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Cosmic secrets revealed |
Posted by: R. Sale - 05-02-2020, 12:10 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (1)
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The comparison of the VMs cosmos with the current galaxy of medieval images has revealed this. It’s not about appearance. It’s about structure. The artist of the VMs has made it clear that appearance can be easily altered. And those who do not apprehend the underlying structure will be easily deceived by the altered appearance presented.
The investigator’s familiarity with medieval traditions should be such that, while trying to make sense of the strange plants of the opening botanical folios, it is also immediately aware of the untoward presence of the nebuly lines and other unnatural, artistic inclusions to leaves and roots of certain VMs plants.. Nebuly lines, rayonny lines, and asymmetrical cloud-band patterns do not belong to the categories of leaf-margin patterns, let alone to roots. This should be apparent to those familiar with botany. In this part, this is heraldry and, of course, the universe of cloud-band patterns.
The reasons for, or the intentional use of, altered appearance might not be evident on the basis of these botanical examples alone. But then, there is the VMs cosmos. It is about the structure and it is clearly an intentional alteration of appearance and a combination of images: ‘Oresme’ plus ‘Shirakatsi’. Despite differences in appearance, once the nature and the structure of the parts are recognized, the combination becomes apparent. The investigator’s familiarity with medieval traditions will determine the direction, the relevance, the very existence of further inquiry. Both sources are needed to explain the VMs cosmos. The elements of structure are equivalent, but appearance differs significantly. The cosmic secrets are revealed by comparing relevant illustrations.
Visually, the first difference in the Shirakatsi diagram compared with the VMs is that the eight curved spokes are oriented in opposite directions. This could be the result of using a camera obscura. Or, if the illustration were an actual wheel with curved spokes, then viewing it from one side will present one orientation and viewing it from the other side will present the opposite orientation. So, it’s the same wheel seen from the other side; it’s the same thing, but the view is different. In other words, it’s a matter of perspective and interpretation. And that is a useful theme for this investigation.
The second difference in the wheel and spokes part is that there is VMs writing is enclosed between the bands that compose the wheel and spokes, whereas the Shirakatsi example is blank between the lines.. In the world of medieval European art, similar constructions such as text banners are frequently ephemeral bearers of information rather than actual objects.
In the Oresme portion of the VMs cosmic illustration there are three structural elements. The first is a central Earth represented as an inverted T-O. Second is an area around the Earth which contains the stars. Third is a circular cosmic boundary that encloses the area of the stars. This is not the structure found in a typical medieval representation of the cosmos, which consists of a series of concentric planetary circles, and sometimes elemental circles as well, instead of an earthly circle divided internally. And while there are various atypical cosmic structures to be found from medieval sources, few can be shown to match the same three-part structure seen in the VMs. As presented in 2014 (E. Velinska), the two best examples are the early 1400s images found in the Paris editions of books by Oresme and de Metz.
Compare the individual elements in all three of these cosmic structures. In all three, the Earth is an inverted T-O structure. In Oresme and de Metz, the Earth’s representation is pictorial. In the VMs, it is linguistic. The VMs was not copied. The copy of a pictorial illustration is another pictorial representation. The VMs might provide the same information, but it is using a different method. This is a code shift. It has a totally altered visual appearance.
Likewise, the area of stars around the Earth is similar in the two Paris texts and different in the VMs. ‘Oresme’ and ‘de Metz’ both have golden, asterisk-style stars scattered on a blue field. The VMs makes use of polygonal stars in this illustration, though asterisk-style stars are found on many other pages. And in the VMs cosmos, the stars are set out in a series almost like beads of a string going around the Earth. In Latin two words (cingere and circumdare) are used to indicate both ‘to surround’ and ‘to encircled’. Clearly the VMs illustration is able to depict the alternative interpretation. This constitutes a visual play on words.
