[Blog Post] Rightward and Downward in the Voynich Manuscript - Patrick Feaster

[pfeaster]

I'd love to hear what you see as the implications of these positional observations. Do different sections reveal different patterns? Are these patterns the result of different topics? Or a sophisticated encipherment? What about the different scribes who write in Currier B (i.e. my scribe 2 vs. 3 vs. 4 vs. 5)? Do they reveal different underlying patterns?

So many great questions!  I wish I had as many great answers.

For the moment, I can at least confirm that different sections/scribes seem to follow different patterns.  I have separate files already on hand for Quires 1-3, Quire 13, and Quire 20 (or 18 in your numbering), so it's easy enough for me to analyze those, and except for f115r I believe they correspond to your scribes 1, 2, and 3, although of course they're not complete for any of them.

Here are the results contrasting vords beginning [qo]+gallows in blue with vords beginning [o]+gallows in green for Quires 1-3 (left), Quire 13 (middle), and Quire 20 a.k.a. 18 (right).

   

And here's [daiin] for the same three sections.

   

There are significant-looking differences among all three.  As for implications, I'm still pulling my own thoughts together, but I guess one place to start would be to run through existing hypotheses to see which are and aren't compatible with this kind of patterning.