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Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Printable Version

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RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - davidjackson - 10-02-2018

Quote:A very good point about the 10 o'clock.

I would suggest it is dangerous to fall into the mindset of "10 o'clock" and "clockwise movement", as those concepts would not be the default mindset in the mid-15th century - they're based on our understanding of time movement and clockfaces. Falling into this trap may limit our ability to understand the intentions behind the illustration.

High middle age clockfaces, usually limited to church or public buildings, showed a vast array of information. See this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from 1490 - time-telling is only a part of its function, the whole thing really acts as a state of the universe information desk.

The illustrator might have had a completely different paradigm in mind if there is a deliberate attempt to create text start markers. For example, the intention may be to mark the zodiac sign of the "birth" of the text.

Anyway, keep an open mind is my suggestion.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - -JKP- - 10-02-2018

When I said 10:00 o'clock I wasn't referring to clocks at all except to make it easier to refer to the position to modern viewers so they can find the start marker at a glance.


I don't think of them as 10:00 o'clock. It's just easier, when talking to someone else who can't see your finger pointing, to say, "Look at the fancy little marker at 10:00 o'clock" (meaning the position, not the time).


The comment about sundials was completely unrelated to my reference to 10:00 o'clock because the sundial reference was a reference to time, whereas the 10:00 o'clock reference was to position.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Davidsch - 10-02-2018

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RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Searcher - 10-02-2018

(10-02-2018, 12:28 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.See You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Hi David!
 Maybe, you are right as for the bundles of the light, but, I think, the bundles theyself are not bundles, but watery or moist dispersion like in fonts, fountains, so the direction in this case is from the central rosette. I tried to identify some patterns, you can find it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1.Analysis of patterns in the VMs imagery), but you can see that there are not all the patterns, in particular, those that you call three slashes pattern, fish bone pattern and three stripe pattern are absent in my interpretation. I can't find clear explanation for them for now, but I think, it is very important for understanding the whole scheme. 
Maybe, the next text will be off-top in this thread, it doesn't concern directions of labels, but rather relates to the directions of flows and the whole reason of it.
The fragment from my blogpost concerning the Rosettes page:
"In general, I think it represents a circulation which is cosmic and watery in the same time and can be explained as a depiction of the circulation of the Water of Life. Generally, it may reflect the high level (celestial) and the low level (earthly) of this process. I suppose that the central and main «rosette» is the Moon itself as it is a receptacle and transporter of the Dew (Latin Ros). According to the interpretation of the Voynich imagery at the beginning of this article, it contains of vapors, drops of the moisture and light. I can only suppose what the six «towers» may mean, including the six planets, influences and virtues of which are assembled and reflected in the Moon, six gates of heaven and six – the number of the Great Work. Thirteen “trefoils” of the “starry wrap” may mean thirteen-moon year. The rest rosettes, possibly, show the motional processes, their terms, states and qualities of the water, including tides, distillation, boiling, evaporation, condensation, and so on. The role of the Sun here is understandable - it gives light (fire) which the Moon reflects to the Earth.


[Image: aqua-vita-horz.jpg?w=1140]

Every corner of this “chart” is a separate riddle. The left low corner, as was mentioned earlier, contains the circle with the sign which in alchemy means Aqua Vita, but what is the more fascinating is the inscription opposite to it from the above. From this thread on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you know what I thought about the hidden notes in the Voynich manuscript. Thus, in the light of the new observation, it is a little changed. I read the word in the left top corner as “Rasiel”. Judging more objectively, I’d say that the clearest part of the word is likely “Ras”, the rest is quite questionable in such a state. You can see it on my edited image.

