05-12-2021, 12:30 AM
Given that you mention 'Voynich' and 'Armenian' in the same sentence, perhaps you already know the diagram of "The Eight Phases of the Moon" from Anania Shirakatsi. This diagram has a structure that can be described as a wheel with eight curved spokes. There is also a twelve-spoke version for a few dollars more. Although Shirakatsi lived long before the VMs, his teachings lived on. A copy of his text was shown to have been in Constantinople in the mid- 1400s. Additionally, emissaries from Constantinople and Trebizond were at the court of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy during this time. (The Genoese had been in the Black Sea for more than century, even the Burgundians had reached it.)
The connection is with the structure of the VMs cosmos. The outer part is clearly a similar structure to the wheel with eight curved spokes, a structure for which the historical source is Shirakatsi. The interior of the VMs cosmos appears to have been borrowed from the Paris version of Oresme as suggested by E. Velinska. [BNF Fr. 565]
The merger of separate images is a form of intentional trickery used to disguise the VMs. It is an interesting and effective strategy. Several examples have been identified; the VMs cosmos as above, the VMs mermaid as a combination of mythical Melusine among the sea monsters of Lauber, the Feischi popes hidden on the Zodiac page of White Aries, the combination of VMs Virgo and the Virgin Mary, as the woman standing on the crescent Moon, and the combination of the Golden Fleece with the Agnus Dei structure from the old (1313) Apocalypse of S Jean, a text that was in the library of the dukes of Burgundy.
The problem that has caused investigative difficulties is the recovery of the relevant historical narrative. Without the appropriate backstory, the mythology, the tradition, and the history, there is no resolution. And the use of paired images in the examples above shows the use of two-part verification, which was not intended to be easy. Proper interpretation cannot occur without recovery of the relevant narrative. Identification cannot be fully completed without the narratives relevant to both parts of the illustration. The use of combined images is an indictor of intentional deception.
The connection is with the structure of the VMs cosmos. The outer part is clearly a similar structure to the wheel with eight curved spokes, a structure for which the historical source is Shirakatsi. The interior of the VMs cosmos appears to have been borrowed from the Paris version of Oresme as suggested by E. Velinska. [BNF Fr. 565]
The merger of separate images is a form of intentional trickery used to disguise the VMs. It is an interesting and effective strategy. Several examples have been identified; the VMs cosmos as above, the VMs mermaid as a combination of mythical Melusine among the sea monsters of Lauber, the Feischi popes hidden on the Zodiac page of White Aries, the combination of VMs Virgo and the Virgin Mary, as the woman standing on the crescent Moon, and the combination of the Golden Fleece with the Agnus Dei structure from the old (1313) Apocalypse of S Jean, a text that was in the library of the dukes of Burgundy.
The problem that has caused investigative difficulties is the recovery of the relevant historical narrative. Without the appropriate backstory, the mythology, the tradition, and the history, there is no resolution. And the use of paired images in the examples above shows the use of two-part verification, which was not intended to be easy. Proper interpretation cannot occur without recovery of the relevant narrative. Identification cannot be fully completed without the narratives relevant to both parts of the illustration. The use of combined images is an indictor of intentional deception.