As I’ve said on Cipher Mysteries numerous times, I’ve been finding that my Voynich research is getting harder and harder to publish as blog posts. There’s a long stream of reasons: for example, research into the Voynich Manuscript’s zodiac roundels drawings… …often overlaps existing research literature …often relies on a literature fragmented across different languages … Read More → The post Idea: publishing Voynich research via preprint servers… ....

I’ve recently been researching 15th century copies of Johannes Hartlieb’s German translation of Andrea Capellanus’ “De Amore“. My plan is to try to work out if any includes a predecessor of the hand-crossing drawing that appeared in the three 1482/1484 incunabula… …which, if you recall, is the drawing that Koen Gheuens cleverly suggested might well … Read More → The post Two pages wanted from a Frank Fürbeth book… :-/ appeared first on ....

There are now, courtesy of Koen Gheuens and others, numerous web pages exploring possible / probable connections between the Voynich Manuscript’s zodiac roundels and 15th century scribal workshops in German Alsace (most notably that of Diebold Lauber). In one of my own contributions to this (small) canon, I discussed the McKell calendar, an astrological / … Read More → The post Voynich Aries and Greedy Goats… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

Though the political wrangling and in-fighting over the recently discovered pirate treasure has (to nobody’s surprise) continued in Mauritius and Rodrigues, more tangible details of the find have begun to creep out. For one, the location of the cavern (‘grotto’) is now widely reported as being in the Vallée St François in the East of … Read More → The post Rodrigues Pirate Treasure: Has The Lady Vanished? appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

Back in the 18th century when Île de France was owned by France, the French gave the island their laws. And when the British took it over (and renamed it ‘Mauritius’) at the start of the 19th century, they left (as I understand it, please correct me if I’m wrong) almost all existing laws intact. … Read More → The post Pirate treasure found in Rodrigues, administration at war with itself… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

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In a recent post, I traced Jim Kean all the way to January 1949, as he headed off to America accompanying top-performing racehorse Royal Gem to a new home in America. Royal Gem had just been bought for 150,000 USD (a very significant sum at the time) by Mr. Warner L. Jones Jr., owner of … Read More → The post Strapper Jimmy Kean, Royal Gem, and a love story… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

I am referring, of course, to the opinion (put forward by the highly respected herbal historian Sergio Toresella) that the Voynich Manuscript was in some way connected with the family of “alchemical herbal” manuscripts. Might Sergio have been basically right about this, but not in the way he expected? If you weren’t actually taking notes … Read More → The post What if Sergio Toresella was (sort of) right all along? appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

Given that I couldn’t find any page on the Internet providing links to scans of alchemical herbals, I thought it would be good to try to fill that gap. Not as many as I hoped turned out to be fully accessible, but there are still a good number. The basic list I used was the … Read More → The post Links to scans of Alchemical Herbals… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

Over the years, a small drawing on page 80v of the Voynich Manuscript has triggered what can only sensibly be described as all manner of Unholy Theory Wars. This drawing has been used as ‘definitive’ proof of the manuscript’s supposed New World origins (i.e. because it is ‘obviously’ an armadillo); or that the manuscript was … Read More → The post The Secret History of the Catoblepas (Part 1)… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

As you’d expect, I’ve continued trying to find out more about the South Australian jockey J. J. Kean, who I wondered might be the same as the South Australian bookmaker / bookmaker’s clerk John Joseph Keane. The nice people at the Australian Racing Museum (a tip of the padded jockey hat to Alison Raaymakers) very … Read More → The post Jockey J. J. Kean, update… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

I’m happy to announce that Marco Ponzi and I have recently had a paper published in Cryptologia titled “Glyph combinations across word breaks in the Voynich manuscript”. The abstract: The text of the Voynich manuscript exhibits relationships between neighboring words that have not formally been explored. The last and first glyphs of adjacent words show […]

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In my recent post about the new word structure I’ve called Body Rank Order I said that the rule for rank order wasn’t settled and may need further refinement. The rank order should either increase or stay constant from left to right, but I felt that “stay constant” was wrong and not elegant enough as […]

Gerard Cheshire’s rehashed 2017 Voynich theory has been through a full media life-cycle this week. Though the newspapers happily collaborated in an emergency Caesarean (ah, it’s a girl), they then swiftly pulled the plug (it’s for the best, poor thing), with the last (w)rites surely not far behind. Though you might now expect Cheshire to … Read More → The post Gerard Cheshire, Star Wars, space teapots, and Royal Roads… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

