The Voynich Ninja

(19-08-2016, 09:52 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(19-08-2016, 09:19 AM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I disagree that there is a meaningful distinction between identifying an image and understanding the intentions of the illustrator.  Saying "this is an image of a feline animal" and "the illustrator intended this to be an image of a feline animal" are, in my view, functionally equivalent statements.

For me, the distinction is crucial.

The statement that an image looks like a certain animal (or plant) is the conclusion of the reader. It is made on the basis of the
experience of the reader. What is meant in the illustration is based on the experience of the artist / draughtsman, who lived
and worked 600 years ago.

Well, I probably could have phrased that a bit better, but what I mean is that to correctly identify an element in the VMS (or anywhere else) is basically equivalent to knowing what the illustrator intended.  That's basically the thing we're trying to figure out.

For instance, when we ask "what plant is this?", we are essentially asking "what plant was the illustrator attempting to depict?"  Obviously it's not easy or even possible to know this in many cases.  And the plant may by chance resemble some other plant more than the one which was intended.

It's a complicated topic, especially when talking about images that (as I propose) have been modified by different people over generations of copying.  I was basically addressing Marco's statement to the effect that attempting to understand the intentions of the illustrator is something that could only be known by recovering a direct written statement from the illustrator himself.  It seems to me that understanding the intended purpose of the illustrations is one of the main reasons for studying them.

About the transmission of motifs:

It's interesting, considering that that manuscript also has a weird calendar cycle with doubling.

How common is it for Leo to have a tree in the background?  I wonder if both the VMS and that Pierpont Morgan M.511 could be related to some kind of unrecognized transmission of material from antiquity, accounting for both the unusual imagery and unusual calendrical ideas.

(21-08-2016, 06:46 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's interesting, considering that that manuscript also has a weird calendar cycle with doubling.

How common is it for Leo to have a tree in the background?  I wonder if both the VMS and that Pierpont Morgan M.511 could be related to some kind of unrecognized transmission of material from antiquity, accounting for both the unusual imagery and unusual calendrical ideas.

As you can see, I've been looking into this today. I also read the article recommended by Marco when he referred to these manuscripts: "Two Unusual Calendar Cycles of the Fourteenth Century", Olga Koseleff Gordon, 1963, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

In summary:

Olga Koseleff Gordon argues that many of the images in the calendar cycles were gained from different sources like bestiaries. There, copyists could find images of animals they did not know from their own area (i.e. lions, scorpions...). This is where the animal-and-tree motifs were found by the scribe. Other strange aspects she ascribes to a lack of familiarity of the scribe with current forms, and a lack of skill in general. 

I found this part of her conclusion very relevant: "As a whole the individual motifs of the occupations and of nine zodiac signs go back to patterns which, for the 1330's, are rather antiquated".

As Diane noted in the other thread, these bestiaries understandably relied on North African traditions, which is where the tree-related motifs, as well as the butting animals came from. To quote from one of her other comments: "The animal standing in front of the palm is a pre-Islamic motif from the eastern Mediterranean and in north Africa, before and after the Christian era. So what I think we have in the Voynich image is a Hellenistic-period original from one or other of those two, but ‘decayed’."

So taking all this into account, the composite image I posted strongly points towards a non-astronomical and non-European origin of the imagery. The manuscripts noted by Marco show another way such imagery reached Europe, though here the path of transmission is easier to read and the intentions of the scribe better understood.

Now in the Voynich there is one additional indication of its non-astronomical origin: it's not even a lion.

possibilites, re the tradition idea

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Also I found this one reminiscent of the face in the manuscript:


This too

Thanks, Linda! Those look very similar to the coin Diane posted, it's nice to see a larger version and some varieties.

I wonder what happened to its face in this one. Could it be damaged intentionally? Apparently it was a thing in some cultures that they wanted to avoid the lion's direct stare, even if it was just in an image.
 

