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.
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.