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+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: Marginalia (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-45.html)
+--- Thread: 116v (/thread-437.html)
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RE: 116v - ReneZ - 02-01-2017
I can't answer the thread about the "14+3 speculations at the start of 2017" - there would be too many "don't knows" - but there are a few speculations that all derive from f116v, so I prefer to post them here.
This page has been considered by some (e.g. Newbold, Brumbaugh) as the key to the cipher, but it may be a key to the MS in quite a different way.
Often, what we find on this page are called 'marginalia', but strictly speaking this is not true. The three lines starting with 'michiton oladabas (or something similar) are inside the normal text frame. The top line ('poxleber etc') is strictly speaking in the top margin, and the drawings / doodles are in the left margin. However, the top line could also be part of the text body - it does not make a big difference for the following.
The first thing to point out is that, since the drawings are in the margin, they would have been drawn *after* the text was written. One can argue about this, but to me this is more likely. Otherwise, this page would have had these drawings also in the main text frame, like the rest of the MS.
This is, however, the opposite from what happened in the rest of the MS. There the drawings were made first and the text written afterwards (almost certainly).
So let's imagine that there is an artist/draftsman who made the drawings in the MS, and a separate author/scribe who penned the text. Now on the last page (f116v), would the author/scribe go ask the artist to add the drawings in the margin afterwards? That doesn't ring true to me. It makes more sense that these were added by the same person. Speculation as I said, but worth wondering about.
Now is the author/scribe the same who wrote all (or a large part) of the Voynichese text? The words aror sheey strongly suggest this. They look like they were written fluently by someone who is familiar with writing the script.
Furthermore, the animal and the reclining woman do not look different from the animal in Aries and the many other nymphs. We may therefore also speculate that they were drawn by the same artist who did all or most of the drawings.
Taking all this together, the creation of the MS may very well have been a one-man activity.
If one prefers to think that the handwriting throughout the MS has to be from more than one person, then it could equally well be two, where one did all the drawings and some writing, and the other the rest of the writing.
But there is more.
Independent of whether the above is true or not, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I believe one can say that the text and the pictures relate to each other. Goat liver, goat milk and a goat-like creature.
So if that is the case for f116v, one could argue that it should also be the case for the other pages in the MS: text and pictures should belong together. Why do it only on f116v?
This also implies that the text has meaning.
Or at least: as much meaning as f116v.....
Enough speculation from me for today.
RE: 116v - Sam G - 02-01-2017
(02-01-2017, 12:41 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If one prefers to think that the handwriting throughout the MS has to be from more than one person, then it could equally well be two, where one did all the drawings and some writing, and the other the rest of the writing.
On this point, I recently noticed something potentially interesting on f75r. The line width used to outline the illustrations appears slightly thinner than the line width used to write most of the text, but the text column under the "rainbow" along with the first word on the page (kchedykary) appear to have been written using the same thin line as the illustrations:
The implication seems to be that one person outlined the illustrations and wrote a few bits of the text, and then either another person or the same person at a later time with a different pen came and filled in the rest of the text.
I think the same thing is true for the labels on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (which are part of the same bifolio), but it does not seem to be true of the labels in most cases.
RE: 116v - Koen G - 02-01-2017
Rene: An alternate explanation is that the book we see now has been made by a team of copyists. Since their job was to reproduce any originals as closely as possible, they may have been fluent in both the script and the imagery. That would allow any one of them to produce this by himself.
Another option is that the whole last page was known to remain blank and was used for various scribbles. I am not as convinced as you are that the text here is supposed to be "main body" and that the drawings are true marginalia that belong with them.
(By the way, a couple of respondents have opted to leave some questions open, so if you want you can still participate in the "2016 snapshot"
)Sam: our posts crossed. That seems like a very relevant observation and another argument in favor of images and text matching.
RE: 116v - Anton - 02-01-2017
I do not think that there is the key in f116v, simply because one who took the effort to conceal the encryption approach through 115 preceding folios (and did it on purpose) would not throw the key into our face on the very last one. And, given the multiple "layers" of this approach (carefully designed alphabet, curve-line, gallows coverage, multiple pass), I doubt that there is a "key" to be expressed in three lines of text as such.
Rather, the free space of the last folio was just used to put down a dedication or a spell - the latter looks to me more likely, because two Voynichese words would encrypt the most important part thereof.
RE: 116v - -JKP- - 02-01-2017
Since first blogging about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. a few years ago, I have learned quite a bit about charms and remedies that I didn't know.
I have now learned something else I didn't know...
Historic researchers are aware that family events are often recorded at the beginnings and ends of Bibles—births and deaths are particularly common. I was aware of this after doing quite a bit of genealogical research before I learned about the VMS.
But...
what I didn't know is that it was also somewhat common, in the middle ages, to write remedies at the ends of books. In just one week, I have come across three unrelated manuscripts with remedies added in a different hand at the end (the hands are usually 16th century or earlier). They were not in charm form, they were the kind found in herbal manuscripts (but not written in manuscripts specifically devoted to herbs) and they often mention powders or honey, milk or flour mixed with a plant or two. Often they are remedies for things like quartain fever (malaria was much more widespread then than it is now), or other fevers, but they do cover a variety of problems.
I also came across another version of the "abracula" charm written out with diminishing letters in the same way as the "abracula" charms I posted on my blog.
So... it is not unusual for a remedy or charm to be added at the end of a book. This doesn't prove anything about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. but it adds a small piece of confirmatory evidence for the possibility that it's a healing charm/remedy, and I thought it was worth mentioning.
RE: 116v - davidjackson - 02-01-2017
Quote:So... it is not unusual for a remedy or charm to be added at the end of a book.Not unusual at all. People often used blank spaces in books to note down births and deaths, or even, as you say, completely unrelated ideas notes.
