The Voynich Ninja

Sam, Koen

If I might make a couple of "iconographic analyst" sort of remarks.

There are always two issues which need always to be addressed when it comes to preferred comparisons for an image.

One is style as such.  An Egyptian, or Libyan or Greek painter will paint or draw vines from a certain habit and training, regardless of which vine they mean to depict.   Style, in general, is an important indicator for provenancing first enunciation, and it amazes me how often people look for the 'thing' and forget that the same 'thing' in a different style indicates a different origin.  I mean, for example - anyone can draw a cat. How the cat is drawn is the thing.

It's great to see you two addressing that vital issue of stylistics.

The other issue, though, is signification (or intention) and in Voynich studies there is too rarely any effort made to rightly understand what the draughtmen (*meant* to convey.  People constantly assume he meant whatever they think looks familiar from their own point in time and environment.  

But assume you've correctly identified the style ... Egyptian or Libyan or Greek or whathaveyou ... then you have to ask whether this particular vine in folio 17r is intended to resemble a grape-vine in particular?  How would an Egyptian draw any other sort of vine? What did the original maker of the image on f.17v intend  us to read here?  That takes rather more work, unfortunately. Especially since we know that the plants aren't literal images of individual plants (or, to be polite, that not all of them can be literal images of real specimens).

I guess what I mean is that it's not enough to walk like an Egyptian, you have to think like one, sometimes.

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(21-09-2016, 03:50 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd also like to know which other ID's for this plant have been proposed.

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My personal favorite is Wild buckwheat (polygonum convolvulus) - id by Dana Scott

I think that the root may represent camel going through eye of a needle - based on the story in the New Testament  - it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.   Wild buckwheat was considered 'poor man's food'.

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I also agree with Marco that the bryony is a good choice based on similarities with drawings in old herbals.

Diane - 

Taking everything into account, I'd say that what the image means to convey could be that the plant is one that is cultivated in the manner of grape vines, though it is probably not grapes - there is little botanical basis for that. What Sam's image tells me though, is that "like grapes" might surely be the message.

This would also mean that the crop was cultivated rather than wild, and that perhaps the "berries" were an important part after all - which is not the case in most proposed solutions at the moment.

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EllieV
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Koen Gh. I'd also like to know which other ID's for this plant have been proposed.
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My personal favorite is Wild buckwheat (polygonum convolvulus) - id by Dana Scott

I think that the root may represent camel going through eye of a needle - based on the story in the New Testament  - it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.   Wild buckwheat was considered 'poor man's food'.



I also agree with Marco that the bryony is a good choice based on similarities with drawings in  old herbals.
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Ellie, I like the way you tied together the idea of the camel and the needle with the shapes in the plant. Even if it turns out not to be the mnemonic intended (the root is camel-like in texture and color but not completely camel-like in shape, so it's hard to tell), it's good thinking and if it is the concept intended, it might well apply to a number of the plants that match the leaves and flowers/seedheads.

I was about to object that it would be unlikely to have one specific line from scripture referenced in a work which otherwise bears little traces of Abrahamic religion. Yet it appears that "through the eye of a needle" was already a metaphor for "the impossible" well before Jesus' time, and in a variety of places.

People were apparently very fond of the image of the largest animal they knew squeezing itself through a needle to express impossibility. In India and with the Persians, elephants were the needle-crawlers of choice. In other countries like Israel, it were camels. So Jesus used an expression that was common in his time: "a camel passing through the eye of a needle" means "impossible".

That said, I agree that the thing at the bottom looks like the eye of a needle, or at least any kind of eyelet. I'd be more inclined to think at the moment that perhaps some kind of sewing material was derived from the plant, or something else involved in the production of fabrics.

I'm still puzzled by the three bumps. Note that they aren't even lined out - they are just bunches of hairs or spikes or... ??

To me the stick figure in the attached figure 1 looks like a Roman Centurian with helmet (with nose and cheek guards), two buckler shields, a short skirt, and bare legs - possibly a mnemonic for the word 'Roman'.

In figure 2, the root is turned 90 degrees clockwise. With the lumpy parts looking like inflamed and possibly painful sections, I guess this might be a mnemonic for 'sore L'.
 
When you put them together, you get Roman sorrel, Rumex scutatus, which has leaves shaped like those in the VMS image and may have first been introduced by the Romans.
 
This is reflected in the 5th word on the 16th line (next to the image) which sounds r-n-s-l-r-t-r-j.

The first 4 glyph sounds are the Group I code for Roman sorrel.
 
Yeah, I know the 'sore L' part is really weak, but I thought I'd throw it in for now.

The real mnemonic is more probably the two buckler shields the Centurian is holding. Another name for this herb is buckler-shaped sorrel. Still others are shield-leaf sorrel and French sorrel.
 
I think there's another stick figure mnemonic on f5v. I'll open a new topic for it.

Thank you.

Don of Tallahassee






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Don

About the figure on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I believe Diane is right that it refers to Castor and Pollux. 

The figure at the bottom of this plant as a soldier though... well spotted! Wow, how did I not see that.

The helmet may be Greek as well - it's hard to tell. It is very likely that this plant had a shield-related name in many languages, like you say based on the shape of the leaves. It's wonderful. 

I hope I'll still find some time today to check this at my computer, it's too hard on my phone. Without looking anything up, I'd guess already that the scientific name scutatus is derived from Latin scutum, shield. Byzantine soldiers were called skutatoi.

I wonder if the Greeks named any plant after their word for shield. Something to look into later today. Thank you for the great find.

It was the miniskirt that made me think Roman Centurian.

Thank you.

Don of Tallahassee

Don

I just did the test with a friend and asked him if he saw something in that part. 

He said "legs". 
Then I asked "and if you try to complete the figure?"
And he said "a shield bearer".

That's pretty cool.

I did a very quick trace of the figure, is that more or less what you have in mind?

Yes. I just drew a more or less vertical straight line on either side of the head, showing the cheek guards to good advantage. But it was a quick thing, not an attempt at fine art like yours.

Did you look at the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. stick figure?

I am in the final throes of my almost-final, near-to-the-last, just-about-there, next draft of the proposed identities of the plant images  and the mnemonics supporting those identities. Unfortunately my VMS-work computer blew up yesterday. So, it will be a few more days until my new computer is up and running and I finish. There are more flocks and other neat stuff, IMHO. It turns out there seems to be an entire zoo of animals and birds on the plant image pages. The stick figures are just the latest new thing.

And I'm sure I haven't found all the mnemonics and rebuses...or even understood all the ones I have found.

The Centurion (or whatever) jumped out at me when I went looking for a buckler or shield...couldn't believe I'd missed it for so long, either.

I'll do a new thread for f40v, right hand plant, next. More birds.

Thank you.

Don of Tallahassee