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What if the Rosettes page...
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Youtube channel on castle...
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Rosettes as a ... magic a...
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The 'Chinese' Theory: Fo...
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Harvard physicist's take ...
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Voynichese is a numeric c...
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Trying to find an image s...
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Let's rate some bulls
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Assumptions baked into th...
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Ungrammatical repetition ...
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| "Choe" is weird. |
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Posted by: Bluetoes101 - 02-10-2026, 09:49 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (3)
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I find Choe weird as e* (e followed by anything) happens 14263 times (Voynichese.com), egallows accounts for 833 - 5.84%
1. <f1v.7,+P0> choees - This one is actually "chores", discounted it from %
2. <f8r.6,+P0> choety
3. <f8r.9,*P0> tchoep
4. <f18v.5,+P0> ychoees
5. <f20r.6,+P0> choees
6. <f29r.7,+P0> choety
7. <f42r.12,+P0> choeky
8. <f43r.5,+P0> choetchy
9. <f54r.12,+P0> choek
10. <f66r.55,+P0> choekeey
11. <f67r2.49,+Pb> choer
12 . <f67r2.50,+Pb> choeea
13. <f68v3.5,@Cc> choekcheey
14. <f68v3.14,@Cc> choekey
15. <f69r.3,+P0> choetey
16. <f70r1.2,@Cc> choekeeos
17. <f70r2.16,+Cc> choeky
18. <f70r2.17,+Cc> choetchaldy
19. <f70v2.1,@Cc> choeteedy
20. <f72v3.1,@Cc> choepchey
21. <f87v.7,+P0> qotechoep
22. <f88v.9,+P0> choeey
23. <f89v2.1,@Lc> choeesy
24. <f89v2.18,+P0> choeeer
25. <f106v.20,+P0> choefy
26. <f116r.15,+P0> pchoetal
When e is proceeded by cho the frequency of a gallows glyph following e jumps from 5.84% to 72%
It is also strange that 3 of 25 examples are double gallows words, which are extremely rare.
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| [Competition] Best folio number parallels. |
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Posted by: Koen G - 02-10-2026, 09:00 PM - Forum: Marginalia
- Replies (20)
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Several months ago, I was browsing a random manuscript, and suddenly something struck me: the numbers looked a lot like those used for the VM folio numbers. (That is, the ones written top right on every recto, NOT the quire numbers).
I didn't do anything with this yet, since I have no idea how it compares to other manuscripts. Probably this style of writing numbers is extremely common. But how common exactly? Are some features rare or typical for a certain time/region?
Now I just had an idea: why not make a friendly competition out of it? Everyone can recognize numerals in manuscripts, so it doesn't require special skills, just some patience and investigation. My own submission is far from perfect and can be beaten. (I told Marco about it when I found it, so there is a witness to my having selected a manuscript ;))
I prepared a reference image of the VM foliation, taking into account variations for each number. Notice especially the two types of "3", one of which has a remarkable spike on top and a flatter top stroke.
I also prepared a spreadsheet, you could use your own copy of it to compare the VM foliation to other numbers you find. See here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Rules
- A submitted series of numerals must be from the same manuscript.
- Try to find a full series, at least 1 -> 9.
- When you want to submit a series, just PM me, or post it here in [spoiler] tags. My reason for keeping submissions secret would be to avoid a premature focus on a single time and place.
- If you happen to find a better series later, you can submit that as well - more data points.
- Try to compose an image or share your numbers in a copy of the spreadsheet, so that I don't have to hunt through your manuscript to gather numbers from various folios.
- Manuscripts will remain a secret until the end, but I will sometimes provide a "leaderboard" based on my subjective feeling. After a while we will come up with a good way to rate.
- PLEASE find something that's better than mine - it would look silly if I win my own competition!
- At the end, I will add everything to the public spreadsheet.
- The winner gets to pick a special color for their row in the spreadsheet as a reward ;)
Of course, the goal of this is to collectively learn more about the context of these numerals. Feel free to discuss everything in this thread:
- strategies for finding numerals
- which variations are easy to find, which numbers are harder to match
- specific properties of numbers we should pay attention to
- ...
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| Harvard physicist's take on the VMS |
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Posted by: magnesium - 02-10-2026, 01:04 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (55)
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Yesterday, Harvard physicist Matthew Schwartz unveiled a very powerful LLM harness for quantitative science called You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., as well as a whopping 36 papers he has authored or coauthored using the tool. Among them is Schwartz's take on how the VMS was written, which is that it's iteratively generated gibberish:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
His abstract:
The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated book of the early fifteenth century in a script no one has been able to read. Since Rugg, and then Timm and Schinner, showed that text with many of its statistics can be produced mechanically, quantitative study has come to favor a writing procedure over a cipher or an unknown language. Here we make that picture precise with quantitative tools: information theory, efficient methods for mixture-model computation using exact arithmetic, and solvers validated on planted test cases. Readings and text generators become probability models, fitted on half a scribe’s pages and judged on the rest. In six candidate languages, readings by simple or verbose substitution, consonantal writing, abbreviation, codebooks and the Naibbe cipher all fail on withheld pages. Such failures exclude a reading only where the test detects disguised real text of the same kind, so far only for scripture. Knowing a word barely helps predict the next, less than in any comparison text, glossaries included, yet the edge glyphs of adjacent words are coupled as strongly as in a recipe collection. The scribes reused their words, occasionally copied a recent one, and coined others by letter habit; this keyless procedure reproduces nearly all summary statistics of both principal hands. No proposed generator, ours included, reproduces that coupling. Two weak traces of content remain: distinctive label words and a faint dependence of word choice on subject. The low cost of the writing and the genres the pictures imitate suggest a book made to be looked at, not read.
