+- The Voynich Ninja (https://www.voynich.ninja)
+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: Astrology (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-34.html)
+--- Thread: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't (/thread-535.html)
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - MarcoP - 15-04-2016
(14-04-2016, 05:07 PM)david Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A zodiac is a circle of 12 30º divisions of celestial longitude. We then have the signs of the zodiac, Leo, Pisces, etc etc.
...
Now, whenever the Voynich zodiac is being discussed, it seems to be assumed that it is encoding calendar information, and indeed the names of the months of the year written alongside the signs of the zodiac reinforce that concept.
...
Instead, I'm suggesting it's a myrogenesis. The nymphs represent each celestial degree of the zodiac...
Hi David,
you are saying that those pages are not a calendar.
Since you think they are a myrogenesis, you are interpreting these pages as a detailed representation of the Zodiac:
"A zodiac is a circle of 12 30º divisions of celestial longitude" (and you interpret the nymphs exactly as the 12x30 degrees of the zodiac).
The thread title you chose is misleading. It should have been:
"Why the Voynich Zodiac isn't a calendar"
Even better, since you are discussing a specific theory:
"Why the Voynich Zodiac is a myrogenesis"
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - Koen G - 15-04-2016
Rene, what you say about the usefulness of the later month names is of course true. It could shed some light on where the MS has been before it went to Prague.
I mean it's unfortunate because it just may impose an interpretation of the series that wasn't the original one.. perhaps.
I also agree that starting with Pisces isn't a weird thing in contexts like astronomy and navigation. If we adjust for that, still, the series of images is similar to the zodiac, but there's only a partial overlap in the selection of the images. This is not my area of expertise at all, so do correct me if I'm wrong. Let's jut start at March.
Code:
VM Normal
01. fish fish
02. goat ram
03. goat bull
04. bull twins
05. bull crab/lobster
06. twins lion
07. crab/lobster maiden
08. scales scales
09. blue feline scorpion
10. maiden archer
11. "scorpion" goat
12. archer water-bearerIgnoring the month inscriptions, the order the VM illustrations appear when reading through the manuscript isn't entirely clear to me from the scans. Is this correct?
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - Davidsch - 15-04-2016
i think everybody here, and you here as well, is searching for complex solutions on simple drawings.
We have, sometimes described as childish, simple drawings.
We have about 30 ladies in a drum, sometimes without.
We have many herbals and roots, they are quite prominent in the ms.
The zodiac pages are clearly a diagram for the months,
they could show the sowing of seeds or perhaps the harvesting of the seeds, or when they blossom or something like that.
That is only logical.
The labels are the names of the herbals.
This is so obvious i can not not stop myself when i read postings like these over and over again.
Why do the names not match the information in the text with the herbals ?
Do they not ? I do not know the answer, but that is an entire other issue.
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - ReneZ - 15-04-2016
(15-04-2016, 11:17 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ignoring the month inscriptions, the order the VM illustrations appear when reading through the manuscript isn't entirely clear to me from the scans. Is this correct?
This is the order in the MS (all figures listed left to right):
Quire 10
Folio 70v: Fish, first sheep/goat
Quire 11
Folio 71r: Second sheep/goat
Folio 71v: First bull
Folio 72r: Second bull, twins, lobsters
Folio 72v: Feline, maiden, scales
Quire 12
Folio 73r: "Scorpion"
Folio 73v: Crossbowman
Folio 74: <lost>
The order is completely standard for a zodiac, apart from the split of the aries and taurus in two halves.
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - Koen G - 15-04-2016
Ah, I see, you are right. So that limits the problems to two things:
- split of animals
- selection of different-yet-similar animals where one wouldn't expect those
I understand a lot of variation is common in drawings like scorpion, but for example the feline seems weird to me.
Have any explanations been found as to why it seems to have had blue fur, or at least dark spots?
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - -JKP- - 17-04-2016
(15-04-2016, 03:50 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ah, I see, you are right. So that limits the problems to two things:
- split of animals
- selection of different-yet-similar animals where one wouldn't expect those
I understand a lot of variation is common in drawings like scorpion, but for example the feline seems weird to me.
Have any explanations been found as to why it seems to have had blue fur, or at least dark spots?
The lizard-scorpion was not uncommon to a certain place and time and in fact there is a lizard in Europe that was called "scorpius" (or it may have been a more general term for certain kinds of lizards, there wasn't enough context in the manuscript for me to figure it out exactly).
A lion without a mane is uncommon. I've found a couple in the Mediterranean area but one has spots and is probably a leopard rather than a lion. But... I have also found a couple in northern Europe, one very similar to the VMS "lion". I will be blogging about it when I have time to make some sense of all the info I've gathered.
As for blue animals... Blue rams are very common in zodiacs. Most lions are brownish, but not always. The bulls come in a wide variety of colors.
Sorry, I linked to a bad example of Scorpio (lizard) and have removed the link. That was Lacerta (the lizard constellation) but the medieval Scorpius examples are similar. I included them in one of the zodiac maps in a previous blog:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - david - 17-04-2016
Quote:The thread title you chose is misleading. It should have been:Not exactly. I'm arguing that we are interpreting this section backwards by concentrating on the zodiac images.
