Lets not leave dead dogs behind. I authored two books regarding, "The Code Unchopped", in pursuit of decoding the Voynich text. And in all fairness I did receive up to $700.00 in royalties. The book did have a write up in the online section of the Dutch Science News which was purged and praised my work. The first copy is available, however someone is trying to sell it for $500.00. The second copy is for sale!
I would like you to see the first and 2nd copy and tell me what you think. I decoded the text in Italian anagrams with my own unique cipher. Also I think $500.00 is pricey for what I feel was an attempt now. I no longer really care about the money or any fame from just the idea. So in good spirit I would like you all to have the two copies and anyone else. Please I know the books are odd so just take it good stride!
Inside the code unchopped 2 you will find a document that I obtained from an online Library which shows about 10 voynich glyphs. The document was a transaction of real estate in the 15th Century Cotone Region.
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A You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with a large star and a pair of scales is suggestive of Venus (the planetary ruler of Libra).
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Divine Comedy, Italy (mentioned You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.): Crowned Venus with Stars and Scales
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: Naked Venus with Star and Scales
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: Venus with vaguely Voynich-like crown and Scales
BAV ms lat. 1066 (? - I am not sure of the origin of this illustration): Crowned naked Venus (on the shell)
But it must be noted that the VMS has almost three hundred naked women with stars, some of which are crowned and associated with different zodiac signs. Also, images of Venus as a planetary ruler usually include Taurus (Venus' other zodiac sign) as well. So, the analogy could very well be an irrelevant coincidence.
It's always a good idea to try something and then see what can be improved. I have a couple of remarks about the way the project works so far and what might be improved.
Positive:
I really like the debate and the fact that everything is reconsidered and concrete evidence is compared. I still fully support this project and I think it could help us and the study of the manuscript a lot.
Problems:
- People vote before the debate starts. Sometimes details emerge that could change one's vote, but not everybody will keep reading the thread after voting.
- Not everybody is qualified to judge everything. For example, I did not know exactly what defines a palimpsest. Some others were clearly not familiar with the definition of "religious iconography" and so on.
- People can vote "no" and shoot down an idea without any explanation whatsoever.
Since we are trying to build solid foundations, I think it's worth a try to circumvent these problems.
My proposal for a solution:
1) Don't start with a statement, but a question: is the MS a palimpsest? Is there any conventional religious iconography?
2) Debate follows, evidence is gathered.
3) If a consensus is reached or it looks like everything has been said, an editor closes the thread and distills a statement from it. In this statement there can be room for nuance if necessary. The statement is presented in a new thread and people can still suggest to have it changed.
I believe this will lead to a better, more comprehensive result. These are of course just suggestions, so feel free to suggest an alternative as well
I would love to see any letters written by Wilfrid. I can not find any on the net. If you have any on your hard drive or you know of a web site that contains them, please post them here. I would like to compare his penmanship to the Voynich Manuscript. I would like to look at the spacing in words as-well. There could be a remote possibility Wilfrid forged the Voynich Manuscript, then you would see something similar to the Voynich Manuscript in his writing.
If no one here has never seen or does not have access to his writing then this would only add to the mystic of the Voynich Manuscript.
Explanation
A palimpsestis defined as a manuscript which has been re-used by scraping off the previous writing, leaving a blank skin upon which to write afresh.
The process usually results in a finer skin, as the upper layer has been scraped off, leaving signs to the naked eye. Other methods to detect palimpests include chemical analysis (not carried out) and multispectral imagery (carried out in 2014 with no apparant signs being published).
Careful examination of the scans have failed to detect any signs of this process.
Furthermore, the manuscript has been subjected to analysis by experts from the McCrone Institute and Yale (both in 2009) with no signs being found that this is a palimpsest.
A further examination at the Folger Institute display in 2014 by experts also failed to detect any signs of previous writing, leaving the experts to conclude verbally to witnesses that it was not a palimpest (1).
Just as importantly, nor have the thousands of hours of analysis by amateurs over the course of the last century bought up any serious suggestion that the manuscript is a palimpsest.
Further reading
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We don't have a thread about one of the more important names in the manuscript's post-manufacture history yet, so here goes. These are some of my thoughts, feel free to add your own
Ever since I learned Baresch thought there was some connection between the mystery manuscript on his shelves and Egypt, I have wondered if perhaps he knew something. I mean, he must have gotten it from someone, and that someone must have told him something about its origin. Sure, this could have been a game of "telephone", where the origins of the manuscript are slightly altered with each owner, but I wonder if it is at all possible that Baresch had still gained some knowledge about its original circumstances.
