The gallows intrusion, the baseline jumps and multipass

[Anton]

In analyzing the jumps, it's important to have some criterion of which jump is significant and which is not. The fact that the real folio size is rather small as compared to the magnified computer images we are looking at - makes it easy to follow false positives.

[bi3mw]

I would say that the enlarged computer images make it easier to see baseline jumps.  They are relevant in any case, even if the original VMS is rather small. This does not diminish their importance, even if the jumps in their original size don't always catch the eye immediately.

[Emma May Smith]

One challenge would be that some long words show an upward or downward trend in their baseline. On the assumption that such words were written at one time, this would show that the scribe simply "wandered" up and down.

[Anton]

This is what is discussed as "indecisive" above. This is from f78v.

The blue ellipse shows the case where it is quite probable that the scribe shifted the k to fit in between qotedy and ol of the line above. This made the whole stuff appear a single vord olkedykain, although it's probable that it's two vords olkedy and kain, only kain moved leftwards and left no space.

However, there are cases when the scribe could well make a similar move even without sacrificing a space, but did not do that. Several examples are marked with red ellipses.

   

[Anton]

This one is from f105v, third paragraph.

I wonder if what I picture suggest that the text is being put down bottom-to-top. Not only within a paragraph, but the paragraphs themselves are as well. Note how the last line of the paragraph exhibits a jump as if to rise above the olpchedy in the first line of the next paragraph.

I mark in red what's probably written in another pass - and also bottom-to-top. otal tair am slopes upwards, for some reason, and then the lines above begin to slope as well, one after another. It's seen how the glyphs become more dense and tiny due to the lack of space.

   

[Anton]

What gain one would achieve by putting the text down from bottom to top?  I can see only drawbacks.

Suppose the goal is shuffling without preparing any intermediate sample. But there is danger of running out of the folio space. This can be mitigated by moving on to the next folio (as you would do in normal writing), but that would not work in Botanical section where you do not have "the next" folio.

[-JKP-]

If this is steganography, then laying down parts of the text before other parts would make sense.

[ReneZ]

One challenge would be that some long words show an upward or downward trend in their baseline. On the assumption that such words were written at one time, this would show that the scribe simply "wandered" up and down.

Exactly!
I asked the question about baseline jumps to Lisa just a few weeks ago. She was not yet ready to draw any major conclusions from this, and suggested that this might just indicate a short break in the writing.
She may want to comment here herself.

The wandering up or down seems interesting to me if there is evidence that the scribe is actually capable of maintaining a straight line if he wanted.

[Common_Man]

I think there are a lot of pages where there is no obvious evidence of text being written from bottom to top.. So presumably in certain sections text was written in blocks, and in others it was written in one go as we do today.. What does this mean? Those "normal" pages were full of signals? noise? As in either to be taken in full sense and read, or to be left out on the whole as filler.. Was it that only some pages warranted the encryption process? 

[Anton]

This bottom-to-top (BTT for brevity) approach is a totally new perspective, I don't remember it ever discussed in that light. There are immediate objections to it, on the other hand. I will try to cast a wider glance on it and discuss this in a separate post a bit later.

Regarding the trends in baseline. That's a perfectly natural thing as such, and of course it is exhibited in other manuscripts as well. For example, if the sheet you are writing on rests upon a thick pack of other sheets (especially already written over), then the surface of your writing will present certain curvature, and your baseline will follow that curvature. Also, the writer's hand can tend to slope the writing upwards or downwards, this is known to everybody used to hadwriting.

Indeed, a word of specialist is much welcome to assess to what extent the baseline behaviour of the VMS differs from that of less enigmatic manuscripts.

But what we are speaking of here is less about the "trend" of the baseline as such, and more about the sudden change of that trend - which is described by the word "jump". Consider my previous crop from f105v, the last line marked in blue. There is the trend set forth by saiin opchedy qokchdy - a normal horizontal trend, - and then it suddenly changes with a jump upwards in otar al kair etc.