Pond creatures (f79v)

[Koen G]

Linda

First of all, I'm really glad to see that someone else is studying the manuscript as documenting the eastern routes. When I started reading voynich research about a year ago, I wad quite surprised to see that Diane had been about the only one to look that way for many years. Since then my own findings have also pointed to eastern trade routes on the one hand and Hellenistic Egypt on the other.

My ideas about the bathing section is basically that it teaches about relevant geography and Egyptian aspects like the flooding of the Nile, using knowledge that would have been known to any educated Greek of the time. In this case, constellations and their associated myths. 

That is, at least, how I explain the strange nature of the imagery. Because one can say that a beast represents an island, but why not just draw the island? So my idea is that the core information, which is useful and practical, has been blended with mythological concepts for didactic purposes.

I the paper I am writing I am trying to expose this didactic layer. To find out what is actually meant, that's something else... hence my ideas about any geographical aspects referred to are only in their infancy and likely wrong

The nymph you mention, the third one standing in the tub, is the only one I haven't been able to link to a constellation. Judging by her position between others she could be Aries, though I don't see how the imagery would hint to that. I'm also not sure which location it would refer to...