Hi Klingmann,
Thank you for sharing this! I don't think it's "sacrilegious" at all to do this.
Several people have edited pages of the Voynich to see what they would look like, not just without the wear and tear but even with certain elements removed.
For example, one of the more common ones is where people have tried removing paint from illustrations to try to get a clearer idea of the underlying lines of the drawing, such as in Q13 to see under the blue water.
Nick Pelling has digitally altered several illustrations on his blog to remove lines he thinks may have been added later due to ink color discrepancies.
I know that some people disagree with this approach (I remember Adam McLean getting pretty upset about it) but overall I think it's fine as long as it is seen as an experiment and that we keep in mind that we could have unknowingly erased something significant and that we never lose sight of the original manuscript, warts and all.
Thank you for sharing this! I don't think it's "sacrilegious" at all to do this.
Several people have edited pages of the Voynich to see what they would look like, not just without the wear and tear but even with certain elements removed.
For example, one of the more common ones is where people have tried removing paint from illustrations to try to get a clearer idea of the underlying lines of the drawing, such as in Q13 to see under the blue water.
Nick Pelling has digitally altered several illustrations on his blog to remove lines he thinks may have been added later due to ink color discrepancies.
I know that some people disagree with this approach (I remember Adam McLean getting pretty upset about it) but overall I think it's fine as long as it is seen as an experiment and that we keep in mind that we could have unknowingly erased something significant and that we never lose sight of the original manuscript, warts and all.