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+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: Imagery (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-43.html)
+--- Thread: Crossbowman (/thread-695.html)
RE: Crossbowman - Koen G - 06-09-2016
I agree that the woodcut scenario is rather unlikely in the world's most mysterious manuscript.
What if the script was originally right to left and they just used a mirror to reallign the images?
RE: Crossbowman - MarcoP - 06-09-2016
Actually, you don't agree with me. I wrote: "Given that the Voynich zodiac illustrations are so original, I think it is not very likely that they were directly copied from anything".
You think it was copied; I think this is unlikely. Our opinions are different: we disagree.
RE: Crossbowman - Koen G - 06-09-2016
Oh yes, if you look at it like that. I think the whole concept of originality and authorship in the medieval context is a bit anachronistic.
But what we do agree about is that copying from a mirrored source like a woodcut - that was mirrod for technical reasons - is unlikely to explain much in the VM. What we disagree about is the reason why this is unlikely.
RE: Crossbowman - davidjackson - 06-09-2016
Nick Pelling has an interesting theory that the VM pages were engraved onto wax tablets before being inked onto the vellum - this could be a hint of that process.
RE: Crossbowman - Koen G - 06-09-2016
(06-09-2016, 12:15 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Nick Pelling has an interesting theory that the VM pages were engraved onto wax tablets before being inked onto the vellum - this could be a hint of that process.
That's interesting, David. Do you happen to know why specifically he considered wax tablets? I performed a search for "wax" on his site, but from what I gather there, the important aspect is the copying. He sees signs that the text was copied from somewhere (for example because of the relatively few corrections), but for some reason he always mentions copies from wax tablets instead of copies from existing (vellum?) documents.
RE: Crossbowman - davidjackson - 06-09-2016
Simply because this was an established medieval technique for preparing documents for scribal copying when no original was available.
The master scribe would engrave the page onto a wax tablet, and then the scribes would copy the tablet as if it were an original document. The tablet could then be warmed to erase the page, and the next page engraved.
The theory is that the encoding process was carried out onto the wax tablets, and proof-read. It was then copied onto the vellum.
RE: Crossbowman - Koen G - 06-09-2016
I see - though I still don't understand how to distinguish between the results of this process and your average vellum-to-vellum copy. It seems to me that both would result in a similar mistake rate, and that common scribal errors like skipping a line or a couple of words, or a slip of the pen, would occur just as well.
RE: Crossbowman - MarcoP - 06-09-2016
(06-09-2016, 12:15 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Nick Pelling has an interesting theory that the VM pages were engraved onto wax tablets before being inked onto the vellum - this could be a hint of that process.
I am not sure I understand correctly.
Mirror-images are produced by the printing process. You engrave "odi" and you print "ibo".
If you use wax tablets there is no printing, hence no mirror-images.
RE: Crossbowman - Anton - 06-09-2016
I don't understand why the crossbowman is left-handed. I never used a crossbow (only a toy bow in my childhood - with sucker-cup arrows, you know
), but my understanding is that you hold the crossbow in your left hand and pull it with your right hand. Is not that correct?
RE: Crossbowman - davidjackson - 06-09-2016
Anton - correct (unless you're left handed!). Same as a rifle. The non-dominant hand is on the barrel, the dominant hand on the trigger.
I'm not suggesting that the wax engraving would introduced a mirror image, unless some sort of impression was used (which is very unlikely). Simply that this was a possibility for permitting the copying of the VMS from a source which wasn't a book, which was the question I understood.
Unless the wax engraver was the one who was left-handed? We know the scribe wasn't. There have been a number of suggestions throughout time that elements of left-handedness exist in the VMS.