Hi David,
Thank you for the comment. I went with Almeria because that is the location name today and for over a thousand years. It best matches where the nymph is standing, if you see the bay as being there instead of a bucket, the shoreline starts to look like a better match, i think the details have been minimized to obfuscate. This is to be looked at with the eyes of someone who already knew the shapes of the various seas, perhaps someone who spent time copying maps for someone else, and this was his mnemonic version to keep for himself without anyone knowing what he had.
The nymph stands for the larger region containing the river Almanzora. I did not mean the current province, as i believe we are talking more like turn of the millenium or even earlier, but geographically you can see how Almeria and Granada can be seen to be somewhat separate. The current province does generally represent what i am talking about as a region though. The red part on the tiny map of Andalusia bottom right corner within the map below.
![[Image: eBDJrM3Kt1VrJLXaDphDaWr3_uitQ4tjg-pYTsgP...v2k4AywZtw]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/eBDJrM3Kt1VrJLXaDphDaWr3_uitQ4tjg-pYTsgPxrVlPZ3OH-7zVAhJwZq0aC2CBiqWJmXATEC4NB4Nmb11BM2MUDOEB8qRd6A81nfWdt4X0u9DAEQX_GY4SjRhMHnOUKVnuiQZP_kcAc_ONZLtR6QAoQxOsH9VBS5S7MU-Q9z5F0BSv2k4AywZtw)
I only know of Almeria what i read about it because the vms creators told me to look it up by the drawing the Alboran Sea and putting a nymph there. But it is precisely because Almeria has been a city for centuries that it should be Almeria that is shown, if we are including the most notable places along the shoreline, and especially insofar as defining a body of water, it becomes even more important as a milestone, and that the river is included in the imagery is indicative of a little further than the city itself.
Maybe the name should be Indaletius, for the patron Saint of Almeria. Or, the name could be Urci, we might be talking about Roman times, not 15th century, some say it is a former name of Almeria, some say Urci was closer to the river Almanzora. Maybe the name could be Pechina, a Yemeni colony on the site of Urci in the 9th century. It also had a fortress and a navy.
![[Image: 946px-Alcazaba_de_Almería.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Alcazaba_de_Almería.jpg/946px-Alcazaba_de_Almería.jpg)
In 955 Almeria became a city and construction of the Alcazaba de Almeria began.
The nymph is in a barrel or short tube. These are, to me, sheltered ports. This either indicates a natural bay, wherein one can defend a great deal of territory by patrolling between the headlands, or a fortified port, or both. Here we have both, in that Almeria can be easily spotted on the map by its large bay, and has been fortified at various times in the past.
The water in the short tube is blue, this indicates fresh water. The green is salt, and the estuary is indicative of fresh water also with blue running through the green tube (tube means navigable river). The silt falls out of it though, this to me means larger ships may have difficulty, and in conjunction with the tube being held aloft gives the idea of dripping, as in empty, so this could also denote that it was mostly dry, as you say.
She might better be named Almanzora for the river she holds, but then, that wasn't the name at the time either, unless we think of the late 1430s as the starting point for writing rather than an end point. Maybe we should. The shape of the waterbody tells me where she is, the upright tube told me the river to the east of her rises (to me that means floods). That she holds it tells me that was considered connected, and likely indicates the extent of the Alboran sea, or whatever it was called by whomever the original information came from, or what it was called by the vms creators.
Whatever her name is, it seems more than coincidental that the description as read by the imagery seems to say the same as the IMMA map, cutting off at the Almanzora delta, but yet extends to the next large promontory at Cartegena.
