The Voynich Ninja

Hi everyone,

Looking closely at f86r, the so-called "Covered Pool" illustration, I just noticed a feature I hadn't seen before, and I want to bring it up here for discussion.

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Up until recently I had assumed that the vertical squiggly lines which extend into the pool from the "ceiling" were either steam rising or water pouring down, or maybe even some sort of supporting element like pillars or stems holding up the upper part.
But upon closer examination, I realized there was a problem with all of these interpretations. Look at this zoomed image:



The squiggles don't just hang down. Two of them actually connect together forming a U, like some sort of bunting/garland.
This feature seems to only occur on the far right of the image.

In factif we look at the whole pool, going from left to right:
the first three sets of vertical squiggles stop in midair, the fourth and fifth touch/dip into the pool water (unclear which because of green paint), and the last two form a U-shaped "bunting"-like shape: they are connected, either underwater or floating on the surface.


I'm really not sure how this can be explained or what it's meant to illustrate, but as far as I know, fluids don't behave this way.

VViews

Well spotted, it does appear as if the water does some strange things.

I believe this is one of the remainders of the Egyptian sources of the MS. One of the ways they drew flowing liquid was with one, two or three parallel wiggly lines. 



(The rare facing figure above might remind viewers of a certain similarly rare facing figure in the VM, though this may be coincidental).

Now Egyptian water didn't play by the rules of physics, and would often make strange 90° angles. I have some good examples but can't find the at the moment, so this is just after some quick googling:



The scene above, on the left, is supposed to represent the cleansing of the body, yet the water kind of jumps out of the vessel, flows though the air above the deceased, makes an angle and lands behind Anubis.

This guy can make one flow of water split and land behind two different mummies at once:


And this one can make it split itself towards two containers without even looking:


The bottom line is, they drew a flow of water the way they needed it to go, and the interaction of one flow with another (and with gravity) was not realistic.

And wiggly lines, always wiggly lines.

Frankly i do not see how your pictures from ancient Egypt have anything to do with the pictures in the Voynich.

The idea to look for water at ms in general is a very good idea, in particular of interest is the period let's take a broad range years 1000-1600 ?

Here are some pictures from 1494 that resemble a little more, i also throw in the tents:









Universitat de València.  Biblioteca Històrica: BH Ms. 0838



Codex "De Balnea Puteolanis" was written by Petrus Ebola in the early thirteenth century poems in hexameters.  The benefits of the different thermal waters of Pozzuoli and Baia are described.   Unlike some manuscripts of this work, the University of Valencia appears at the beginning of "Tabula super balnea Puteoli" attributed to Arnau of Villanova where one can read a list of diseases, in alphabetical order, indicating where restrooms they can be cured.
(source: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

This particular copy was made near the end of the fifteenth century for Alfonso II, Duke of Calabria. Deluxe copies of books of regimen—how to live a healthy life, eat right, take proper exercise, and so forth—were often owned by nobility. This image shows women bathing in one of the Pozzuoli baths, many of which were recommended to treat fertility problems.
(source: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

Koen Gh,
awesome! Those Egyptians sure had some incredible water pouring skills!
I wonder though, if what we see in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is really water. In the Egyptian images you posted, the squiggly (wiggly) lines show an uninterrupted flow. In the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. illustration, the "flow" is made up of a series of shorter segments.
I wonder if that is significant?

Davidsch,
Personally, as I've stated before, I doubt that the paintings in Egyptian tombs, which were seen by no one until modern archaeologists opened them up, could have had an influence on the Voynich artist. But it is still intersting to know that the motif existed. And even though your examples are clearly more contemporary with the Voynich Manuscript, I don't see any physics-defying steam or waterflows in them. If you do find that sort of thing though, I"d love to see examples!

VViews - thanks for your open-mindedness

I am growing more and more convinced that the original documents which were copied (probably via various intermediate copies) into the VM were from the Roman Egyptian period. This is similar to what Diane believes, though I often approach it from a different angle and we disagree about most details

In this period (but also already before) we see an explosion of artifacts that were made for everyday use. Also common people of average wealth could suddenly afford a proper burial, people used lots of amulets, shrines, textiles.... In other words, the kinds of images that were before only seen in limited contexts, had now become an industry for the general public.

You probably know that Egyptian iconography was stunningly consistent over millennia. Of course, when I see an image from the first dynasties I know it is not from the Greco-Roman period, but many motifs remained the same. So often, when I find a clearer picture in an older artefact, I am still comfortable using it as representing general Egyptian custom (I always check this, of course - I need continuity at least until the Ptolemaic period).