(21-08-2016, 07:43 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Olga Koseleff Gordon argues that many of the images in the calendar cycles were gained from different sources like bestiaries. There, copyists could find images of animals they did not know from their own area (i.e. lions, scorpions...). This is where the animal-and-tree motifs were found by the scribe. Other strange aspects she ascribes to a lack of familiarity of the scribe with current forms, and a lack of skill in general. 

I found this part of her conclusion very relevant: "As a whole the individual motifs of the occupations and of nine zodiac signs go back to patterns which, for the 1330's, are rather antiquated".

What I'm wondering though is if the doubling and the archaic imagery don't go together in some way, and perhaps the resemblance with bestiaries is only due to the fact that bestiaries have archaic imagery as well?

For instance, perhaps there's some kind of archaic North African zodiacal/calendrical system that did not survive anywhere in an intact form, but vestiges of it show up in strange places, such as in the VMS and in the two manuscripts described by Gordon.  Perhaps the creators of these two manuscripts knew about this material from some source, but only made use of it to add a bit of novelty to an otherwise conventional Western European zodiac sequence.  The same idea might also apply to some of the Islamic parallels noted with the VMS, such as the doubled Cancer or the Voynich-like Aries and Leo pointed out by Marco above.

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I did some looking through images from bestiaries and found a few potentially relevant images.

Here's a lion from North France, ca. 1250-1260:


The description reads:
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 14429, Folio 109v
A sad lion. The odd spikey shape above its back does not appear to be its tail, though what it is meant to be is not clear.

Maybe another tree that wound up becoming reinterpreted as part of the lion?

Here's a "pair" of goats (which are actually from different copies of the same book, Der Naturen Bloeme by Jacob van Maerlant, the darker one from the 15th century and the lighter one from the 14th century:


Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, 76 E 4, Folio 13v
A wild goat (caper).




Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 51r
A wooly goat with a beard.


And from one of the above manuscripts comes this bull, which resembles the VMS Taurus in terms of its build and lyre-shaped horns (still no basket though):


Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 70r
A grinning bull with horns shaped like a lyre.

I don't think these served as the basis for the VMS illustrations but they may derive from the same tradition.

(23-08-2016, 07:49 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.possibilites, re the tradition idea

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Also I found this one reminiscent of the face in the manuscript:


This too

Linda - it's nice to see you using these examples.  I mean that sincerely.  They are exactly the examples I used myself when discussing this image, and which I have reproduced since.


The reason - if I might suggest - that the argument in this thread is running in circles is fairly simple. First, there is a confusion about whether the point is to elucidate the manuscript or find support for a preferred argument.  The second attitude rarely has led anywhere in Voynich studies, in my experience. 

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, no-one has thought to set the chosen examples into a single time-line.

If you do, I should predict that you will find the nearest to the Voynich figure* to be on coins of the Hellenistic era produced in the Persian-Phoenician north, and in Phoenician-influenced regions of the south-western Mediterranean and north Africa.

After the end of the Hellenistic period and onset of Roman domination, the nearest to all points in common will probably be in mosaics produced in the remnants of that culture and chiefly in north-west Africa and in parts of northern Syria.  In mosaic.

Thereafter, you still find some versions (much tamer looking) in Islamic art, especially that from the south-eastern Mediterranean

Finally, versions occur in the non-Islamic west, but still in those areas formerly influenced by North Africa in the pre-ROman period: Sicily, Tunis, Spain and so on.

Last of all, you see it first in southern (Iberian/Sephardi) Jewish works, then in Ashkenazi works, '

and thereafter in German works.

That's what I'd suggest the pattern will be which emerges when these comparisons are set out in a time-line.  Transmission.

NB:  when making comparisons, the usual habit among people who do this sort of thing for a living (but which Rene may not call "real" experts, whatever that means) is to give equal weight to each point being compared.

There's no absolute weighting for one detail over another: just points of similarity, or points of difference.

So a curled-through tail has no particular importance. The crossed eyes, uplifted paw, spotted hide, absent or very minimal mane, the hound-like haunches and so forth are all of equal importance and for any match to be a match all must be present.

Otherwise, you have a more, or a less, similar image, depending on how many points you match.

Not even the Carthage lion is a perfect match - simply because it shows a lion, and the image in Beinecke MS 408 does not show a lion.

