geoffreycaveney's Judaeo-Greek theory

[Linda]

I've created 4 transcripts, so I have looked at every character in the VMS many times.

I'm not convinced it's otal. I think it might be a blobby okal, not a loop. In cases like this, I record it in the transcript with both alternatives and I step away from choosing one or the other.

I could see that getting very bulky, but i appreciate it as an extension of your open mind philosophy.

It's not especially bulky. It may happen a couple of times per folio, but that's not a lot.

I think it's more important to acknowledge and even preserve an ambiguity than to make an incorrect assumption. There's enough text that the ambiguities would eventually be resolved by discovering how the text is constructed.

Agreed, and given the tricky nature of the imagery, it wouldnt surprise me if such an ambiguity turned out to be purposeful, and possibly even key to a solution.