[split] Could the manuscript be a copy of older documents?

[davidjackson]

I'd have to say I agree with VViews when he argues that a thousand year old copy of a guide book would be useless - maybe he shouldn't have used the modern age as an example, but certainly a Roman era guide book would not serve in the late middle ages. Obviously certain items of knowledge are immutable - willow is good for headaches, this plant is good for fibre making, these shells make purple dye - but human geopolitical or technology changed so much that it wouldn't be useful. And again my question - why just one copy? Why no tradition, no reference, no other copies over a thousand years?

Note that I'm not attacking any suggestion that the knowledge or the influences are based on earlier times - I'm simply questioning the reasoning behind saying that it's a faithful copy of a centuries earlier work.

But Diane, all of your counter-argument to VViews are abstract theory. It all starts from Koen's suggestion, but there is no evidence either way to back it up, so let's not argue over the political history of the middle east- which is rather off topic to this thread- but return to the influence of medieval art in the VMS.