Mark Knowles wrote:Yes, I am inclined to the view that some of the patterns that we see in the Voynich are just decorations and no more than that. For example, as I may discuss more elsewhere, I think the asterisks * that we see all over the 9 Rosette page, not only in the central rosette, are not stars as has been suggested, but merely decorations
My reaction, the first time I saw the rosettes folio, was that the "star" shapes in the upper-right rotum might be symbols for plants/bushes. I looked into the shapes that were used in medieval gardens to see how often spiral shapes were used (they did exist, but not often). I also looked at a lot of garden plans to see how they symbolized things (the same idea as schematic modern architectural drawings).
A few days later, I wondered if the spiral area might be water (like a crater lake or harbor) rather than land, but then I didn't know what to make of the star shapes (sea urchins? sparkles on water?).
I also checked out a lot of medieval architecture. Spiral staircases and stone spiral paths did exist (spiral staircases were common in towers), but I couldn't match up the other parts of the upper-right rotum with any specific architecture that might have spiral paths or staircases.
Then, last year, VViews wrote a good You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about marine symbology (harbor symbols) that might just fit the crater lake or harbor idea (e.g., one of the locations I had considered for this drawing was the Island of Nisida, before I knew about medieval harbor symbols), so VViews offered another possible interpretation of the asterisks that I haven't seen elsewhere (and that I wish I'd thought of it, because it's a good suggestion.
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