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| 68r1 and 2 |
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Posted by: Andrew Harrington - 11-09-2017, 09:25 PM - Forum: Astrology & Astronomy
- Replies (52)
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Hello
First post…The following is an explanation of how I generated a possible solution to 68r1 and 68r2 in the manuscript. I’m not sure if anyone has done this before (I can’t believe it) but I hope you like it anyway. If not then I’ve wasted a few hours on a rainy Saturday.
Andy Harrington
58f and 58r indicate that stars with different numbers of arms or a tail are different. There are 4 paragraphs, each with a single star with either 6, 7, 8 arms or a trail. I suspect that each paragraph is about the nature of the relevant star. I don’t know what each paragraph says, but this solution is about 67r1 and r2 so I don’t care at present. The important thing is that they look deliberately different.
So looking at 67r1 I made the following assumptions:
More arms mean a brighter star. This is common sense and similar to modern star maps which show brighter stars bigger.
The stars should be viewed as being on a sphere that rotates about the earth. (Medieval view of the universe).
The page represents the top half of the sphere (see below)
The star in the dead centre of 67r1 is the star in the top of the sphere that does not move (ie Polaris). You can see the pin hole in the centre of the star where the compass was rotated to draw the feint outer circle so it is deliberately put in the centre. Since all the other stars move about, there isn’t any other one a sensible person would stick in the middle.
Based on these assumptions I tried to map out the stars.
I took a modern star map (Phillips Star Chart) and put stickers on it for the top 10 brightest stars and those used for navigation. The real stars are pretty much the same as in the 15th century and people’s eyes are the same so it is reasonable to assume that significant stars could be the same.
Then I marked the stars with 8 arms on a copy of the manuscript page and tried to see if it was similar to the marked up map. It wasn’t the same until I rotated one of the maps by 35 degrees. Then the manuscript stars with 8 arms were a pretty good match for the brightest stars in the Northern sky. Vega wasn’t represented but there was one star with seven arms and a black circle in the centre in the right place. The rest was just a matter of looking at the star chart and identifying stars on the manuscript based upon the position of the stars with 8 arms. The further the stars identified are from the big, bright stars the less reliable the names are. Particularly around the edges of the page, the star names may need some work to confirm or reallocate them- they are at a “best fit” stage.
Northern Star Sphere 5.jpg (Size: 269.23 KB / Downloads: 1736)
I also tried rotating the map against the manuscript all the way around and also with a reversed manuscript. No other angle worked.
So what do the faces mean? I guess that the one with a yellow toothed circle around represents the top of the star sphere. The yellow teeth could represent light providing the force to turn the sphere. The face at the bottom represents the star sphere’s equator. The 2 faces symbolise what the map between them is about.
On the next page 67r2 there is a similar map with a similar face to the equator at the top and a similar face to the yellow toothed face at the bottom (but edged with some darker teeth). If we assume that this symbolises that the map is of the bottom half of the star sphere then it should be possible to plot the real stars on this map as for the previous page. There is only one star with 8 points so I had to use the stars with 7 instead. I tried this with the normal page and the page backwards. There were 2 possible solutions. The one which looked like the modern Southern star map rotated by 35 degrees seemed the best based upon the bright stars and the blank areas in the sky. It is much harder to line up the stars as the observer probably won’t have seen the most Southerly real ones- so they might not be included. For example, Sirius could be one of 2 positions and the 8 pointed star could be Acamar (with Achernar below it) or Achernar with (Canopus below it in the wrong place). However, Rigel at 10:30 clock position looks good and Nunki-Kaus Australis-Shaula and Sabik look like a good match to me.
Southern Star Sphere 5.jpg (Size: 296.02 KB / Downloads: 1765)
So does it work?
I’ve taken the marked up manuscript out at night with the star map and it seemed to be pretty good for the Northern stars I looked at. I think there is a strong chance that these 2 pages are a representation of the Northern and Southern stars. (But a smart man once saw canals on Mars, so confirmation bias is easy to fall in to!)
Does it help with translation of the rest of the manuscript?
Maybe. But that is beyond me at present. It may give you a list of identifiable stars to Voynich words which is a starting point. It could be used to confirm whether a decryption method works.
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| the 9 or g |
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Posted by: Davidsch - 11-09-2017, 03:56 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (9)
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Paleographical exercise on the handwriting in the Voynich
There are reasons to believe that the handwriting of the Voynich is deliberately obfuscated by the scribe. duh.
At present my focus lies on the [9] or Eva [y].
I assume that the [9] is actually the number nine and I want to try to build some paleographical proof for that.
Here a piece of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is shown. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=1655]
In the circle we see the character [9 nine] but it is clear that the [c] was made first and then the [j-stroke].
Normally when one writes a [g] this is done...eh thank you Mr.brock (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
always starting at the top, going down, up (don't take the pencil of the page !) and do a tail.
Here the [9 nine] is done like one would write a number nine: exactly the same as writing [g],
however because we do NOT want the tail to have an extra curve on the end, we slow the pen down deliberately. for example You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The last exercise is more in line with the [9 nine], which we see in the VMS and therefore the chance based on this alone, if higher that a nine-character is meant and not a g-character. True?
Secondly, in my experience it is easier, with a quill pen, to write a [g] without taking the pen of the paper, and it is harder to write a [cj=9 nine] as explained. (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) True?