![[Image: Alboran-Sea-1030x721.jpg]](https://www.marinemammalhabitat.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Alboran-Sea-1030x721.jpg)
![[Image: vrI-uMpmjwDVY0cDVij34UGSKGkvfCqp9csuuqEz...UpxAt1gs4A]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/vrI-uMpmjwDVY0cDVij34UGSKGkvfCqp9csuuqEzLt9UkNTLHiFLKlPDmKya5t2hylftB-CBBbFC_fmKx9UZlnZVnEevv5hOINmS-ZhurNVE8iTwBLDXfjOmk9aPUpxAt1gs4A)
![[Image: DoubleRainbow82v.png]](https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/DoubleRainbow82v.png)
![[Image: Location-of-the-Rio-Almanzora-and-morpho...n_Q640.jpg]](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin_Stokes/publication/241714621/figure/fig1/AS:298636912152598@1448211997010/Location-of-the-Rio-Almanzora-and-morphostratigraphic-map-extent-within-SE-Spain_Q640.jpg)
Malaga was also a part of Granada at the time. I chose Malaga as the name for the first nymph because Strabo said it was the first city past Gibraltar, although he called it Malaca. Granada is between the two so i chose it as the name for the middle one. (Oops i mispelled it previously, Grenada is the island in the Caribbean). Wiki says Malaga was the main Nasrid port in the 15th century, followed by Almeria. Cristians took it over in 1487.
I might have just figured something out. Leg distance equals territory coverage? Granada with her legs further apart stands for a bigger area than Almeria (with the bay) who again covers more area than Malaga. I will have to check on the rest.
Thank you for the comment. I went with Almeria because that is the location name today and for over a thousand years. It best matches where the nymph is standing, if you see the bay as being there instead of a bucket, the shoreline starts to look like a better match, i think the details have been minimized to obfuscate. This is to be looked at with the eyes of someone who already knew the shapes of the various seas, perhaps someone who spent time copying maps for someone else, and this was his mnemonic version to keep for himself without anyone knowing what he had.
The nymph stands for the larger region containing the river Almanzora. I did not mean the current province, as i believe we are talking more like turn of the millenium or even earlier, but geographically you can see how Almeria and Granada can be seen to be somewhat separate. The current province does generally represent what i am talking about as a region though. The red part on the tiny map of Andalusia bottom right corner within the map below.
I only know of Almeria what i read about it because the vms creators told me to look it up by the drawing the Alboran Sea and putting a nymph there. But it is precisely because Almeria has been a city for centuries that it should be Almeria that is shown, if we are including the most notable places along the shoreline, and especially insofar as defining a body of water, it becomes even more important as a milestone, and that the river is included in the imagery is indicative of a little further than the city itself.
Maybe the name should be Indaletius, for the patron Saint of Almeria. Or, the name could be Urci, we might be talking about Roman times, not 15th century, some say it is a former name of Almeria, some say Urci was closer to the river Almanzora. Maybe the name could be Pechina, a Yemeni colony on the site of Urci in the 9th century. It also had a fortress and a navy.
In 955 Almeria became a city and construction of the Alcazaba de Almeria began.
The nymph is in a barrel or short tube. These are, to me, sheltered ports. This either indicates a natural bay, wherein one can defend a great deal of territory by patrolling between the headlands, or a fortified port, or both. Here we have both, in that Almeria can be easily spotted on the map by its large bay, and has been fortified at various times in the past.
The water in the short tube is blue, this indicates fresh water. The green is salt, and the estuary is indicative of fresh water also with blue running through the green tube (tube means navigable river). The silt falls out of it though, this to me means larger ships may have difficulty, and in conjunction with the tube being held aloft gives the idea of dripping, as in empty, so this could also denote that it was mostly dry, as you say.
She might better be named Almanzora for the river she holds, but then, that wasn't the name at the time either, unless we think of the late 1430s as the starting point for writing rather than an end point. Maybe we should. The shape of the waterbody tells me where she is, the upright tube told me the river to the east of her rises (to me that means floods). That she holds it tells me that was considered connected, and likely indicates the extent of the Alboran sea, or whatever it was called by whomever the original information came from, or what it was called by the vms creators.
Whatever her name is, it seems more than coincidental that the description as read by the imagery seems to say the same as the IMMA map, cutting off at the Almanzora delta, but yet extends to the next large promontory at Cartegena.
Malaga was also a part of Granada at the time. I chose Malaga as the name for the first nymph because Strabo said it was the first city past Gibraltar, although he called it Malaca. Granada is between the two so i chose it as the name for the middle one. (Oops i mispelled it previously, Grenada is the island in the Caribbean). Wiki says Malaga was the main Nasrid port in the 15th century, followed by Almeria. Cristians took it over in 1487.
I might have just figured something out. Leg distance equals territory coverage? Granada with her legs further apart stands for a bigger area than Almeria (with the bay) who again covers more area than Malaga. I will have to check on the rest.
