to get to its roots.

Welcome here.

Perhaps this is an interesting site for you (and to show you that nothing is what is seems at first sight):

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


I investigated for example this page:

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What caught my eye is the gallow on the 3rd line from the bottom.
Apparently the letter appears as first letter here of the paragraph

(13-06-2016, 10:04 AM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Welcome here.

Perhaps this is an interesting site for you (and to show you that nothing is what is seems at first sight):

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


I investigated for example this page:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


What caught my eye is the gallow on the 3rd line from the bottom.
Apparently the letter appears as first letter here of the paragraph

I can only drop in for a moment, I'm crushingly busy with work, but I wanted to mention that that shape (that resembles a gallows P) is frequently used as a paragraph-end marker. You'll find it frequently in Greek, Latin, and German texts.

Okay, gotta run.

The full transcription is on the site i mentioned, i just wanted to show you that manuscript (and site !) and the gallow-like-character, 
nothing more and nothing else intended.