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Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - Printable Version

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Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - Koen G - 26-03-2020

Hey guys, since half of the world is in quarantine, David and I are planning to resume our interview series. Lisa Fagin Davis has kindly agreed to participate in the near future. 

Now of course Lisa is active on the forum so you could ask any questions to her directly. But still you may like to suggest some questions or topics you would like to see us discuss during the interview. So post your ideas here and we will include them.


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - -JKP- - 26-03-2020

Awesome. Looking forward to it.


LFD has direct access to manuscripts (including the VMS), so maybe at least one question about her thoughts about actually handling these manuscripts firsthand might be included.

Also, I'm curious as to how she thinks this might play out... will the VMS ever be read... and if not... what might be the productive things we can learn from it regardless of whether it can be read.


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - Mark Knowles - 26-03-2020

Excellent idea! I was hoping you would do more interviews.


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - MarcoP - 26-03-2020

These are great news! Many thanks to Lisa, Koen and David!

In addition to what JKP wrote, I would be curious to know Lisa's views about the several, but short, Voynch marginalia.
Some of them (f17r, f66r, f116v) appear together with Voynichese words. Could they date to the same time-frame as the main text? Is there any hope of extracting some additional information from them? (e.g. about where/when they might have been written, or who might have used a similar script)
I would also love to know what she thinks of the other sets of marginalia, e.g. month names and quire numbers.
And what about the single characters / short words that could be colour annotations (e.g. f1v, 7fr)? What do they tell us?

On a different subject, Lisa recently mentioned that she is working with Prof. Claire Bowern, a linguist at Yale. I was really excited to hear that! Though I guess that this project is in its early stage, is there anything that can be shared about it? How do linguistic and palaeographic expertise typically come together in research work?
I think it would be wonderful if an art historian could join the current efforts at Yale. We all are fascinated by the illustrations in the manuscript, but as far as I know neither the manuscript as a whole, nor specific sections like Quire 13 or the zodiac, have been the subject of formal art-history publications. Will this change in the near future?


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - Helmut Winkler - 26-03-2020

It is a bit off topic, but Claire Bowern seems to have taught a course about Beinecke 408 at Yale in Fall 2019

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Does anybody know anything about it?


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - ReneZ - 26-03-2020

I would have the following question:

having looked closely at the handwriting throughout the MS, have you noticed an area where you had the impression that the scribe was "still learning the script"?


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - nickpelling - 26-03-2020

I'd like to ask Lisa:
1. Is she confident enough in her palaeographic readings of the different Voynich hands that she can suggest (to some degree) what the original bifolio nesting and gatherings were?
2. What is her physical interpretation of the state of the marks on f116v? That is, does she think michitonese is as intended or as emended?


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - -JKP- - 27-03-2020

(26-03-2020, 04:12 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.These are great news! Many thanks to Lisa, Koen and David!

In addition to what JKP wrote, I would be curious to know Lisa's views about the several, but short, Voynch marginalia.
Some of them (f17r, f66r, f116v) appear together with Voynichese words. Could they date to the same time-frame as the main text? Is there any hope of extracting some additional information from them? (e.g. about where/when they might have been written, or who might have used a similar script)
I would also love to know what she thinks of the other sets of marginalia, e.g. month names and quire numbers.
And what about the single characters / short words that could be colour annotations (e.g. f1v, 7fr)? What do they tell us?
...

I should probably disclose this as a matter of professional courtesy...

I haven't written it up yet because I am still analysing the data (I hope to do so soon), but I have been looking into these questions for 12 years and have collected and categorized a very large amount of palaeographic data specifically selected for similarity to the marginalia on 116v, the quire numbers, and the folio numbers.

I currently have the following, selected from searching more than 12,000 manuscripts:
  • 1,000 samples of scripts with some similarity to 116v, of which 130 score reasonably high.
  • 108 samples that bear some similarity to the alphabets in the right-hand column of f1r, of which about 10 have a reasonably high similarity.
  • A few sample scripts that are similar to the de Tepenecz name on f1r.
  • A handful of scripts that are similar to the color annotations (very difficult to research as they may not all be the same hand and there are very few).
  • 488 samples that bear some similarity to the quire numbers, of which 228 are reasonably similar and 38 are quite similar.
  • A handful of samples similar to the month-name labels added to the zodiac-figures section (difficult to research because the text is sparse).
  • 455 samples that bear some similarity to the folio numbers, of which 189 are reasonably similar and 67 are quite similar.
 I will document the samples and geographically map their origins and timeframes.


I have NOT had time to study the various hands in the main text. I was happy to see LFD was doing it (I think this data may turn out to be more valuable than people might initially appreciate) and I am, of course, interested in her opinions on marginalia in the VMS. I have mainly focused my research on the various added notes.


I began looking into this because palaeographer John Watson had said, with a high degree of certainty, that the foliation was in the hand of John Dee and I wondered whether it was possible to confirm or deny this as part of the VMS provenance. What I discovered was that Dee's hand is very similar but I have a handful of samples in other hands that are arguably as close or slightly closer, so I think it is still an open question. I posted some of the preliminary research on Dee's handwriting on my blog, but I have much more information now and will write it up as soon as I have time.


My background is not specifically in palaeography (although I do try to read the texts as much as possible). I am a software developer and media specialist, but I am also professional calligrapher and digital font designer (I've developed fonts for some of the biggest companies in the world), which is one of the reasons I have a strong interest in the text.


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - Koen G - 27-03-2020

Write it up, JKP! It should be of interest to many people. You can't say you don't have time cause you've been writing about roofs Wink

(Kidding, I know this takes much more time...)

I'm currently especially interested in the month names, what is your opinion on their time and place?


RE: Your suggestions for Voynich Ninja interview with Lisa Fagin Davis - Wladimir D - 27-03-2020

I have a few questions on the mounting gaskets Q9, 11, 12, ROS, 17.
1 / Are there any traces of ink (paint) on the gaskets that did not get into the scans?
2 / Your opinion. Are these the original (initial) gaskets that were installed during the initial linking of the VMS?
3 / Are there additional holes on the bifolio bends (under the gaskets) that do not correspond to the holes in the gaskets?
4 / Your opinion, why the ROS gasket is installed under the sheet, because it is the heaviest sheet and the greatest wear should be on the layout under the twine.
Could there have been a chord-original ROS bunch at the adjacent (right) bend, where the page was repaired in 2014?
5 / What do you think of the additional mounting of ROS to f87r, according to the principle of double-sided tape? [font=Arial, sans-serif](Has anyone encountered such a method of additional fastening in other books?)[/font]