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| New solution announced by Nicholas Gibbs |
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Posted by: davidjackson - 07-09-2017, 07:51 AM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (41)
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From today's the times:
An increasing tendency to check “Dr Google” for worrying symptoms is driving health anxiety (Credit: PA)
The Italian artist Luigi Serafini wrote the Codex Seraphinianus in the 1970s with a writing system that still defies complete analysis. He has said there is no hidden meaning, and he wanted his alphabet to convey how children feel with books they cannot understand.
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Dr Google fuels health anxiety that costs taxpayers millions
The Rohonc Codex appeared, it is thought, in the 1700s in Hungary. Its unknown language appears to have more characters than any major language apart from Mandarin. Some think it a hoax.
Kat Lay, Health Correspondent
12.01am, September 07 2017
Trials of green energy will be launched on ships and ferries as part of plans to cut pollution levels (Credit: PA)
The Book of Soyga is a 16th century Latin treatise on magic. The Elizabethan scholar John Dee was supposedly obsessed with deciphering the encrypted tables it contained. It was presumed lost until manuscripts were found in the British and Bodleian libraries in the 1990s, when the formula to construct the tables was uncovered. Their contents remain a mystery, however.
Wind power for greener British ships
Graeme Paton, Transport Correspondent
12.01am, September 07 2017
Documents of the 18th century Great Enlightened Society of Oculists in Germany took 250 years to crack. Scholars realised that familiar letters were spaces and messages were in other symbols.
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| Transcription and collaboration |
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Posted by: ReneZ - 03-09-2017, 03:28 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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When I started my web site, way back in the previous century (so to speak), the primary aim was to collect and summarise all text analyses of the MS and, by the way, provide an up-to-date account of the MS similar to D'Imperio's work.
As it turned out, I became more interested in the MS history than the text analysis, and the emphasis shifted in that direction.
At the same time, I was frustrated when trying to write the text analysis part of the site, because most of the really obvious questions could not be answered:
- how many characters or words are in the MS?
- what is the character frequency distribution?
Lots of partial answers (also in D'Imperio) but nothing comprehensive.
All of this could be done with a good, complete transcription of the MS. There are several transcriptions that are more-or-less complete. However, they all follow quite different conventions. I have long worked with my own complete (as I thought) transcription, and tools written on the basis of its format.
In order to bring in some standards and to improve collaboration, I have designed a new transcription file format that allows the representation of all existing publicly available transcription files, in their own original transcription alphabet.
They have all been converted to this new format.
There is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at my web site , which also includes my own transcription made in 1999, on the basis of the material available at that time.
I also converted my own command-line tool for processing transcription files to support this format.
Details are You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
I will use these files for all future work, but I also believe that they invite collaboration.
There is a great opportunity for people to write more clever tools than my "ivtt", based on this new format.
Once there are standard formats, tools can be made that can be used by everybody.
It is now also possible for anyone presenting text analyses to state exactly on which (part of the) text it was based, allowing others to repeat and verify these analyses.
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| Botanical section plant identification summary (work in progress) |
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Posted by: Anton - 28-08-2017, 05:01 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (25)
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This thread is to keep at a single place results of plant identification work based on image mnemonics approach. Each ID should be discussed in a dedicated thread in the "Imagery" subforum; please limit discussion in this thread to the aggregation issues solely.
For the initial posting, I gathered results that I have documented in my offline notes. They may be some IDs suggested shortly before the
"Coventry event" that I have not noted down, I will scroll through the threads and include them here. Also, the table will be updated as new ID's are proposed and discussed to the satisfactory degree of consensus. The table includes only positions that are not excessively vague or controversial: namely, mnemonic proposals should be well explained and correlating with the plant name and/or usage, and the plant image should be, mnemonic-bearing portions excluded, representative of the actual ID proposed.
LEGEND:
Mnemonics codes: N means "name", U means "usage", R means "reference" (to myths, ancient sources etc.) "Tops" means flowers, stem, leaves collectively.
References: "Pritzel" means Die Deutschen Volksnamen der Pflanzen by G. Pritzel and G. Jessen. "Pliny" means Natural History by Pliny the Elder. More references will be added as appropriate.
ID authorship: "Finnish biologist" means anonymous Finnish biologist on Stephen Bax's website: stephenbax.net. Other names and aliases are self-explanatory.
| Folio number | Proposed ID | Tops mnemonic | Tops mnemonic code | Roots mnemonic | Roots mnemonic code | References and comments | Matching independent IDs |
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| f3r | Aconitum napellus | flowers: hoof, leaves: fish, devils (?) | N | scorpion's tail (?) | R | Pritzel: Moenchkappen, Blaukappenbluemen, Fischerkip, Teufelswurz, English Monkhood; Pliny 27:2: kills scorpions | Steve D |
| f7v | Pulmonaria officinalis | leaves: dots | N | none | n/a | Pritzel: Fleckenkraut | n/a |
| f25v | Dracaena | dragon | N | none | n/a | Pritzel: Drachenblut; note however that for the beginning of XV c. the Dracaena image is maybe too realistic | O'Donovan |
| f33r | Papaver somniferum | leaves: owl | N | sleep/death | U | Pritzel: Eulsatkraut | Finnish biologist |
| f54r | Carthamus tinctorius | stems: skirts, leaves: cleaning (?) brushes | N | roots: painting (?) brushes | N or U | Pritzel: Baurenrocken, Buerstenkraut; the plant is known to be used for dye production | O'Donovan |
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| Questions needed for Stephen Bax interview |
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Posted by: Koen G - 27-08-2017, 10:28 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (43)
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David and I are serious about turning the interviews into a series, and the next person we'll have a chat with is Stephen Bax.
It would be great if we could get some questions from the forum community to include in the interview. So don't hesitate to propose any questions in this thread!
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