Much has been written about the items held by the nymphs, and they are notoriously hard to identify with certainty. That is why, for my most recent You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I decided to take a step back and look at the way items are held, trying to avoid interpretation on an individual level. I did not look at barrels, tubes and stars, since there are too many of them and they are not really handheld items.
There are three "sections" in the manuscript that show handheld objects:
The calendar roundels.
Almost all of these are stars, or flowers that look like stars on a string. This is also the case for Virgo. The exception is the crossbowman, who is exceptional for several reasons:
only unambiguous weapon in the manuscript
only item held, or at least "handled" with both hands, in the entire manuscript
perhaps the only item that can be interpreted at a basic level without discussion. It's a crossbow!
All of this make the crossbowman rather exceptional.
Separate diagrams
These are the diagram on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and both diagrams on the reverse of the large foldout. The three of them feature four human figures in a circular or square arrangement.
On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there is only one handheld object, a white disk or globe. It is held in a unique way, with a very large angle in the arm, making the item almost hang above the figure's head.
The other two diagrams are also exceptional object-wise. These are the only folios where we see nymphs holding more than one item. Also, the only person actually wearing a ring. It is also very interesting to note that these figures have been drawn as fully clothed to begin with, without any overpainting in thick Pelling paint.
Quire 13 (bathing section)
This leaves the vast majority of object-holders in the bathing section. The most common stance is to hold the object at the end of a horizontally stretched arm. The first five examples are very clear, while the bottom two are a bit different. Still, it is interesting to see that five nymphs hold very different objects in the same way.
Four nymphs hold the object by their side like they don't care:
Some objects are held behind the back, though poses differ:
Note that the object held by the bottom nymph is the same as the one held out by one of the first group, only there a spike is at the top. This likely has to be seen as an "in use" and "disabled" version of the same thing.
Then there are some specials: one held in or near the mouth, one wrapped around the body, one is manipulating a waterflow, one holding up a large ring, and one apparently tripling its arm length to extend an "apple" ahead of another one.
CONCLUSIONS
The crossbowman is an exception on many levels.
There is variety in the way objects are held, but also a number of recurring poses. Especially the "horizontal stretched arm" is common.
Objects are generally isolated from other nymphs and the environment. They are held, but it is not clear for what reason.
One object per nymphs, with the exception of the four-way diagrams.
INTERPRETATION
Talking just about the bathing section, I am especially intrigued by the fact that, bar a few possible exceptions, the objects are never used. They are held, and some nymphs appear completely unaware of the thing in their hands. I see two possible explanations.
1) The objects are attributes. They tell us who the figure is supposed to represent, without being of much importance themselves. Attributes are of all ages and cultures.
As an example, here is St. Stephen:
He has two stones on his shoulders, one on his head - he does not seem to notice. He's holding a large book but does not seem like he's about to read, and there is no apparent use for the palm he is holding.
That is because these attributes tell us something about the figure. He was stoned to death. And the Martyr's palm tells us he's a martyr.
Hence, it is conceivable that the items are meant to tell us who the nymphs are.
2. A second option is that the items are more important and the nymphs are just there to hold them, like mannequins. If the item is all that matters, it is of no importance who holds it.
Naked people are, in a way, like mannequins, stripped of all social markers. And mannequins are like naked people
There is some overlap between these two options, and I don't think they are mutually exclusive.
The second option is problematic in a way though. Why choose naked women as mannequins? This could only be explained against a cultural background where such a thing was acceptable, which, I believe, would exclude most areas under the rule of Catholicism.
So well, that's how I see the objects as a whole. What do you think?
I'm trying to decide whether the text in the Recipes folios is a list of bulleted descriptions, each bullet marked by a star. The trouble is that in many cases the stars don't "line up" with the lines of text.
What are the opinions on this - were the stars drawn in, higgledy-piggledy, after the text, with no relation to the text? Or are they indeed like bullet marks?
By my count this is the number of margin stars on each Recipe folio:
The variation in number of stars does suggest that they relate to the text, otherwise wouldn't it be more likely that there are the same number on each folio, if they are simply decoration?
(The average number of stars per folio is 14. Thus there are an estimated 56 stars missing due to the two missing folios f109 and f110. This would bring the original total number of stars in the Recipes to 380, by my count.)
I'm working on a short blog post about nymph attributes, and I realized I had never looked properly at these guys before. Image contrast etc. has been altered:
Now there are some weird things about them. For starters, I think the faces are drawn in a different style than those in the other nymphy sections. They are all clothed. They all have two items, which is highly exceptional. How I interpret the items, very tentatively:
Top left (my image): container, product (bread? vegetable?) or gold?
Top right: container, cereal crop
Bottom left: holding yellow globe in one hand, pointing to an object with writing (??) with the other.
Bottom right: yellow thing in one hand, not sure whether the top part belongs with it, in that case it looks like a vegetable. White globe in the other. One can argue that the white globe is part of the background, but the way the hand is held suggests to me that it is an item.
Interestingly, a white globe is also held by this figure mentioned recently by Davidsch:
In both cases, the globe is held up in the figure's right hand (proper).
So what are your thoughts about these nymphs? Has the "writing" been studied before? It almost looks like som kind of tablet...
