The Voynich Ninja

I was examining f42r, the text of which (as we discussed in another thread) is quite peculiar in certain respects.

This folio is also peculiar in that it depicts two plants (or maybe two variants of one plant, who knows), as opposed to most botanical folios.

But I open a new thread in "Marginalia" because I suddenly noticed certain extraneous writing below the "red plant".

It looks as tiny Greek letters "kappa" and "nu", or maybe "K 0" or "K O", but "kappa nu" is currently my favorite.

Has this ever been discussed? Any ideas of the meaning or the relevance?

[attachment=765]

Anton,

For me, the first might be a letter, but I think that the other - which gives the impression of an "o" is formed by dirt that has caught about a small lump in the surface.

It might be more obvious on the older scans; the new ones are quite 'bleached' - making some details clearer but removing some others altogether.

I looked very closely and can't make out whether it's letters or smudges.

Down on the lower right, however, there is a section that looks like there MIGHT have been text that was erased. I'm not sure. I attach a pic. I put dots on the two shapes that look like letters but it's really hard to tell if there's anything intentional.

[original pic deleted, another uploaded below]

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Another pic.

I'm inclined to think they are mostly parchment squiggles, it seems a bit coarser here, but maybe there was text at one time that has been erased:

There are several examples of glyphs looking like Greek letters, the best example in my opinion is on 66r near the sick man, a letter whih looks like a minuscule gamma, but ould be a p as well. In my opinion they are Greek numerals

I played with image processing a bit, and it looks like these are places where ink has been applied. In other words, these look to me as characters deliberately placed there.

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Here's the processed image, also with the region highlighted by -JKP-.

[attachment=766]

On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there is a blemish in just about the exact spot where the 0 is on f42r, so it could be bleed through from that.

I did my usual trick of running it through colourspace analysis and the 0 brings up quite a bit of blotching around it in some colourspaces. The K seems genuine enough, tho'.

However, it looks more like an X than a K. I attach a tiff as an example.

Helmut, have you ever come across this sort of miniscule writing in manuscripts before, and if so, what is its purpose? I've seen a theory that they are colour instructions to the illustrator (sort of a paint by numbers kit).

By the way, I measured the K and the x-axis of the glyph is roughly the same size as the smaller glyphs in the main text, although it doesn't look it. But the brushstrokes are less than half the width of the brush-strokes forming the main writing.

Quote:On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there is a blemish in just about the exact spot where the 0 is on f42r, so it could be bleed through from that.

I think the 42v blemish is closer to the edge of the folio

Quote: I think the 42v blemish is closer to the edge of the folio

Darnit, you're right, I missed the edge of the folio because of the conservator's tape and measured to the one beneath it. Time to go to bed, I think I'm going crosseyed!