But not usually the scribes.
If we start from the assumption that the writing is by one of the scribes -as suggested by the fluency of the Voynichese- then we reduce the possibilities of what it is likely to be.
I still think it's two different notes. One is likely to be a curse of protection, the other could even be a colophon.
RE: 116v - -JKP- - 02-01-2017
(02-01-2017, 05:20 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:So... it is not unusual for a remedy or charm to be added at the end of a book.Not unusual at all. People often used blank spaces in books to note down births and deaths, or even, as you say, completely unrelated ideas notes.
But not usually the scribes.
If we start from the assumption that the writing is by one of the scribes -as suggested by the fluency of the Voynichese- then we reduce the possibilities of what it is likely to be.
I still think it's two different notes. One is likely to be a curse of protection, the other could even be a colophon.
It's definitely different hands in the ones I've seen recently.
They are usually in a hand that is about 30 to 200 years later than the original document.
RE: 116v - davidjackson - 03-01-2017
Without wanting to suggest any sociological shift, I'd say that the flooding of the market with cheap printed books, together with rising literacy rates, helped to destroy much of the mystique of these old manuscripts.
Hence, people in the 16-18 centuries had a tendency to use blank space as notepaper. You come across some quite bizarre notes just jotted down.
Genealogical records are quite common in books of hours, for example - people knew the books would be kept for generations so they wrote down birth dates for posterity.
But that's not what we're seeing in the VM, whose notes seem to suggest some sort of link with the original content.
Which is why I suggested the colophon link - it could be another one of those 'finally finished this pox leber of a book' annotations
RE: 116v - -JKP- - 03-01-2017
(03-01-2017, 07:04 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Without wanting to suggest any sociological shift, I'd say that the flooding of the market with cheap printed books, together with rising literacy rates, helped to destroy much of the mystique of these old manuscripts.
Hence, people in the 16-18 centuries had a tendency to use blank space as notepaper. You come across some quite bizarre notes just jotted down.
Genealogical records are quite common in books of hours, for example - people knew the books would be kept for generations so they wrote down birth dates for posterity.
But that's not what we're seeing in the VM, whose notes seem to suggest some sort of link with the original content.
Which is why I suggested the colophon link - it could be another one of those 'finally finished this pox leber of a book' annotations
Some of the fragments recently rescued were medieval manuscripts that had been torn, cut, and folded and turned into file folders.
RE: 116v - -JKP- - 03-01-2017
I'm about to post something that will probably be rejected at first glance, but please... give this some thought...
I have been looking You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and I suddenly noticed something...
Okay... look at portas/portad. There's not much disagreement that the first letters are porta and look at the way the "p" is written. It's not unusual. The stem is almost completely disconnected from the loop. Not unusual at all—I have many similar samples. The letter "p" was often written this way. Sometimes the loop is completely disconnected as in this one, and sometimes only the top part of the loop is disconnected.
All right, now look UNDER the bottom line of text. This is important...
Notice that under the VMS glyphs there is a "scrubbed" look. I never paid much attention to this before, I sort of noticed it, but didn't register its importance.
Okay... now, notice how the tail of the 9 (EVA-y) at the end of the VMS vord has almost been wiped out. It looks like it had a long curved tail, but half of it is almost invisible.
Now... an important digression. I have been collecting samples for almost three years. I have looked through more than 4,000 manuscripts and out of those I have only found about 500 that bear any overall resemblance to the VMS marginal text. One thing that stands out in sample after sample is that no one who uses Gothic cursive script that comes from the same tradition as the other letter shapes in the marginalia writes a "v" or "u" the way it is written here with that extra curve on the bottom combined with the other shapes. So I've been assuming that this person simply has a unique, eccentric way of writing this letter.
And then I noticed, the "v" in val8en may not be a "v" at all. Look at it. Look at the "p" in porta8, now look how there is a ghost of an ascender underneath the "val8en" p that looks like it's been wiped away. These might not be "v" letters at all. Look at the "v" in "vix". That is a conventional "v". That's a commonplace way to write it and it does not match the ones on the last line.
Is it possible that val8en isn't val8en at all, but possibly pal8en? If those two strange-looking "v" letters had descenders, then they are quite normal, conventional "p" letters in both angle and shape.
I wouldn't have questioned that they were u/v for an instant until I had collected more than 500 sample alphabets and was unable to find a match for the u/v and then it struck me, when I noticed the scrubbed part, that the interpretation of these letters could be wrong.
It would be nice to have confirmation from the text as to the meaning of the words if indeed one or both of those are the letter "p", but it doesn't really help much. It's just as cryptic as before. Now... if those "p" shapes had a small vertical line on the descender that's almost wiped out, it could make a difference, because then you have the abbreviation for pre- or pro- (which are frequently at the beginnings of words) and the second word could be perbren (which is German for pearls) but...it seems unlikely that pearls would be mentioned in this context.
The first word is problematic because we don't really know what that figure-8 represents. It looks a bit like d or s, but we don't know that for sure. It does appear to stand for a consonant. It could be peralden/peralsen/peralden/proalden/palden/palsen, none of which makes much sense, or the 8 might be who-knows-what. It's not even 100% certain that's an "e". It's written differently from the other e letters. It almost looks like a VMS c with a tail except the tail is cut off and the "n" doesn't match well to the other n letters either. It's a truly odd combination of shapes at the end.
Anyway, take a look at the texture under the last line. Has something been wiped away underneath and are descenders wiped out as well? I'm constantly wishing I could look at the original with a microscope.
![[Image: VMSPalden.png]](http://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/VMSPalden.png)