Thanks to the kindness (and keen photographic eye) of Cipher Mysteries commenter Françoise who visited the Plougastel-Daoulas site just a few days ago, I’m delighted to pass you all her great set of photographs. As always, feel free to click on them to see a higher-resolution version. Setting the Scene… The Main Carved Rocks “Anddin” … Read More → The post Plougastel Inscription Photographs! appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

The New Word Structure I published last week relies heavily on older research, specifically the idea that [y] and [o] are equivalent, and that [y] can be deleted in some environments. Indeed, since formulating these ideas most of my text research has relied on them, either openly or implicitly. Much of what I believe about […]

I mentioned this mysterious stone here a few days ago, since when the story has been picked up by many more news outlets, largely justifying the mairie‘s decision to put a 2000 euro price on its head, it would seem. And so I, like probably many others, emailed through a filled-out form to say I’d … Read More → The post The mysterious stone near Plougastel-Daoulas, continued… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

A few years ago I published a couple of posts regarding the low level and high level structure of Voynich words. While I think I got a number of things right I have had to revise the low level structure since that post, and now it’s time to revise the word structure completely. I believe […]

Where will the first proper Voynich research breakthrough come from? To my mind, there is a good chance that this will be made by someone taking a fresh look at the mystery of the Voynichese ‘languages’. For even though the notion that Voynichese is a simple, regular language seems to be the default decryption starting … Read More → The post The Perplexing Mystery of the Voynichese ‘Languages’… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

(Thanks very much to VViews for passing this story my way, much appreciated!) The original French article appeared in Le Télégramme, though behind a paywall (boo!). So here’s my free-and-easy English translation: It is a rock that has intrigued Michel Paugam, councillor of Plougastel (29) for several years. In order to solve its mystery, the … Read More → The post “Le mystère Champollion à Plougastel-Daoulas”… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

The glyph [e] doesn’t usually occur at the start (or end) of a word. Depending on the transcription you use the number of tokens beginning [e] might be 150 or fewer. Given that other glyphs contain a stroke which looks identical to [e] it seems there is a strong possibility that the marginal occurrence of […]

Although not a subscriber to Cham’s Curve-Line System, in which he proposes that the strokes which look like [e] and [i] are fundamental to the Voynich script and text, there is an underlying nature of those strokes which is unexplained. Consider some basic points, true for both the [e] and [i] glyphs: They can freely […]

I tend to stay away from seeking specific languages or scripts to fit the Voynich text, preferring any solution to emerge from our understanding of the text rather than being imposed upon it. But I’ve recently noticed a few interesting points about the Cyrillic script that I wanted to share. Naturally I don’t claim to […]

2010 marked the untimely death of Chris Sievey, the creator and performer of cult musical act Frank Sidebottom, prompting much sadness from friends and fans. One touching response was the genuinely charming statue erected in Timperley: Chris’s death also prompted a great many people to step forward claiming to have been fans, even though they … Read More → The post The late, great Frank Sidebottom has one last cryptic laugh… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

I’ve had an intriguing email from Cipher Mysteries commenter Paul Relkin concerning the Hollow River Cipher. He had thought to contact Linda Outcalt, whose (inverted) photograph of Sterling Ramsay was on the cover of his book “folklore prince edward island”. (Though the book credits only mention Hilda Woolnough.) Ms Outcalt suggested he should instead contact … Read More → The post Might the Hollow River Cipher be a hoax? appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

While trying to dig up more on John Joseph Keane (our mysterious bookmaker and Adelaide nitkeeper), I stumbled across a South Australian jockey by the name of J. J. Kean – or rather, across those few parts of his sporting life that made it into the newspapers of the day. It really shouldn’t take a … Read More → The post J. J. Kean, jockey… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

OK, we’ve had a few posts looking for (what turned out to be) Thomas Joseph Kean (1898-1968) from Forestville, who was – I’m now moderately sure – the first of the two men flagged up by Byron Deveson. So now it’s time to move onto John Joseph Keane of Union Street, Dulwich, Adelaide, who was … Read More → The post John Joseph Keane, bookmaker’s clerk… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

This strand started when Byron Deveson uncovered two interesting Kean(e) men mentioned in 1930s South Australian Police Gazettes. I followed this up with a blog post on Thomas Joseph Kean, born 10th April 1898 in Northgate, Victoria, who I suspected was one of the two. Since then, I have found out more about his family, … Read More → The post Finally, the rest of the Kean family… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.

A few days ago, I was trying to track down three Kean girls who went to school together at CABRA, because at least one of them shared an address with one of the two Kean(e) men whose names Byron Deveson had turned up while diligently trawling through the South Australian Police Gazettes. However, these three … Read More → The post Thomas Joseph Kean, born 10th April 1898 in Northgate, Victoria… appeared first on Cipher Mysteries.