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| Could the charm on f116v be a book curse? |
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Posted by: Dcoop28 - 01-10-2026, 09:40 PM - Forum: Marginalia
- Replies (5)
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Hi all,
I was wondering if has been considered that the charm on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could be a book curse? I recently realized that many manuscripts from a similar time period have something along the lines of "If you steal this book, you will be cursed!" The only problem to this speculation is that I, after a brief search, have not found any similar matches.
Thanks
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| folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties |
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Posted by: blongblingi - 01-10-2026, 09:25 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (7)
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Before i begin my claim, i must say that i'm a mere layman, and so if a lot of stuff here doesn't fit findings i didn't know about, i would love to hear about that.
Now that i got that out of the way, let's look at how the folio might represent the four faculties:
Medieval academia tended to have 4 faculties: Theology, Medicine, Law and The Arts. Here i will go through (what i think) each character might represent, from most to least likely (in my opinion atleast), as well as some of my (personal and unsubstantiated) speculations regarding the nature of the folio in general.
First, for the most obvious one (imo atleast) we have medicine, represented by the guy on the right. the urine flask clearly represents a medieval doctor so i won't go deep here.
Now, the man on the bottom based on this theory would represent theology: the similarities to St. anthony are already fairly established, and i believe it could be reasonable for a saint (though not anthony himself, asthe painting here could be a generic priest or saint) to represent theology.
for the man on the left holding a flower however, i suggest this: the man here represents the art of Rhetoric, which acts as a "representative" for the entire faculty of Arts and philosophy: i found a depiction in Cod. 2975, of rhetoric represented as a man holding a flower, with it being a pun on an older medieval book (from the 11th century) called "Flores rhetorici"
. (however one thing to note here, is that a man gesturing here in the manner similar to the guy in the top of the folio is a representative of philosophy - this will be relevant later, and theology is represented here as the trinity, not as a saint. the manuscript given here was made in the 1460's, but it is assumed to be a copy of an older one, and the copy we have is from austria - fairly close to the theorized creation place of the voynich manuscript). I will admit that while i didn't manage to find other examples of "rhetoric directly holding a flower", i found another example of rhetoric pointing at a ring of flowers in the Regia Carmina fol. 29.
as well as an inscription near a depiction of rhetoric, represented as cicero woodworking, with an inscription near writing "Est mea dicendi ratio cum flore loquendi"
, so a rhetoric~flowers connection does exist.
lastly, we can look at the man at the top, and finally i here suggest that this man is a representative of the faculty of Law. while i would admit this acts as a descent stretch, the finger here isn't simply pointed, but pointed upwards. as can be seen from the Heidelberg Sachsenspiegel, Cod. Pal. germ 164 from the early 14th century:
a raised right hand index finger demonstrates a verdict done by the judge. thus the only "big" feature from that side of the circle coincides with Law. Here we can also look at Cod. 2975 in that manner: philosophy is depicted as the "king of the Arts" in that manuscript, and what does a king do? (especially one whose entire being is deciding right from wrong ) , that's right- he judges.
now that i explained my chain of thought regarding that association, now it's time for a bit of speculation! what could this possibly tell us about the manuscript as a whole?
i mainly have 2 theories: 1. that the voynich manuscript doesn't discuss only medicine (as can be easily seen by the botanic paintings of unknown plants) but also theology, the arts and law. Or 2. to act as a sort of proof, either by claiming that men of different fields all support the contents of the manuscript, or that the contents of the manuscript can be applied to all sciences.
all in all, i hope that the smell of "rhetorical flowers" here was pretty good (but not good enough to get you guys hooked completely in) and would love to hear what you guys think about this.
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| Rosettes as a ... magic altar |
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Posted by: Rafal - 01-10-2026, 12:25 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (48)
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I made some research and couldn't find any detailed similar discussion. Sorry, if it was suggested before.
How do you find the idea that the Rosettes "map" is actually a kind of portable altar used for contacting the spirits?
As you may know from my previous posts I like the idea that Voynich Manuscript was once a bunch of loose pages used by some wandering charlatan. So "contacting the spirits" wouldn't be real, it would be a show for some silly folks willing to throw a few pfennigs into charlatan's bowl for it. He would "reveal the future" for them or get some blessing from the spirits.
There is something as almadel ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) which is exactly such an altar. It isn't the same as Rosettes but it gives some vibes:
In such altar there was a central place, sometimes called locus (place, point) where you put a crystal ball to contact the spirits. That would be "Heavenly Jerusalem" part of the Rosettes.
![[Image: ded0427d28ffca0d2ba964de634ecc7e.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/d0/42/ded0427d28ffca0d2ba964de634ecc7e.jpg)
![[Image: Voynich_rosettes11.jpg]](https://www.alchemywebsite.com/images/Voynich_rosettes11.jpg)
In these altars the central point is surrounded by other points that may symbolize planets, angels, or some "points of power" responsible for different areas like health, love, prosperity, luck etc.
There were many similar diagrams which could work as well as altars in magical grimoires. I include some examples below which all are a bit Rosettes like for me. The modern stuff in the pictures was made according to much older sources like Lesser Key of Solomon.
These pictures are not the same as Rosettes but it isn't a big problem for me. There weren't big magical traditions and standards in Medieval Ages. Magical treatises could exist only in one copy or at most few copies. When authorities got their hands on them, they happily burnt them. Not many of them survived. So when you compare grimoires they differ a lot, give very different lists of angels and demons, desribe different ceremonies and have different imagery.
And don't forget that the Voynich artist could know they won't be really summoning spirits but rather cheating people so he could be a bit freestyling and doing it his own way.
I may write a bit more later. But as for now, how do you like the magic altar idea?
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