But the habit of mind, and of drawing does appear to me ('real' expert or mere professional) to be close.

D.

Sam, that first picture is quite wonderful - it shows very clearly how the "tree behind cat" motif could cause confusion for later copyists. Just one more copy and it becomes part of the tail  
I'm in complete agreement with you and Diane about the history of this image.

I haven't looked at bestiaries yet, but here's a parallel for the perspective of the face and placement of the eyes from El Djem, Tunis:



Not sure if the pointy thing under the face is a tongue or some kind of beard..

Koen,
This comment could be a little off the strict topic of the Vms, but this image from El Djem is somewhat different.  It combines elements usually seen as distinct:  the child on the lion occurs in ancient Arabia. The figure with the wreath on his head is usually Dionysius.  The one wearing a skin is usually Herakles.  To find reference to all three in one figure is .. well.. not classical Greek myth.

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(19-08-2016, 10:14 AM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(19-08-2016, 09:52 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(19-08-2016, 09:19 AM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I disagree that there is a meaningful distinction between identifying an image and understanding the intentions of the illustrator.  Saying "this is an image of a feline animal" and "the illustrator intended this to be an image of a feline animal" are, in my view, functionally equivalent statements.

For me, the distinction is crucial.

The statement that an image looks like a certain animal (or plant) is the conclusion of the reader. It is made on the basis of the
experience of the reader. What is meant in the illustration is based on the experience of the artist / draughtsman, who lived
and worked 600 years ago.

Well, I probably could have phrased that a bit better, but what I mean is that to correctly identify an element in the VMS (or anywhere else) is basically equivalent to knowing what the illustrator intended.  That's basically the thing we're trying to figure out.

For instance, when we ask "what plant is this?", we are essentially asking "what plant was the illustrator attempting to depict?"  Obviously it's not easy or even possible to know this in many cases.  And the plant may by chance resemble some other plant more than the one which was intended.

It's a complicated topic, especially when talking about images that (as I propose) have been modified by different people over generations of copying.  I was basically addressing Marco's statement to the effect that attempting to understand the intentions of the illustrator is something that could only be known by recovering a direct written statement from the illustrator himself.  It seems to me that understanding the intended purpose of the illustrations is one of the main reasons for studying them.

This is an interesting discussion. All I would say is that one should be very slow to attribute any "individual expression" or "creativity" in the modern sense to images whose first enunciation is of unknown date, though over time their study has suggested increasingly that first enunciation is not contemporary with the manuscript's manufacture.

Because imagery is not just 'drawing pictures of something' but is a form of communication - as it was perceived by all peoples, across the world, before what is described as the invention of the 'artist' in the modern era - so the task of a reader who comes so much later is not (as it might be with a piece of modern art, or a child's drawing) to attempt to discern what the individual "meant" to draw, so much as to discern the visual language in which he or she naturally communicated with persons of that original place and time - leaving aside later efforts at 'translation', or re-working etc.

One very good place to begin is by considering the way human faces or anthropomorphic faces are represented; it is one of the classic hallmarks of culture, time and place.

It is then up to the reader to study and learn that visual language, just as one might have to study and learn the language of an older written text.

For us, the sign "X" might mark an important place, or signify poison, but in the visual language of the Voynich map, it signifies a respository of seed and of gold - in the region where that symbol appears on the map, the word for a site of that sort is also found as a common place-name.  So sign, symbol, cast-of-mind, time, culture, spoken language and much more inform pre-modern imagery in the European cultures, and still inform imagery in others which have maintained longer traditions.

One of the most important images in the manuscript, in my opinion, is the one quite consistently ignored: what I have called "the bearded sun".  It is not a male, bearded face, but a beardless one which I read as having been meant for a female sun, and then given a plainly artificial beard.  There are relatively few known cultures and languages in which the sun was considered female or of mutable gender.  There were fewer still which depicted a female creature with a false beard, and identified it with the sun - whether in an anthropomorphic guise or some other symbolic of the sun.   


Here endeth the lesson.