Only in the third element, the circular cosmic boundary, do the two Paris images diverge. The boundary in the de Metz cosmos consists of simple, plain lines. The cosmic boundary in the Oresme version is an elaborate, scallop-shell patterned ‘Wolkenband’ with much similarity to certain works of Christine de Pisan also produced in Paris in the early 1400s. Meanwhile the VMs has an attempt at a circle consisting of a ‘trying-to-be’ regular, meandering line that is bulbous, and is therefore a nebuly line. And thus, the VMs cosmos is specifically (though perhaps not directly) connected to the Paris version of the Oresme text produced about 1410. There is the structural similarity between the nebuly line and the scallop-shell pattern used for certain cloud-bands. There is the etymological derivation of the traditional terms used in Latin, and in German. And there is the presence of 43 undulations in both the VMs and the Oresme illustrations. Even at this level of detail the VMs matches the structure of Oresme over any other medieval illustration. And still, at the same time, each element presents a strong visual contrast in its appearance as seen in their comparisons. It is the same fundamental structure, with each part intentionally given a distinctively different visually re-presentation in the VMs. That is what the cosmic comparison reveals. It reveals that the VMs cosmos is a pairing of two other cosmic images with numerous alterations that disrupt visual similarity and disguise structural similarity. And it reveals a creative spirit native to the appropriate cultural traditions that modern investigations strive to recover. It reveals that combination and alteration work together to disguise any identification. And this method of presentation occurs on more than one occasion beyond the VMs cosmos. It reveals that some of the secrets of the VMs cosmos are hidden by information that is missing in our modern understanding of the cultural traditions that went into the VMs’ creation. Under what circumstances could the combination of Oresme and Shirakatsi occur?
Note: As a boost to the potential relevance of the de Metz text, there is the illustration of a “woman standing in a fish’s mouth” that is similar to the example in the VMs.
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On the Voynich manuscript |
Posted by: Torsten - 04-02-2020, 06:09 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (15)
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There is a new paper published about the VMS: "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."
The paper by István Daruka can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The author concludes:
Quote: This pronounced repetitive behavior on the word level is fully incompatible with the natural languages in which the similar word re-occurrence rate function amounts to be zero at zero word separation and it increases until reaching a maximum at some finite word separations (Schinner 2007; Timm 2016).
Quote: The intriguing multilateral statistical-linguistic matches we revealed between the VMS Herbal Section (folios 5r-38v) and the magical Tables of Liber Loagaeth render them into the same linguistic university class.
Quote: This suggests that most likely the Voynich manuscript carries no rationally comprehensible content, offering also a plausible explanation why the ciphertext was unbreakable so far. These inferences together with its fantastic, yet contemporary credible illustrations render the Voynich manuscript most likely an elaborate hoax.
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My Queries about the Manuscript |
Posted by: caitlin_B200 - 31-01-2020, 12:34 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (17)
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Qurie 1 - How did the scientists working on the manuscript, decide that the manuscript was from Italy. I did some background research on the manuscript, and I found it was made out of cowskin vellum. Cow skin vellum was used predominantly in England and France, not Italy. In Italy, goats skin vellum was used instead.
Quire 2- Why do people think that Bacon wrote the manuscript? The manuscript has been carbon dated to the 15th century. Bacon was born and had died by the start of the 13th century, thats 2 century's to early.
From what I have gathered from some basic reading about the manuscript, I believe that it was written in France, not Italy. I don't know if this is helpful, but could someone please answer my questions?
Thank you
Caitlin
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More cleartext in the MS? |
Posted by: ReneZ - 22-01-2020, 07:28 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (52)
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This has been mentioned before, but I am not sure if it was in this forum.
On f68r2 there is a moon with a face near the top and a sun with a face near the bottom.
Both have circular texts around them. For the bottom one, there is one word, between 08:00 and 09:00, that does not look like Voynichese writing, but like cleartext. However, it is not all that easy to read.
Who can make anything of this?
EDIT: does it say 'sond' ? Could this be some dialect version of 'Sonne' (German for Sun)?