Even if all he knew was something like "it was bought from x", this may have placed him in a better position than us to assess its contents. Apart from the fact that he lived much closer to the time of its manufacture than we do.
One thing is for certain: Baresch contacted the most famous Egyptologist of his time at least twice, and told him his thoughts on an Egyptian connection.
Some of Philip Neal's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on his translation of the letter also point in the direction that Baresch really believed that not only the images, but also the script was Egyptian:
Quote:The point is that Barschius assumes that the key to the problem is simply to identify the script.
Neal also notes:
Quote:It is of interest that seventeenth century herbalists could not identify the plants.
So well, I wonder what your opinions are about Baresch and his letter. Does anyone know if a scan of this letter exists somewhere?
Also, is anything else known about Baresch that might help us?
Came upon this thing, wasn't quite sure where the best place to post it would be...
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This page and the one before have some examples of medieval numbers and of writing from different language. I'm not sure what is going on upon the particular page I'm showing (astronomical abbreviations?)
In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Rene wrote:
(09-09-2016, 10:22 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Going back many years, there used to be a statement about the word spaces along the following argument:
given that the label words should be individual words, and they primarily tend to appear in the main text separated by spaces, it seems that the spaces are real.
The problem is that I have never seen anyone really demonstrating this.
This would be a bit of work, but not too difficult to do and it might really tell us something.
All labels can be matched with a version of the main text from which all spaces have been removed.
One can then see how many labels are not found at all, and for the remainder whether there is indeed a preference for them to reoccur separated by spaces.
Depending on the result, the situation could of course not be entirely clear.
I tried making this count, as suggested by Rene.
I used Takeshi Takahashi's transcription.
504 different labels consisting of a single word of length 4 or more
235 labels are perfectly matched by words
examples:
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21 labels perfectly match a sequence of words (i.e. they appear in the text split into multiple consecutive words; the beginning and end of the label still correspond to spaces)
examples:
otaraldy .otar.aldy. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
okeeodal .okeeo.dal. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
dolol .dol.ol. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
37 labels occur as part of longer words
examples:
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39 labels are found removing all spaces (line and page breaks included)
examples:
yoraly sheedy.oraly You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
tsholdy dtshol.dytal You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
chokaro chokar.okcho You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
172 labels cannot be found
examples:
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47% of the labels simply and directly occur as words.
Labels matching a sequence of words (4%) and labels matching part of words (7%) add up to an 11% of dubious cases, that could be explained both linguistically and by the arbitrary manipulation of spaces between words.
8% of the labels match the text only if spaces are completely ignored.
34% of the labels cannot be found in any case.
47% to 8% seems to me a clear preference for labels to reoccur separated by spaces. I attach lists of the labels split into the different categories discussed above.
I hope that someone else will independently make a similar exercise or at least check my results, so that we can be sure I did not accidentally introduce any major error.
As always, many thanks to Job for Voynichese.com It really makes checking and discussing these things easier!
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Walk careful in the night and dream what you may, Mr. Voynich is your worst nighmare.
I just read about the possibility that the Voynich Manuscript maybe a forgery attempt by Wilfrid Voynich himself using old Calf Skin Vellum. Rich's argument seems strong to me in that the imagery like the galaxy, microscope and Armadillo all come from a later time period. We are all struggling here to find meaning in the text of the Voynich Manuscript and if it is a forgery along with the text representing a giant null. Then how do you feel about your time on this project?
In my opinion the best starting point for a cipher to find meaning in the text is the picture of garlic in folio 99r yet if you go down that path; the languages of Europe make no sense! Perhaps not the best place to start, but it sure does look like garlic.
I'm sure Mr. Voynich would be familiar with this place as he studied there.
Discussing the occurrences of q in the beginning of labels, Sam You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. me to the label list by J. Stolfi. And I see a very interesting thing in this list. The vord qokal, which is one of the vords in the leftmost column of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (the "mussdel" folio) is also used as a label elsewhere - namely, in f75v.
If we admit that labels stand for words, then this means three things.
1) The vords in the leftmost column of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. stand for words;
2) Those words are of the same part of speech. I.e., they are all nouns or they are all adjectives, or etc.;
3) They are likely to represent a homogenous set. I.e., if adjectives, they may be all colours (red, green...) or all perceptions (hot, moist...). If nouns, they may be all planets or all stones. Etc.
I think this may be a very promising clue. Definitely, subject to contextual analysis.
An additional hint is that their number is fifteen. Are any sets of fifteen objects out there in magical or other traditions?
There is a potential spoiler though - this stuff in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. may be not labels but a natural flow of text, just interrupted by those floods...
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I have an impression that the first glyph of the first vord in the column is hidden from our view by the binding.