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The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - Printable Version +- The Voynich Ninja (https://www.voynich.ninja) +-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html) +--- Forum: Imagery (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-43.html) +--- Thread: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 (/thread-800.html) |
RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - R. Sale - 07-10-2016 Perhaps this can be viewed as a question of which of these things is not like the others. Isn't it generally perceived that this is a "recipe" section and the items illustrated are ingredients, not *products*. Soap would be a product, not an ingredient. Meanwhile I seem to recall Lapis was an occasional ingredient in the manufacture of certain medical treatments, IIRC. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - -JKP- - 08-10-2016 (07-10-2016, 05:23 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps this can be viewed as a question of which of these things is not like the others. Isn't it generally perceived that this is a "recipe" section and the items illustrated are ingredients, not *products*. Soap would be a product, not an ingredient. Recipe section is as good a guess as any other, if you are compiling a list of the various possible functions, but... there's no proof or even strong evidence yet that this is a recipe section. Recipes (whether culinary or medical) were not typically illustrated in the middle ages. They were almost always textual. It's certainly possible that they are ingredients, maybe even the most likely explanation, but I can think of a couple of other possibilities so... until more is known, I personally prefer to call it the small plants section (as in small-drawn plants) and not assume its function. RE: The blue cube in f102v2 - -JKP- - 08-10-2016 This isn't blue but it's interesting: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - MarcoP - 08-10-2016 (07-10-2016, 05:23 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Isn't it generally perceived that this is a "recipe" section and the items illustrated are ingredients, not *products*. Soap would be a product, not an ingredient. I agree with this interpretation. This section of the VMS has a recurring structure: raws with a container on the left and a number of plants on the right. It is reasonable to assume that the plants are the "simple" ingredients for the "complex" compound stored in the container. I don't know of other equally good explanations for this structure. We can add this assumption to what can be observed of the cube: * it has a cubic (actually, parallelepipedal) regular shape * it is mainly blue and partly yellow * it could be an ingredient in some compound Soap fits well the first point, but I am not sure that it could fit the other two. Meydenbach's 1491 Hortus Sanitatis mentions the "sparatencus" black soap: "Et est ali[us] Gallicus et alius muscatus et alius moll et niger et vocatur sparatencus" (there is a French one and a musk one and another soft and black which is called 'sparatencus') The "Operationes" section briefly mentions the use of soap with other medicinal ingredients, but no specific recipes are provided: "Et si admiscetur cum aliis medicinis calefacit mediocriter" (if mixed with other medicines, it warms moderately). PS: a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - Koen G - 08-10-2016 They don't have to be recipes. What if the containers were used for storage or transportation of the individual items? Or what if the vessels are mostly ornamental, marking a row of somehow related products like an elaborate bullet point. Or what if they show the kinds of containers these things were found in or near on the marketplace or in shops. Or what if they hint at the type of product one could make from these plants without needing them all together row by row? I see no reason to assume the recipe hypothesis over any other at the moment. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - Diane - 08-10-2016 Koen, There are a good number of saponaceous plants. Bdid1dr at Nick Pelling's blog believes (or believed) that the 'claw-like' bits at the base of folio 1v are bits of soap. Interestingly the "fish-catching" plants are usually saponaceous ones. If this isn't too far off the subject of soap (though I do not see it as relevant to the 'block' which started the thread) a group of such plants are those I identified as the subject of one of the botanical folios - The one with the 'pictorial annotation' of a wooden fish-hook to which a fish's mouth is attached, but not actually hooked. extra info - Old World species of soapberry (genus Sapindus ) provide saponin from the fruits. Since antiquity, S. mukorossi has been used in E Asia and the Himalayas as a detergent for shawls and silks and by jewelers for cleaning silver. I have the feeling that my saying the Voynich plants are not native to the Mediterranean (or most aren't) isn't these days considered quite as outre and snigger-worthy as when I began explaining the images in 2010, so I hope the Asian information won't seem O-T either. Cheers. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - Koen G - 08-10-2016 Those soapberries are awesome, I had no idea such a thing existed. I must say that some images of "traditional soap" do remind me of this cube: ![]() (I have no idea what the above soap is made of and how, but the coloration pattern is similar.) However, this does not solve the blue problem. Interestingly, when I asked google how to make blue natural soap it told me to use indigo powder ![]() RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - stellar - 10-10-2016 (08-10-2016, 12:00 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(07-10-2016, 05:23 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps this can be viewed as a question of which of these things is not like the others. Isn't it generally perceived that this is a "recipe" section and the items illustrated are ingredients, not *products*. Soap would be a product, not an ingredient. In Monas Hieroglyficae, John Dee deals with cubes and Pi. Quote:The hypothesis set forth is that John Dee intended for the culmination to occur in Theorem XX by designating and thereby demonstrating a solution of the duplication of the cube. To affect this he embraces alternative methods employing the use of conic sections, acknowledging the non-existence of a classical solution, something that was only shown centuries later, and contrary to the contemporary attitude toward the quest for solutions. By considering these methods he is not accepting defeat; rather by so doing he utilizes geometrical concepts not in use until much later. This strongly suggests his awareness of geometry beyond the earthly three dimensions. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - davidjackson - 10-10-2016 Stellar, stay on topic please. Monas Hieroglyficae was simply Dee's raving about his magic symbol and had little to do with mathematics. As I said before, Dee was a polymath not a dedicated mathematician. What this Wilson fellow you quote is on about, I have no idea. RE: The yellow/blue cube in f102v2 - MarcoP - 13-10-2016 (08-10-2016, 10:18 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.They don't have to be recipes. What if the containers were used for storage or transportation of the individual items? Or what if the vessels are mostly ornamental, marking a row of somehow related products like an elaborate bullet point. Or what if they show the kinds of containers these things were found in or near on the marketplace or in shops. Or what if they hint at the type of product one could make from these plants without needing them all together row by row? I see no reason to assume the recipe hypothesis over any other at the moment. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is one of the Vice-Presidents of the International Society for the History of Medicine, last year he was visiting professor in the History of Medicine at UCLA and previously he was a professor at the Universities of Paris, Messina, Philadelphia and several others. He published the facsimile edition of the Tractatus de herbis Sloane 4016 and Tacuinum Sanitatis BNF lat 9333. He wrote numberless papers about ancient medicine in Latin, Greek and Arabic sources. Here is his opinion about the "pharma" or "small plants" section (from his You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.): Quote:Se paragonate a quelle della prima parte del manoscritto, queste piante sono minute e semplificate e sembrano indicare le specie da utilizzare per preparare i prodotti contenuti nei vasi al lato del testo, piuttosto che istruire il lettore sulle loro caratteristiche. Sono probabilmente icone destinate a collegare questa parte del testo con la prima, così da permettere ai preparatori di poter individuare facilmente nella prima parte del Codice i prodotti da utilizzare per la confezione dei preparati. My translation (I tried to keep this as literal as possible): If compared with those in the first part of the manuscript, these plants are small and simplified and seem to illustrate the species to be used to prepare the products contained in the jars at the side of the text, rather than to instruct the reader about their characteristics. They likely are icons intended to link this part of the text with the first, in order to allow the preparers to easily identify in the first part of the manuscript the products to be used in the making of preparations. Of course, I agree with him. My personal opinion is that this is an excellent explanation for the repeating structure of this section, the regularities in the relative positions of illustrations of jars and plants, the presence of labels on jars and next to plants, the short text paragraphs. I think the blue cube most likely is an ingredient in the preparation of porshols soe dy (whatever it is). |