"Why the Voynich Zodiac isn't a calendar"
Even better, since you are discussing a specific theory:
"Why the Voynich Zodiac is a myrogenesis"
I'm saying the features we need to be looking at are the nymphs. Each nymph obviously represents something, but what? Well, they represent an aspect in astronomy.
An obvious solution is a lapiadry, a book of stones. Each nymph stands for one type of Stone. Each Stone is assigned to one degree of the zodiac which is why they roughly correspond.
So the zodiac design is simply used to categorise these aspects.
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - R. Sale - 18-04-2016
Now I really am confused. There are a fair number of illustrations commonly referenced as representations of the 'Zodiac Man'. They consist of a man (generally) with the system of Zodiac signs superimposed or labelled to various parts of the body, starting with Aries at the head and ending with Pisces at the feet. It's all pretty much standard images, standard representations and standard interpretations. It's a Zodiac.
In the VMs, in the matter in question there are omissions, discrepancies and additions. But it still appears to have sufficient similarities in the sequence to be called the VMs Zodiac. It is an altered zodiac, but it's still a zodiac. And the reasons behind the alteration might be given some consideration. Why is this not a real zodiac??
The movement of the Vernal equinox into Pisces is a factor that might place Pisces first. But a much greater discrepancy resulted from the accumulation of error from the Julian Calendar.
Given Pisces first, the splitting of Aries and Taurus is the simplest way to continue the sequence of pairings in the VMs Zodiac houses. For those who've looked high and low for patterns in the VMs, here is the simplest of patterns set forth in the most outrageous manner. A pair of pairs. Yet it has completely escaped detection.
And as to the nymphs, what is their hidden purpose? To disguise the introduction of heraldic content as seen in the patterns on their tubs. But only for those who can provide the standard, traditional names for the patterns found on the tubs.
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - Diane - 18-04-2016
David,
I'm glad you've begun this thread, which clarifies an old puzzle.
I see that your default definition of 'zodiac' is astrological, and that most others here also take that as a given.
So your 'zodiac' is (in effect) " [astrological] zodiac'.
But for persons who write about medieval and other imagery, the default meaning of 'zodiac' is not astrological but astronomical and in terms of ancient and medieval history and art, the predominant expectation is that the series of zodiac emblems are markers of the calendar-months. That is to say that Aries means the constellation of Aries, used as the visible sign that this was the time of year when people did such-and-such, when the liturgical calendar celebrated this and that, and so forth. Nothing to do with astrology or its calculations.
Because the series of 12 constellations served as the calendar of the illiterate, it was pictured in public on medieval cathedrals, in mosaic, and again (for the literate landowners) in their books of hours and so on.
It was a series universally known, and for most nothing whatever to do with astrology and with none of the astrologer's calculations or 'virtual position' for a figure.
So I've been puzzled as to why, when I point out the obvious fact that MS Beinecke 408 contains no zodiac, no-body seemed to see it.
But you've made clear that most researchers, assuming astrological purpose for the series, were less focussed on the fact that the twelve images clearly weren't pictures of the twelve constellations.
Thanks for that clarification. I hadn't been able to see how anyone could suppose - even with the addition of those month-names which oblige us to see a connection to the calendar - that this was a zodiac (in the more ordinary sense).
My question here has always been why, when the month-constellation zodiac was so universally known and used in the Latin and Islamic regions, the makers of the series had apparently managed to get it so very, very wrong.
My conclusion, btw - made by reference to so much else in the manuscript indicating connection to the maritime world and goods - has been that the inscriptions used older imagery gained from a different environment, and now used them to represent the ten months of the year when ships sailed the Mediterranean, while omitting January and February, when the ships did not sail.
I do think we are obliged, by the presence of the month-names, to posit their use as a calendar, and so differ from you there.
Anton is perfectly right about Nick Pelling's having already done the ground-breaking research into the idea of per-degree astrology here, and your being able to just cite that precedent should save you a lot of wasted time and effort. Pelling once referred to this endless 're-discovery' (because precedent works were so rarely or correctly cited, or even known, as the Voynich "groundhog day" phenomenon.
Getting rid of that issue is another reason why the folio-by-folio bibliography should prove a long-lasting benefit to Voynich studies, too.
About the llapidaries - the Kyranides etc. - when I began investigating that subject (sparked by a possible correlation between patterns used for the map and the barrel patterns) I didn't manage to find any precedents, and had to begin from scratch. I found a major historical problem: we find no extant evidence of any systematic patterning as lithological 'key' being devised before the nineteenth century. At least not in extant records; I'm sure such systems must have existed for the convenience of miners, jewellers and others. We do find a vague hint in some early mining maps from Egypt, but there's nothing about them any longer online.
I did find online a library of the most important ancient and classical texts including Theophrastus'. If you think it will help, I'll look up its address in one of those old posts of mine.
This sort of sharing is another great thing about Voynich 'ninja' and the new atmosphere it has brought.
Well done, all.
RE: Why the Voynich Zodiac - isn't - Diane - 18-04-2016
David, I've put up a post with some information about earlier work that I hope will save you some time and trouble.
Good luck with the research - I look forward to reading your results.
D