The Voynich Ninja

For this, I'll have to ask temporary suspension of disbelief.

Supposing that (1) my analyses and ids for the botanical folios are not far wrong; and (2) that they are composite images as I concluded from the analyses -  later finding, rather nicely, that the Friedman group suspected it; and indeed that (3) the majority of plants pictured in the botanical folios are  native to the line between southeast Asia and Arabia. 

So, tracing eastern plants' early importation  to the west, I found they came first through Cairo (Fustat).
Specific information about just which plants were being imported and used, and connections between Cairo and southern Italy comes from just one  source available to me, though I have long ago referred others to the work of Oliver Kahl in connection with Arabic dispensatories. (As far as I heard back, no one followed that lead).

The  Cairo geniza documents are both relevant and specific. That is, they include actual prescriptions and traders' lists because medical works are often theoretical.

One paper has been written on this subject of materia medica from the Cairo geniza, and by the same authors who wrote a larger book published by Brill.  One of the authors (Dr. Lev) agreed to put up the paper at academia.edu.

This bit I thought the linguists might find interesting, or even useful:


“The medieval system tended to classify plants and animals in larger groups according to external morphological characters, with no consideration of genetic proximity or anatomical similarity as is the case today. Therefore, the existence of a collective (general) name for a group of several similar species was common. Here, are some examples of this feature:-

1. Fūdanj: collective name for various species of aromatic plants, namely of the family Labiatae (Maimonides, 1940).
2. Zaj: collective name for salts of sulphuric acid (verdigris,vitriol) compounded with various metals such as iron, copper, lead, and zinc (Maimonides, 1940; Amar and Serri, 2004).
3. Awsaj: collective name for spiny bush species such as boxthorn, buckthorn (Lycium sp.), (Rhamnus sp.), and bramble.

  ...


If I have correctly analysed the imagery and rightly identified the plants then the unifying principle might actually be a single word, rather than (as I described) "similar form with  comparable or complementary purpose and naturally occurring in proximity". 

Native speakers, traders, pharmacists and keepers of the funduqs or warehouses used those group-words regularly.  

Of course, nice looking herbals and medical works made for Latin libraries would separate each plant, picture some and label them individually, a la Dioscorides. Not what we have in the Vms.

There's no reason that the Vms mightn't be a traders' handbook, or a warehouse book.  Baresch does speak of "thesauros Artis medicae Aegyptiacos".  and in Latin 'thesauros" could mean a "treasury" of knowledge, but it could also mean quite literally a warehouse.. basically a treasure-house of goodies.

So what do people think about the 'group word' as possible key to the botanical folios? (not the leaves and root section).

Too many imponderables?

While the idea may be plausible, botanical identifications are beyond me, the use of a 'group word' would seem to function no differently than the use of a 'specific species name' word. It is still necessary to know what the language is, what name is used in that language and the specific, corresponding part of the VMs text.

Is that a 'yes'?

Well, why not. But the question is how to locate these words, if any. Breakdown of botanical folios is required, and then vords most common to each group are to be traced. A "proper" breakdown is the first problem here.

Anton,
I think I wasn't clear.  The botanical folios *each* show a group of plants.  They are already grouped by occuring naturally in proximity, and having similar form and purpose, though the classifications are only coincidentally those of our own taxonomic classifications.

So the raison d'etre for those groups, perhaps, is not *only* that the plants have similar forms, uses, and occur naturally in proximity but *also* that each has been informed by one of those habitual "grouping-words" mentioned by Amar and Lev.

Unfortunately those authors give only three examples in their paper.

How many of these group words could there be? They would be created by necessity and custom, but I'm struggling to think of any examples in English (or Spanish). Are these just Arabic trading terms?

(07-10-2016, 02:52 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So what do people think about the 'group word' as possible key to the botanical folios? (not the leaves and root section).

Well, if you can propose a classification of the herbal/botanical folios into groups, it shouldn't be too hard to see if there are specific words or other properties of the text that correlate with your proposed groupings.

(EDIT: Okay, now I see that you're suggesting that each individual page itself represents a distinct group.  So, scratch that idea.) 

One of the first things I did when I began studying the manuscript was look for connections between the words in the herbal folios and properties of the illustrations.  I remember not finding much that seemed secure, though I probably should go through it again since I know a lot more about both the text and the illustrations now.

It might also make a good computational project if anyone wants to do the heavy lifting as far as the coding is concerned - say, come up with "tags" for all folios that share a given attribute and then see if there are text properties that correlate with the tags.

(09-10-2016, 04:27 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.How many of these group words could there be? They would be created by necessity and custom, but I'm struggling to think of any examples in English (or Spanish). Are these just Arabic trading terms?

We use group words for plants in English too. We refer to aromatics, purgatives, spices, abortifacients, famine foods, toxins, and ornamentals.

Thus, they are grouped according to function rather than morphology or alphabetical name.

JKP - exactly!


I guess I could return some of my posts to public view.  I had thought the groupings made on pragmatic grounds; I just never thought that collective terms might be used... until recently.

So I've described the groups as "myrobalans group"; "Musaceae"; "Fish-catching plants"; "Paper-plants"; "Sesames" and so on. 


One caveat:  the content in many botanical folios does not appear to me to be medicinal, and in writing those posts I stressed the point.

However, the Cairo geniza and other works (such as the Great Antidotary) show that e.g. the marker-nut was actually used in medicine.


Thanks so much for the positive response.

________________


Sam G

Quote:(... you're suggesting that each individual page itself represents a distinct group...) 

Not a "suggestion"; one of the conclusions reached in the first phase of research (2008-2011), and about which I published first in 2008, treating folio 25v,with demonstrations for other folios published thereafter.  They were later made mostly private; I got tired of the 'muggers'.

I had already come to the conclusion, too, by 2010 that the plants were not Mediterranean plants, though to convey the informing philosophy I called it "Theophrastan".  Theophrastus' work was often mis-attributed to Aristotle in medieval Europe.

Since those detailed analyses were published (2008-2011) I notice that while still determinedly avoiding my work, name or results, a number of sites began reviving and widely publicising a previously ignored phrase from the Friedman group's work, and also the previously ignored paper by  Wiart and Mazar.  

Before that, both had been so well-"ignored" that I had no idea either existed when I conducted the research and analysis.

So it was independent confirmation for both, in a way.  





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