 

[Image: ras-horz.jpg?w=1140]

Before all this I tried to find the word You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., but it led me to Sanskrit (and Hindu) word “ras” or “rasa” which means juice, nectar, taste or Mercury (Indian alchemy). I didn’t take it into account, as I couldn’t find it in manuscripts or books of XV-XVI ages, the earliest mention and transliteration into Latin I found was, it seems, in the XVII c. book. I really can’t imagine whether it is possible that someone knew this word and its meaning and used its Latin transliteration in XV century. First that I thought: “So what the letters “AR” must then mean?” Well, I was really surprised by that fact that the well-known Amrita is often called Amrita Rasa, Amrit Ras, Soma Ras, et cetera.
I want to know more about this as I’m confused. The word Ras and Amrit Ras fit the lunar theory exactly. Can it really be a coincidence?
[Image: ros-mr-horz.jpg?w=1140]
Finally, I’ve reached the right low corner of the “Rosettes” page. It contains the obscure letter “M” which can be interpreted in different ways, but now I think about the word Moon or Mone, Mane,  Maan, Mond, or Mondbuch, after all."
If that sign in the left low corner really means the alchemical sign for Aqua Vitae, then the accepted direction of the map is correct, therefore the three-section orb has the divided in two top semicircle.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Paris - 10-02-2018

(10-02-2018, 01:36 PM)Searcher Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If that sign in the left low corner really means the alchemical sign for Aqua Vitae, then the accepted direction of the map is correct, therefore the three-section orb has the divided in two top semicircle.

That's an excellent idea, Searcher.

This sign could effectively be the alchemical symbol for Aqua Vitae (Water of life, in english. Eau de vie, in french.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Searcher - 10-02-2018

Paris wrote:

Quote:This sign could effectively be the alchemical symbol for Aqua Vitae (Water of life, in english. Eau de vie, in french.
Yes, therefore I think that this is not a map, but scheme which represents the whole [low] process of preparing of the Aqua Vitae (Aqua Lunaria, Succus Lunariae) including fermentation (putrefaction), circular distillation, etc. But in the same time, it implies the [high] cosmic circulation of the Water of life which either in alchemy and in cosmogony comes from the Moon or by its means.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - -JKP- - 10-02-2018

It could be aqua vitae, it's a good match for the symbol, but it could also be a number of things connected to maps, like a symbol for a sextant/quadrant/octant.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Searcher - 10-02-2018

(10-02-2018, 08:49 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It could be aqua vitae, it's a good match for the symbol, but it could also be a number of things connected to maps, like a symbol for a sextant/quadrant/octant.
It could be, but I examine it in connection to the rest.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - Koen G - 10-02-2018

I intended this thread rather as a somewhat neutral investigation of how the foldout was supposed to be handled. You don't write labels in all possible directions if there isn't any turning around involved. That's why I find JKP's observation on the roundel start signs of relevance.

If you take the bottom right roundel and turn it so that the sign comes into the common position, the labels also balance out, and the sheet's corner points nicely to the left. 

   

This would properly place the two suns east and west. The famous three-dot-sign would become north.

Still it's confusing because there seems to be a shifting preference for the map to be held, depending on which part you're looking at. That's the fascinating part.
And there's shifting in JKP's marks too. In the bottom left roundel, which would be north, the sign aligns perfectly with the "north" symbol. But in the bottom right roundel (above) the sign is pretty close to the sun which would indicate west. 

So in my opinion (or rather, faint impression) the map does have a consistent orientation, but each roundel has a suggested direction of looking at it.

RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout - -JKP- - 11-02-2018

Notice how the big letters make a perfect title for the page?

I keep saying I see words all over the place in the VMS, but I can't make any coherent sense of the manuscript when the same rules are applied to the text as a whole. It's true and it's been driving me nuts for years.


For example, the label (the one above the pink arrow) at a glance looks like "opera rotarum" in conventional abbreviated Latin:
  • Push EVA-p down so it has a descender instead of ascender and you get the very common Latin abbreviation for "per".
  • EVA-m at the end can mean several things in Latin... but it typically it stands for "-ris" or "-rem" but... some lazy scribes also used it for "-rum" because they couldn't be bothered to add the extra bar that usually differentiates -rum from -rem.
So, in Latin, it could be expanded as rotar[is] or rotar[um] (depending on the scribe), and becomes an appropriate label for the contents of this folio:

[Image: Operarotarum.png]
"works of the wheels"


I sometimes wonder if the VMS is 30% real words and the rest is a forest of artificial text hiding the "trees".