Ideas from a newbie

[Tisquesusa]

Hmm, the "Quote" button doesn't seem to work here. I get a message it's quoted, but the field remains empty...

Just going over your reply in order (more or less):

Yes, I definitely agree that it's a good way of working to test hypotheses. I myself also prefer to test certain promising leads - feels like less of a vacuum. But it's important to keep seeing them as just that - ideas to be tested against the available evidence. I'm not saying that you're not doing that, but I'm giving the advice anyway because it helped me a lot when I got started. (My initial grand idea was that the bathing section depicted various ways for making alcoholic beverages, but it just didn't work because after some research I found out it would imply some techniques which weren't known yet at the time - among other objections).

Sure, thanks for the advice, always appreciated.

I like that you pick up on the slightly androgynous appearance of human figures on certain Roman mosaics. They didn't stress the difference between male and female anatomy as much as we are used to. Penises were either very small or near invisible, both sexes were depicted with a similar width of hips, female breasts were not too large. One clear difference is that men often got a slightly darker skin tone. Of course none of this is a general rule, but it is a tendency in certain works of Roman art, especially mosaics and frescoes.

Funny, when I attended the Gymnasium ages ago I didn't remember them being so androgynous.

It is clear that later copyists who had to copy from Roman artwork - often relying on things like remaining frescoes ad mosaics - had some problems with this as well. For example, Charlemagne started an attempt to copy the knowledge of the ancients, which resulted in among many other things these 9th century oddities:

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(Gemini, Hercules, Virgo (supposed to be a female maiden), Virgo from another similar MS, and the male river god Eridanus - with boobs).

Wow, looks really strange. When I saw that "Eridanus", I thought of male Medusa...

These were just the copyists' best attempts to render the images. Something similar can be seen in the Voynich, even though it seems to have made the choice to make most characters female. Just look at this guy for example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . You can see that there's been a lot of messing and correcting around the breasts, and the face is clearly male.

Ah thanks for the link. I heard about the Voyager" but didn't see the link yet, very helpful.

This was the folio that reminded me of the 15th century. And indeed, this looks like the author made a male first and then tried to femalise it, also with the face paint.

About the plants: I'm not an expert (there is so much to study when you want to get into Voynich studies - my own background is in Dutch linguistics so that doesn't help too much ), but I seem to recall that many plants which we associate with drugs today, were in those days mostly grown for practical reasons, like hemp for fibres etc.  If your idea is true, that would mean that some group of people knew and had tried over a hundred hallucinogenic plants. And were still able to compile a manuscript after all that

I know of various cultures that would have used a variety of drugs, but I would intuitively guess that the number of those known to any group of people wouldn't exceed a dozen of different kinds, although I might be wrong about that. Over a hundred just seems like a lot. If this were the case, you should at least be able to find which substances causing trips or visions were known in 15thC "northern" Europe. And how many hallucinogenic plants would have been available to begin with. There are hardly any mushrooms in the manuscript

Yes, the idea was very wild. I looked at it all day today and see other points of interest. And indeed 100+ seems too much. I have a new idea that I am exploring.

I agree that the Voynich is probably a unique manuscript, and that there is nothing else like it. That doesn't mean that it should have been a unique creation though. Maybe it is the last surviving example of a whole pool of similar works - which is more or less what I believe at the moment. I see it as a last witness of a certain cultural product, rather than the highly individual composition of one group of people. But I think most people will share your views on this point - I defend a minority position in most cases.

I think your point is very valid. We are biased by history in the sense that what we don't have, we don't consider. I am trained in thinking like that so I agree very much that it may have been part of a larger "set" that is all lost and only this manuscript survived. Great point. And usually the majority is wrong, so no worries.

Another example, I don't believe the whole Rudolph story is as likely s some thing it is. We know it from one guy writing a persuasive letter to Kircher telling about something another guy said years ago about something that happened many more years ago (can't be bothered to look up the exact numbers but it spanned several decades). It could be true of course, and it's an interesting lead.

Hmm, I remember that Zandbergen researched it pretty well, so I take his analysis seriously.

Also then the question arises; how did Tepenecz get it? His name is on the manuscript so if Rudolf wasn't the owner, how did he get it? And it makes sense that Rudolf owned it for a while, as he collected exactly these kind of documents.

I actually agree with your description of the type or class of people that could have made the manuscript. People of a certain status and wealth, but unbound to the usual institutions. Like you say, people involved in trade. Although I lean this way because the manuscript contains information that was of immediate practical and economic use to those people, which is why it was maintained during all those centuries preceding the 15thC copying. Again, minority opinion though =)

Yes, immediate practical use, but not while traveling I'd say. The book is in a much too good condition for that. Imagine in a time without umbrellas, on a horse traveling around. The MS doesn't show signs of such a life.

I started out reading a whole lot of people's sites, including Diane's. She sure shows the manuscript in a different light, though her blog is hard to navigate for newcomers. Many of her posts kind of assume that you've been following for several years. I recommend using the search function to look for something that interests you - Like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for example 

Thanks, great blog post / article! Well written and researched.

You might for example also want to check out JKP's blog for some background. I think he writes very well: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Will check it out, thanks.

Oh, when I say the material was influenced by other cultures, I mean of course the images and text as they existed in earlier sources. I don't think it's that important what happened to the 15thC manuscript (which I think is "just" a copy) once it was made - although in certain sections there appears to have been some overpainting going on, and you may be right that the marginalia were added later, as well as, like most believe, the month names in the "zodiac" section.

Yes, the "aberil" immediately stood out.

But do you think it was a direct copy of other work or the authors did have other herbals/astronomical books and were inspired by those? Because that seems to make more sense to me. A direct copy of a larger lost set could be, but the code and "irrecognisable" plants do not seem to point to a direct copy?

About the plants being recognizable - I think that's the problem of there being no remaining examples of its tradition. It is unique in that way.  A common problem in Voynich studies

Yes, but then the problem becomes even bigger; if the "original(s)" of which the VMS is a "copy" would also have "unrecognisable" plants, then what is the use of it?

I've read before and agree with that option that the plants are shuffled; roots of plant A with leaves of plant B and flowers of plant C. I checked some of the plants and have even some options for what they could be (f9r, f31r)...

I also don't believe it's a hoax, and that has always seemed like the least likely option to me. I think those who still defend a hoax point of view are very much a minority nowadays. At most, it might be possible that some of the text is "filler", though I still don't see why one would do that... Like most, I think there is some meaning to the text, but it doesn't all have to be natural language - it can be abbreviations, numerals, coordinates... whatever.

Yes, agreed.

Well anyways, I can also recommend that you don't hesitate to make a new topic whenever you have a question or wish to bring up a point. People here are very helpful and they like to talk about the manuscript.

Thanks, I will. The forum policy seems quite strict with "1 question per topic", but maybe I could post a short list here, in general talk? I am reading the forum too, but it's sometimes hard to follow the jargon. And experienced people may be put off by my beginner questions (I can hear them screaming at the screen: "Buy a book!")