f70v2 Circular Pattern and Greek Pottery Border Designs

[Sam G]

What has always stopped me from pointing out such similarity is that in the classical example the pattern seems purely decorative while in the Voynich it looks like it could have some meaning. 

It's possible, especially since the four-way symbol shows up in isolation in a number of the text rings, and also in pairs on each side of bits of text in the outer ring on f67r1.  It does seem to serve some kind of function in those contexts, but on the Pisces roundel it does look like it's primarily decorative I think.

I actually noticed this similarity with the Greek pottery a couple years ago when looking at one of those pots in a museum.  At the time I thought it had to be a coincidence, but now I'm not as sure.  

I have had the best success finding matches for patterns in Ptolemaic Egyptian art, so basically a mixture of the Greek and the Egyptian.





(Some of the patterns in the Bastet statuettes above are also found in the roundel you posted)

That's actually pretty interesting.  I've wondered about that motif before since it also shows up on one of the radial arms on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (at about 2 o'clock), on the bottom right rosette on the nine-rosette page, and one of the tubs on f70v2.  It seems like it must have signified something to the VMS illustrator.

These next examples are from a Ptolemaic papyrus (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) The cross-thing apparently means "town" which is interesting. Diane has pointed out before that the Voynich draws flowing water after the Egyptian custom, though I provide a different example:

My question here is: are you certain that nobody in medieval Europe (or any other cultures) had a similar convention for drawing moving water?