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[Results] State of the Voynich 2020 |
Posted by: Koen G - 21-01-2020, 10:58 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (4)
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With Wladimir's contribution, we reached 21 participants, beating 2017 by a large margin. Thanks to all who took the time to answer the questions. A few people submitted only a partial list, I included those whenever possible.
The purpose of this exercise was to find out where the people who frequent this forum stand as a whole, and how this evolves over time. Of course this is a gross abstraction, since people are forced to answer "yes" or "no". In future editions, maybe it would be better to use percentages to express to what degree one agrees with the statement?
Here are the results. The percentages reflect the amount of respondents who were more inclined to answer "yes" than "no" to the question. Behind the question I'll add the amount of increase or decrease compared to 2017.
18% Is the majority of the plants exotic? (-5 compared to 2017)
19% Is the manuscript any kind of hoax? (+19)
20% Is the manuscript authored by a known historical figure? (-3)
26% Is alchemy an important part of the manuscript? (+11)
30% Will there be any breakthrough in Voynich studies in 2020? (-63)
33% Have the images been made ambiguous or otherwise strange to conceal their true meaning? (+13)
47% Has the text been purposefully enciphered to conceal its meaning? (-20)
52% Have (part of) your views about the MS changed notably over the last few years? (new question)
55% Is medicine an important part of the MS? (-12)
70% Are the plants meant to refer to real plants? (-23)
71% Is the MS the creative product of one mind? (+4)
80% Do the images match the text? (-20)
84% Will we ever be able to read the MS? (-16)
85% Is astronomy and/or astrology an important part of the MS? (-2)
90% Does the text contain any meaning? (-10)
A thread throughout the results is the decrease of optimism and our belief that we can make sense of the manuscript. Only 30% of respondents expect a breakthrough this year, compared to 93% in 2017. Fewer respondents believe that the plants refer to real plants, that the images match the text, and that we will ever be able to read the manuscript. These statements still stand at 70% or more though, so we remain optimistic overall
The statement "is the MS any kind of hoax" went up to 19% (from 0), but this is one of the questions which should be rephrased or split by next edition since it covers a wide array of possibilities, and one may answer yes or no depending on the definition of hoax used. The same goes for example for the question about real plants.
The respondents who most often agreed with the majority opinion on polarizing questions were Anton, AgaTentakulus and MarcoP. The members who disagreed most often with the majority were DONJCH, Stephen Carlson and Wladimir.
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How could we approach the Pharma and Recipes? |
Posted by: Anton - 19-01-2020, 09:57 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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These are some methodological thoughts of mine. Since I'm unlikely to bring them to practice in the nearest future, I thought I'd better share them for someone to maybe pick them up.
Initially I approached the herbal section in the view that it may reveal some "template" of narration (which I was not able to find, but that does not mean it does not exist, because I tested it from one side only).
But the Recipes section (suppose these are recipes, to begin with) would perhaps exhibit even a more templated style. There are different types of recipes (not in the VMS, I mean, but in human practice). You have recipes to cook something, recipes to prepare medicines, recipes to cure the diseases. Each of those, however, would exhibit regularities. There will be some frequent words (such perhaps as "water" or "powder"). Some function words, such as e.g. "for", are not unlikely to exhibit positional affinities (e.g. in the titles: "for ...."). There will be measures and numerics (be that expressed by digits or by words). What is especially interesting, there will be established phrases, such as the "so nim" which we have extensively discussed in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. thread.
So what could we do?
Take some contemporary manuscript with recipes. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. seems to me a good candidate, since it contains several recipe sections by different scribes (that is, by different authors, most probably) and of different types. Calculate word statistics for each section. Find most frequent words and word combinations, find positional templates. Do the same for the Recipe section of the VMS. Compare the results.
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Alchemy conference in Vienna |
Posted by: ReneZ - 19-01-2020, 12:30 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (7)
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From 19-21 February 2020, the beautiful city of Vienna will host the International symposium “Alchemical Laboratories. Practices, texts, material relics”.
Here is the web page with the most relevant information:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I am planning / hoping to attend.
This is, of course, only marginally related with the Voynich MS. Perhaps.
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