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Browsing 'Aries' - Printable Version

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Browsing 'Aries' - Diane - 08-12-2017

I won't put this into the 'astrological section' because I've not yet seen any reason to think that the Voynich calendar was used for astrological calculations. 

In a post dated 22nd. October, 2012, '‘Astrological zodiac’ roundels ~ the hypothesis' I returned to the point that until there is some evidence of the way the series was used, it is an error to describe it as 'astrological'; the best one can say is that it came to be used as a calendar at some time - that is, the time when each figure in the series was inscribed with the name of a month - ten months of the year, with some names appearing twice, each time carefully differentiated in the way the month-name was written.

Speaking of the animal which is putatively an 'Aries' I wrote:

the picture labelled with what seems to be the equivalent of ‘April’ shows a rough-haired and smooth-haired creature on hilly ground, munching on a bush or small tree.

Domestic sheep don’t browse at all –  they graze (i.e. crop grass directly from the ground, not by stripping leaves off trees or bushes).
What is more, the goat’s habitat and habit of browsing was inextricably linked to its  Latin etymology (he-goats: caper; cropping bushes: capere; uneven places: capatere aspera – vide Isidore IX) so that these were the associations established by the terms and language which informed daily speech among the learned and the basic education of all the literate in western Christendom.
I’ll be quoting the basic texts such as Isidore and the bestiaries on that point.
In addition, the curves given the horns here, and omission of the beard is in keeping with classical habit. Compare the jawlines ~ as drawn in a medieval bestiary as against a mosaic from Greco-Roman Antioch.



[Image: goats-12thc-bestiary-and-grecoroman-antioch.jpg]

As you might imagine, then, I had a bit of a start on seeing another 'Aries' browsing - this time in stone, on Chartres Cathedral. (west facade, north portal, archivolt).
[Image: FR2A-25-39BK.jpg]

The sheep - or intended sheep - has a long, thick tail, shaggy-looking coat, and rather curiously formed horns.

I think it may be a Damara - which is interesting given that we also see a fat-tailed sheep pictured on f.116v.

We know a lot more in late 2017 than we did in 2012 about the habits of different sheep-breeds and relative propensity for browsing.  Concerns about global warming and its ancillary impact on such things as climate and thus on available fodder has stimulated a great deal of study in a fairly short time.  Apart from the modern cross-breeds, hybrids and genetically-engineered breeds, the general pattern is that the haired breeds are most inclined to browse.. being nearer their common ancestor with the goat.
 
The Damara is one such breed.

It was earlier found in north Africa and Egypt.  The centuries have seen it pushed further south until recently,  by which time it was to be seen only in Namibia.  The horns' shape varies, but the photo below seems a reasonable comparison for the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  The link is to an enlargeable image.

[Image: %24_20.JPG]

oh - and here's a photo showing the Damara tail. As you see it touches the ground, but doesn't have that 'kick' in the tail we see in Indian fat-tailed sheep and on f.116v.

[Image: Damara%20sheep.jpg]


In short, I think the 'Aries' in the Voynich calendar may be sheep after all; that they depict another haired breed, probably a fat-tailed sort, more like the variety seen in f.116v.   Fat-tailed sheep of some kind were being raised in medieval Spain, but were not much more widely bred in mainland Europe because they're not suited to areas with high rainfall.

I should add that where the Chartres' image is recognisably a sheep, the horns on the Voynich pair seem to me, still, to be those of a goat.  But perhaps other members can correct me on that.

Here's the Voynich pair as shown by JKP in his post of March last year.  He calls them 'Green-White Aries'. I'd call them the rough and the smooth myself. Smile
[Image: GreenWhiteAries.png]

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - Koen G - 08-12-2017

Hmmm. So since Aries means "ram", I was always focused on male sheep horns, which are typically curled. But apparently there are horned ewes and they can have goat horns....

Ignoring race for a moment, here's a few pictures:

[Image: Bighorn_Cover_RamEwe_688x344.jpg]

[Image: ?format=500w]

[Image: Zelia%5B1%5D.jpg?format=500w]

So if they are sheep, I'd say they are likely girls.

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - -JKP- - 09-12-2017

I really doubt that it was used as a calendar.

I think someone was trying to decipher the text and writing the month names by the symbols makes it easier to look for those names in the surrounding text. That's my gut feeling. I could be wrong.



Also, for those not familiar with Latin scribal abbreviations, writing a word differently each time is completely normal for medieval text. They did that constantly. If a word appeared three times in a sentence, it was sometimes abbreviated three different ways. The conventions for abbreviations were known to all scribes, so it didn't really matter which one you chose for a word, out of the many options, as long as there was enough context to understand it.

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - -JKP- - 09-12-2017

I have approximately 100 images of sheep drawn in medieval times that I had intended to blog about a couple of years ago (and still haven't gotten to it).

