Sam and Koen
I began by assuming that the manuscript I was asked to comment on was a medieval Latin Christian manuscript, containing a herbal, some astronomical drawings, a zodiac and so on. I expected, then to be able to provenance it pretty closely within no more than a few days - say a week at the very most. Medieval European manuscripts of that kind are routinely assigned place and date within a day in the real world.
So my own view isn't just 'contrarian' it's the conclusion I was obliged to reach by the primary evidence, and saying so resulted in a mixture of running the gauntlet, being keel-hauled and tested by fire and sword... from 2008 until voynich.ninja got going.
I guess what I want to say is that it's not a bit of kite-flying.
The imagery is extraordinarily elegant and condensed - absolutely filled with information expressed so clearly and so economically that I really think most of it needs no accompanying screed. It also seems to me to imply that the makers placed high priority on economy - in imagery and presumably in script. I don't expect the text will yield anything as simple as a piece of nicely-rounded lliterary prose or poetry - unless it is something like a religious text, or like the 'pilot poems' which are themselves just as economical and condensed. three words of poetry can evoke a thousand of prose.
Only the 'roots and leaves' section, imo, is likely to use something like a close parallel text of the simple sort. Headings are what I'd concentrate on if I were working on the written text and I think I'd start with those in the botanical section. They are as likely (imo) to reference place names, or classes of good, as much as any plant names - because that's how the botanical images are (i) set in order (ii) constructed.
As a crib, I'd begin by compiling a list of port-names in various local languages, between Guangzhou or the Philippines and around Aden. But as they existed from c.9th-10thC AD.
So there's me out on another limb.
I began by assuming that the manuscript I was asked to comment on was a medieval Latin Christian manuscript, containing a herbal, some astronomical drawings, a zodiac and so on. I expected, then to be able to provenance it pretty closely within no more than a few days - say a week at the very most. Medieval European manuscripts of that kind are routinely assigned place and date within a day in the real world.
So my own view isn't just 'contrarian' it's the conclusion I was obliged to reach by the primary evidence, and saying so resulted in a mixture of running the gauntlet, being keel-hauled and tested by fire and sword... from 2008 until voynich.ninja got going.
I guess what I want to say is that it's not a bit of kite-flying.
The imagery is extraordinarily elegant and condensed - absolutely filled with information expressed so clearly and so economically that I really think most of it needs no accompanying screed. It also seems to me to imply that the makers placed high priority on economy - in imagery and presumably in script. I don't expect the text will yield anything as simple as a piece of nicely-rounded lliterary prose or poetry - unless it is something like a religious text, or like the 'pilot poems' which are themselves just as economical and condensed. three words of poetry can evoke a thousand of prose.
Only the 'roots and leaves' section, imo, is likely to use something like a close parallel text of the simple sort. Headings are what I'd concentrate on if I were working on the written text and I think I'd start with those in the botanical section. They are as likely (imo) to reference place names, or classes of good, as much as any plant names - because that's how the botanical images are (i) set in order (ii) constructed.
As a crib, I'd begin by compiling a list of port-names in various local languages, between Guangzhou or the Philippines and around Aden. But as they existed from c.9th-10thC AD.
So there's me out on another limb.