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EVA to IPA
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Formulaic text, "micro-co...
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| The Mainz Merlon Mystery |
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Posted by: Koen G - 20-08-2025, 03:17 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (20)
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While making my video for VMD, I needed an illustration to show while I was talking about Mainz. So I googled something like "Mainz medieval", which led me to the following image:
It is the illustration of Mainz from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., published in 1493. Obviously, the single front row of swallowtail merlons drew my attention. But this is where the mystery begins... Why does the Nuremberg Chronicle depict Mainz with swallowtail merlons?
As I see it, there are basically two options:
1) Mainz really had some swallowtail merlons at one point in its history (possibly post-VM given the 1493 date of publication).
2) This actually depicts a different city.
As the wiki writer notes, "illustrations depicted many never-before-illustrated major cities in Europe and the Near East. Six hundred and forty-five original woodcuts were used for the illustrations. As with other books of the period, many of the woodcuts, showing towns, battles or kings were used more than once in the book, with just the text labels changed. [...] sources were used where possible; where no information was available a number of stock images were used and reused up to eleven times."
So if this is not actually a portrait of Mainz, then which city did the woodcut originally depict? Was it based on some earlier image?
But also, Mainz was an important city with political and economic power, known for its advantageous location on the confluence of the Rhine and the Main rivers. Why did the artists, stationed in the not so far off Nuremberg, not depict it faithfully as they would have done with other German cities?
The general idea of a fortified city with a trading port suits Mainz well. But Marco believes that the boats in the engraving may represent naval vessels, which might hint at the geographical location of the original city.
Marco found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., which indicates that this particular woodcut was indeed reused several times: I see Mainz, Naples, Aqiuleya, Bologna, Lyon.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is in northeast Italy, not too far from the sea.
Bologna is in north-central Italy, at a river but not the sea.
Naples is at the sea and might be a good contender for the original subject of the image...
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| Possible match on f49r Snakes |
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Posted by: Kendiyas - 19-08-2025, 10:40 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (19)
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Hey everyone, I am not sure if this has been talked before but I couldn’t find a previous thread about this.
As you know there are two snake/leech figures in the roots of the plant on f49r
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By now we all seem to agree that the figures used in the manuscript is very likely to be copied from other manuscripts of the time and has been changed slightly. There are beautiful threads about this such as the findings of Koen and many others. Anyways; I have stumbled upon the Harley MS 4986 an anonymous botanical manuscript. The manuscript is believed to be written in the second half of 12th century.
In the f43 v(Harley MS 4986) there are 3 snakes on the root of a plant. The left looking snake in particular has a similarity of the general shape and mouth type. Also the circular dotted patterns on the snakes are very similar. The line that come out of the rightmost snake on Voynich You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is also looking similar to the snakes on the Harley MS 4986 it almost seems like the scribe was going for an open mouthed snake but changed it after.
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I have searched for the manuscript online to search for more similarities in the figures but couldn’t find a copy so I have contacted the british library and unfortunately I have gotten this response.
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The library did invite me to check the manuscript in person though which is an amazing response but I live in Turkey and won’t be traveling to UK for some time.
Anyways, what do you think about the similarities I am seeing? Do you concur or do you disagree? I wanted to share!
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| Scribes per folio |
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Posted by: quimqu - 19-08-2025, 08:33 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Hello,
is there anywhere where I can find which folia or paragraphs are supppsed to be written im Currier A and B and also divided by the supppsed 5 different scribes?
Thank you
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| [split by KG - Solution (?) posted in another thread] |
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Posted by: Isogulaleb1 - 19-08-2025, 01:25 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (6)
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Possible solution - everything under review . Read RIGHT to LEFT. Languaje ITALIAN & latin. Italian phonetics bi ci di gi pi qu ti . Ligatures remove i , & u in qu . Ligature ch sonds like k or ch ?. Symbol above ch breaks ligature ?. b- 8 , d- l EVA , f - p EVA , g- g , l- n EVA , n- >r< EVA constricted , p- f EVA , q- 4 , tt- t eva , tl or lt? - k EVA
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| Heraldry opens doors. |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 18-08-2025, 09:10 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
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The correct medieval interpretation of heraldic elements opens a door to better understanding of the VMs.
In the proper naming of the 'nebuly' line, terminology is significant when etymology and its connotations can influence interpretation. The artist clearly knows and uses the "cloudy" cosmic boundary interpretations attributed to this heraldic line pattern. Nebuly line patterns with variations occur in the botanical, cosmic, bathing, and rosette illustrations.
The second example of heraldry is VMs White Aries. The VMs artist presents an attempt to establish communication with the reader by posing the question: Does the reader know the armorial insignia of the pope who instituted the Catholic tradition of the cardinal's red galero?
Unfortunately, from the perspective of modern investigation, it tends to be that the reader does not readily find what the reader does not know already. However, from a medieval perspective, among certain groups, perhaps the dualistic construction of the radial / non-radial orientation serves as a sort of disguise - the intentional creation of ambiguity.
Can heraldry carry a message? Clearly it can. Better than starlight.
Can heraldry carry a hidden message? Let's follow the evidence.