Some details on the Rosette page could make the difference. Currently i want to draw attention to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
[attachment=774]
It is the left “road” on the page and the letter composition, and it has a very special name:
ddssShx
ddssShx
What we see here is a literal road, a path, a vein, a stump, or has it a symbolic meaning?
It is clear that it shows a connection between 2 parts of the page.
If we know, or can guess those parts, can we tell what this path is?
There are 3 labels on that “path”.
One on top, this one in the middle, and on the bottom.
ytedar
ddssShx
daldas
The position and the distance of the 3 words, shows us that the words do not belong to each other and do not form one sentence,
but must be used on itself, as labels.
Some ideas: corridor north, corridor south. Or names, China, Pakistan. Or purification of the mind, purification of the body.
Is it a path over water, or the path to heaven or hell ?
Then on the left and right of the path there are also two more labels:
soiindy
ofardy
In total we now have:
ytedar soiindy ddssShx ofardy daldas
Searching for matching occurrences gives:
ytedar: 3 matches, in f73v, f85r2 and f104v.
soiindy: none
ddssShx: none (dd occurs 25 times, ss occurs 33 times, x 44 times)
ofardy: none (fard: none, far: 3 matches, in f1r, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. textpage and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. herbal)
daldas: none (dalda: none, alda: none, daldar: none, aldar: 3 matches, in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. textpage, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. star textpage and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. herbal)
Further more, the letter x occurs 44 times in total, and in 7 words in the Rosette !
xar
xasashe
xoltedy
xdar
soshxor
dxar
There are three options for dd ss sh x, it is a label or it is a number, or is it both.
If dd ss Sh x would stand for a name, then dd ss must have a vowel in d or s at least.
Then it could stand for a word with this pattern (v=vowel, c=consonant)
d-d- ss
cvcv cc
or
-d-d ss
vcvc cc
... or all the combination where -d or d- of -s or s- represent vc or cv.
Are there such words, where the last letter of the word is a low frequent letter (such as x, y, z) ?
Sorry for the inconvenience
[url=https://www.facebook.com/787737484701521/photos/a.787769764698293.1073741828.787737484701521/793266497481953/?type=3&theater][/url]
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.
While I was googling stuff for a reply to another post, I came across a Wikipedia entry for some Voynich-inspired music:
"Graft is an album by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow. The recording was inspired by the plant illustrations in the Voynich Manuscript."
Here's a YT link for the first track on the album, Graft #1:
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[url=https://youtu.be/p2FI-ntpxaE][/url]
It sounds like a pretty accurate rendering of what happens inside my brain when I spend too long looking at the Voynich plants.
I've been down a bit of rabbit hole over the last couple of days which others may have already been down. In particular I think Marco posted about Alfonso X's Lapidario before, but from that thread I'm not sure how deeply he investigated, as the thread petered out.
I was looking once more at the Zodiac folios, in particular Taurus. The Taurus Light and Dark folios are both marked "may" in, as often remarked, a later hand. There are 15 figures in each Taurus folio, for a total of 30. However, as we well know, May has 31 days, so the figures probably don't represent days. I thus went in search of 30-way splits of Zodiac signs ....
Looking at the old Spanish illustrated manuscript:
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which is a treatise on astrology and the importance of stones/gems etc., we can see a circular Taurus diagram with 30 divisions. Each of these divisions is associated with a stone, of a noted colour, and one or a few stars in a constellation. There is a lengthy description of each division, it's stone, its stars, the various ailments the stone cures, when the stone should be used et cetera. There is a Spanish transcription of the text here, which I found very useful (combined with Google Translate):
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Since a plausible language match to the month spellings as written in the Zodiac folios is Occitan, a region of Spain., there seems to be a compelling regional match here, but I can't quite figure it out. From what I read, Alfonso X assembled a team of scholars from all world regions, who worked on documents on a variety of topics. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. says of the Lapidario: "The Lapidario is a thirteenth century Castilian translation sponsored by King Alfonso X el Sabio, the Learned. The translation was done from an Arabic text which in turn is said to have been translated by the mysterious Abolays from an ancient text in the "Chaldean language""
Anyway, my first approach was to try to match the colours of the headgear or tunics of the clothed figures in the Taurus Light folio to the colours of the first and second fifteen stones mentioned in the Lapidario. It's a little tricky, because although the stones are numbered, we don't know which is figure 1 in the Taurus Light folio, and whether the inner ring precedes the outer. Even so, the patterns of colours in the stones sequence might reveal a match. I drew a blank.
My second approach was to try to match the names of the stones with the labels on the figures, to see if there was some correlation between the label length, or its initial glyph, with the stones' names. Very tricky.
Some of the stones that appear in the Taurus set of 30 also appear in other Zodiac signs in the Lapidario. For example, the ninth stone in Taurus is "esmeri(l)", and esmeril is also the third stone of Libra, and the second stone of Aquarius.
This leads to the obvious question: is there a Figure in the both the Voynich Taurus and Libra roundels (Aquarius is missing) that shares the same label? If so, might that label be "esmeril"? And, are there other stones that appear in more than one sign which might be matched to duplicate stones in the Lapidario?
As an aside, regarding the stones and colours, I was struck by the third stone of Taurus, called "camorica", which is scarlet in colour and associated with the Pleiades.
Has anyone else looked at all this before and found anything more concrete?!
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