So in the later periods, we see that imagery moves from being hidden away in tombs to being seen by all. And, importantly, in the Roman period art became a bit more free, and we see "degenerated" forms of Egyptian art. That is, forms using Egyptian motifs, while not looking typically Egyptian.

I'm posting this example because it's the first one I can think of, it's a Ptolemaic offering tray:


In this case the water is one wiggly line, and it seems to make a 90° angle towards or from the vessels. 


So to me, such things are all indicators that at the very base of the imagery is a late, "degenerated" form of Egyptian art. We still see many traces of Egyptian custom and artistic convention, but it probably never has been a product made under dynastic supervision. Let's say, Greco-Roman period "popular" Egyptian art.

What you say about the interruption of the line is certainly true, and I have no idea if it is intentional. My guess is that it isn't. If we assume, for example, a second century CE origin of the sources, then how many times have they been copied before the 15th century? And by whom?

(Sorry for long post, but I thought some explanation of how I see things would be handy )

An image from Koen Gh's recent post on another thread seems highly relevant to understanding what may be going on here.
From f80r:



As we can see, the flow here is represented differently above and below the nymph's hand: above, we have an elongated, continuous wavy line, and below, the type of squiggly lines that we see in 86r.
The distinction leads me to believe that the depiction of squiggly lines in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is significant: in the image above, the passage via the nymph's hand on seems to alter the fluid.
Whatever alteration is produced results in the type or state of fluid that is represented in the 86r "covered pool".

A straightforward explanation for the phenomenon on 80r could be what we can observe when we put a hand under the water coming out of a faucet or hose: it disrupts the steady stream of water, and causes the water to spray around more.
Another comparison is the difference between the way water comes out of a faucet vs. a showerhead.
Could the squiggly lines represent fluid that is agitated or being sprayed rather than flowing?

A similar alteration occurs in the flow on f79r, but here it is unclear whether it is caused by passage through the top nymph's hand or the tubing structure/ apparatus directly underneath it:



Or can it denote that passage through something has changed its composition and infused it with something, in the way that water passing though ground coffeebeans in a filter machine becomes coffee?

Unfortunately, none of this accounts for the weird U-shaped flow we see on 86r...

The other streams are also weird though. Like they get stuck onto the nymphs' hands.

And if you read it from right to left as a comic book and divide the nymphs two by two... it's a story, about someone running off, getting stuck and being gradually liberated. Try to see the water flows as ropes, chains or something sticky.

Koen Gh,
Yeah I agree, something in the water isn't clean!
I enjoyed your comic strip interpretation, I hadn't seen it that way!
Personally I think this rather reflects something else (blogpost coming up soon) but I can see why you and others would see the whole image (or the whole of Q13) as allegorical.
One question, though: why right to left? Left to right could also tell a story, of someone being lured into chains. Although your version has the advantage of a happy ending!

For right to left, I must say I have little evidence and nothing that would be convincing to others. But here are my reasons:

- In my previous interpretations of narratives in the imagery, right to left seems to be preferred.
- Before left to right became the norm, often the way figures were facing was the direction an image (or hieroglyphs) was intended to be read. Since three consecutive figures on the right face left, that would be the most likely direction.
- On the right, the one figure running away from the other one and getting stuck just seems like such a good enticing incident to sart a narrative 

Edit: 
Also, I see a somewhat logical sequence in the right to left story but have a hard time seeing how it would work left to right.

(16-10-2016, 12:26 AM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.An image from Koen Gh's recent post on another thread seems highly relevant to understanding what may be going on here.
From f80r:



As we can see, the flow here is represented differently above and below the nymph's hand: above, we have an elongated, continuous wavy line, and below, the type of squiggly lines that we see in 86r.
The distinction leads me to believe that the depiction of squiggly lines in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is significant: in the image above, the passage via the nymph's hand on seems to alter the fluid.
Whatever alteration is produced results in the type or state of fluid that is represented in the 86r "covered pool".

A straightforward explanation for the phenomenon on 80r could be what we can observe when we put a hand under the water coming out of a faucet or hose: it disrupts the steady stream of water, and causes the water to spray around more.
Another comparison is the difference between the way water comes out of a faucet vs. a showerhead.
Could the squiggly lines represent fluid that is agitated or being sprayed rather than flowing?

A similar alteration occurs in the flow on f79r, but here it is unclear whether it is caused by passage through the top nymph's hand or the tubing structure/ apparatus directly underneath it:
...

Thank you, Koen and VViews! I find these ideas very interesting. I'll keep your observations in mind and see if I stumble on some potential parallel.