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| Speculative fraud hypothesis |
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Posted by: dexdex - 18-08-2025, 02:15 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (86)
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Preface: don't take this too seriously.
During discussion with friends, I imagined a hypothetical explanation for the creation of the manuscript. My chief problem with most hoax theories is that the amount of effort required makes the proposition that it was made as a hoax to fool someone gullible out of money stupid: a fraudulent actor simply finds someone more gullible to con, not spend a year's worth of scribing effort to create a fraudulent artifact. Such forgeries do happen, but when the amount of money thus received is tremendous - like an art forgery. The manuscript, to my mind, doesn't fit this criteria.
However, that is not the only way a con artist could use a manuscript like this. In fact, a travelling snake oil salesman could use such an artifact to bolster their credibility among marks, as a prop. After creation of such a prop, it could be reused, making for a much better return on investment. A con artist group could reuse the same artifact, making it a reasonable proposition for the five scribes to collaborate. And, the prop would also serve its purpose during creation: one could simply show off a single folio or quire and, noticing an uptick in marks catching the bait, spend more effort to create further and further pages, culminating in a book.
The advantages of this speculative hypothesis:
- Explains the amount of effort for a hoax
- Allows for collaboration with common purpose by multiple people, explaining multiple scribes
- A hoaxster could plausibly have enough cunning to invent a simple method to generate words (crust-mantle-core style) and then generate a document by basing it bits of meaningful books, thereby reproducing many of the features of the manuscript
- A hoax would have little use for corrections unless they looked bad on a page, explaining the relative lack of retouching
- Explains the signs of use on the manuscript
- Explains how someone (perhaps after incarceration or death of the hoaxters) could find the document and then bind it/add things at a later date.
- edit to add: The lack of occult or religious symbolism makes sense for such a hoax, as it gives plausible deniability that this isn't some cursed or heretical artifact, allowing for safer use as a prop in a Christian community.
The disadvantages are still legion, of course:- This is still a lot of effort, but perhaps one spent to assure that someone can't realise it is gibberish at a glance - important when you're showing the prop to multitudes of people. But there are easier ways to con people.
- The explanation for why the larger-scope semantic and textual analyses seem to suggest topic clustering is flimsy
- Gives zero clues for a possible decipherment scheme
- The parchment appears to have been acquired and prepared similarly, not congruent with being built up piece-by-piece (though not impossible)
Still, I found it a fun hypothesis so decided to share. Would love to hear some thoughts. Thanks for a bunch of threads containing interesting info to pass the time looking into this silly mystery. 
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| Cipher or unknown language - historical perspective |
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Posted by: ReneZ - 17-08-2025, 01:51 AM - Forum: Provenance & history
- Replies (33)
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Over time, people have wondered whether the writing in the Voynich MS is an invented script, as used in ciphers, or a genuine old script to represent some language.
When Voynich first presented the MS to the world, he had made up his mind: this has to be a cipher, and ever since, the MS has been called a cipher manuscript.
Nowadays, we can be certain beyond reasonable doubt, that the Voynich MS is not an example of some old writing system. No other examples have ever been found, and we know that because, in the modern world, research is accessible globally.
Did Voynich have a similar consideration, or was it commercial decision? A Roger Bacon cipher should sell for more than some unknown language.
We don't know what his reasoning was, and it does not really matter.
But what would people well before the 20th century have thought?
What was the question from Prague to Kircher?
A) please translate this language
B) please solve this cipher
This question has been asked before, and Marci's letter is neutral about this.
Barschius also does not express this very clearly in his surviving letter, which is the second about this topic.
Still, there are two hints.
First, he repeats in his letter that the reason he approached Kircher was his (supposed) success in deciphering egyptian.
Second, from Kircher's answer we know that he (or Moretus) sent Kircher a sample of a printed text in Glagolitic.
Both suggest that he was approaching Kircher for a translation of an unknown language.
Barschius certainly could not have our overview of foreign writing systems, so this is not a strange viewpoint at all.
Is this then also how people in even earlier times would have seen the MS? I do think so.
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| How to decipher the MS? |
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Posted by: quimqu - 15-08-2025, 09:40 PM - Forum: Theories & Solutions
- Replies (18)
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Hello all,
I would like to know the latest ways on how to decipher the MS. I mean, what are the key points, their order, what should not be left or forgotten...
René Zandbergen says
"Some time in the past, somebody or some group of people sat down and generated the text of the Voynich MS using some method.
This may seem trivial but, in reality, it is fundamental. There may or may not be a decoding method (step 1 above), but there certainly was an encoding or rather text generation method.
Anybody who wants to present a Voynich MS solution should present the method how the text that we see in the MS was generated. The main advantages of this approach are:
this method certainly exists and was really used by someone in the fifteenth century;
this approach works both in the case that the text is meaningful, and in case it is meaningless."
Now, for example, magnesium's Naibbe cipher has been published. A cipher that matches very well with the MS entropy and statistics. So... how should we continue? Is this a start? Should we look for other ciphers?
According to the most expert people here... What should we do? Which direction should we take? Which steps?
Thank you!
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