10-11-2021, 06:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-11-2021, 06:41 PM by Mark Knowles.)
(I couldn't find a better thread to put this comment in though I am sure there is one.)
Looking at matches that I made some time ago between small plants and large plants it strikes me that the author of the Voynich simply just was not that careful.
If you look at the attached image the leaves look very similar whilst the roots look very different.
These could certainly be two different plants with very similar leaves. However I think they are meant to be the same plant and that the author has just drawn the roots inconsistently. The roots could have been drawn inconsistently due to the author drawing from memory in each instance what he thought the roots looked like without cross-comparing the drawings so as to spot the inconsistency. It may be that the roots actually looked someway between the two different drawings and that neither drawing is a very good representation on its own.
One could interpret these drawings as being a clever combination of roots from one plant and leaves from another to communicate a particular message. I think that is really an overcomplication. I preferred the idea that the author was not that careful with his drawings as opposed to the idea that the author was doing something very clever with his representation. That strikes me as the most plausible explanation, if not the most exciting explanation.
In fact it should not surprise us that the author might be careless here and it is apparent that the author was careless elsewhere in the manuscript; the unprofessional illustrations themselves are enough to demonstrate this.
Looking at matches that I made some time ago between small plants and large plants it strikes me that the author of the Voynich simply just was not that careful.
If you look at the attached image the leaves look very similar whilst the roots look very different.
These could certainly be two different plants with very similar leaves. However I think they are meant to be the same plant and that the author has just drawn the roots inconsistently. The roots could have been drawn inconsistently due to the author drawing from memory in each instance what he thought the roots looked like without cross-comparing the drawings so as to spot the inconsistency. It may be that the roots actually looked someway between the two different drawings and that neither drawing is a very good representation on its own.
One could interpret these drawings as being a clever combination of roots from one plant and leaves from another to communicate a particular message. I think that is really an overcomplication. I preferred the idea that the author was not that careful with his drawings as opposed to the idea that the author was doing something very clever with his representation. That strikes me as the most plausible explanation, if not the most exciting explanation.
In fact it should not surprise us that the author might be careless here and it is apparent that the author was careless elsewhere in the manuscript; the unprofessional illustrations themselves are enough to demonstrate this.