I wanted to write it up properly, which means who knows when I will get to it, but I will try to get them posted soon since this has now become a topic of discussion and it would be a waste of our collective effort if everyone starts hunting down the same ones I already have (rather than finding new ones that help fill out the picture).

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - VViews - 09-12-2017

Although I can appreciate the usefulness of the second image posted in this thread, I really don't see what the rest have to do with "browsing" Aries.

Also, personally, I stay away from comparing medieval depictions of animals to modern photographs. So many medieval depictions of animals look nothing like the actual animal the artist meant to show, even among when drawing species that should have been familiar to them.
I posted a drawing  in the Voynich Humor thread a little while ago that shows a medieval horse with paws. It's just  a horse, nevermind that it has paws. We could spend ages looking for a species of horse that has paws, and argue over it, but at the end of the day it's just a horse. The better question is where are horses drawn with paws at a similar time?
To make a parallel which makes the futility of this obvious: shall we try to identify, from photographs, which type of insect is meant by the Voynich Scorpio? Or look for photos of a subspecies of feline that has blue dots and a pointy tongue to match Leo?

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - Koen G - 09-12-2017

It's a good point that many animal depictions would take on an artistic life of their own, and we could learn more by comparing actual art. It's als true that certain scribes weren't even able to draw the animals one would expect them to know from real life. 

Still, it's also worth keeping in mind that certain animals could be seen in real life and hence kept closer to reality, while others were mostly transmitted through bestiaries etc. I still think these are different things.

For example, there are whole families of manuscripts where elephants have tusks that point upwards, like those of a boar. This is the effect of transmission since it's possible that the copyist had only one drawing for reference.

Aries, on the other hand, is translated in the vernacular is "ram", and it's more likely that European artists knew rams and thus were less likely to misinterpret their exemplar - or could supply one of their own if required.

This is why we see mammalian scorpios (with four straight legs and rounded ears) but no insect rams.

My point is this: if the VM Aries somehow differs from the traditional depiction, it is in the case of this farm animal possible that someone in the line of transmission drew from life. It should be our aim to link this to other known images, but comparing to actual species might also provide valuable information.

For example, just look at Taurus in Arab manuscripts, which is clearly influenced by local species. I don't see why making this link would be irrelevant.

[Image: fe65bf84e18389f4acf040bb15b2ebfb--taurus-art-gemini.jpg]

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - -JKP- - 09-12-2017

I don't think VViews was arguing against that kind of comparison, Koen. The statement was specifically about comparing to "modern photographs".

I would agree that the most relevant comparisons would be to medieval drawings (and to some extent to sculptures, which are essentially 3d "drawings"), assuming drawings are meant in the broad sense to include mosaics, stained glass, jewelry designs, etc.


I've seen some jaw-droppingly crazy drawings labeled and described in the text as something other than what they look like. If I had more time, I would have blogged the funniest animals as a quiz, to see if people could recognize them. Sadly, I don't have the time.

I do agree that northerners are far more likely to draw a recognizable sheep than a recognizable scorpion, since most northerners had never seen a scorpion.

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - VViews - 09-12-2017

Going back to MarcoP's wonderful collection of zodiac signs, posted  over at Stephen Bax's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., some of his Aries images show a "browsing" Aries, or at least, an Aries where a plant is present in the same place relative to the animal as in the Voynich illustrations.
These are the first four images (after the VM ones) of this composite:
[Image: tile01aries.jpg]

RE: Browsing 'Aries' - ReneZ - 10-12-2017

There's a nice pair of a sheep and a goat on fol. 90v of MS Barb.Lat.157, which is a bit later than the Voynich MS.
According to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , this falls in between two books.

Referring to my earlier post, both animals have been drawn with dew claws, and the goat's tail is in a rather sheep-like position.

   

RE: What is unique or rare about the VM Zodiac signs? - Diane - 17-12-2017

Rene

You may have given details before, but would you mind giving more details for 

Quote:From memory, the main argument of Pamela Richards why the Aries animals in the Voynich MS look more like goats, was the presence of 'dew claws'. It could also have been someone else's argument (Stolfi's ?).

I find this very interesting, and only wish that when I argued, with my evidence, for reading the two browsing creatures as goats that someone had thought to mention it then.  As it was - and as you may remember - the only overt reaction I received was emphatic disbelief and (as I recall) assertions that I suffered from hallucinations.

Do please give details of the two persons who had earlier come to the same conclusion - though I think they have misread as 'dew claws' what the draftsman working to that tiny scale had meant to be the bone(?) above the pastern. 

[Image: 4709981_orig.png]

Saying there's "no doubt that the maker added the detail intentionally" is one of those remarks which regularly brings down negative comment, as I've found.  But I've also found that if you treat the question as if it were 'How do you know?' and answer that question in as much detail, with as much corroborative information as possible, the criticism is lessened.

A link to Pamela Richards' original comment would be much appreciated.