27-12-2021, 06:22 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-12-2021, 06:31 PM by Mark Knowles.)
I must admit my fascination with the idea of isolating and sequencing a scribe's DNA is that with that information there seems to be a potential for learning a lot about the Voynich manuscript. (I do think DNA analysis of vellum or ink if possible sound like excellent ideas so I don't see it as an either or situation.) Unlike for sheep or cows there are already massive and ever growing databases of DNA from contemporary humans. As well as a growing knowledge as to what DNA can tell us about a given human being and their characteristics. The prospect of even being able to work out the precise named individual from which that DNA came is very appealing.
However there are clearly questions that would need to be answered:
1) In 400 years how much DNA from the original scribe(s) is likely to have survived? This is why I raised the question to Michele as to how rapidly DNA from the touch of the scribe would have degraded and so how much there might be left around now.
2) How can the DNA from the scribe be distinguished from other later human DNA on the manuscript? Personally I think when ordinary people reading a manuscript touch that manuscript it is usually in the corner or on the side, whereas a scribe touches a manuscript where there is writing/drawing. So I think if a sample were taken thoughtfully from somewhere the scribe would have left their DNA, but where a normal reader would not have left their DNA the need to compare DNA from 100s of samples would be far less likely to exist. Is it realistically possible that a scribe's DNA could be preserved in the ink? Are there better places to look for a scribe's DNA?
3) Then there is the issue of ensuring that no damage is done to the manuscript. In principle it seems that this should be perfectly possible as with Carbon dating and the vellum DNA discussed elsewhere. However if little scribe DNA survives or is hard to locate then I can see that being problematic. I agree with other commenters that doing any significant damage to the manuscript would be highly unacceptable.
4) If a scribe's DNA is sequenced what information about the scribe can realistically be found out? This will increase with time as our ability to read DNA improves. At the moment if one sends one's DNA to an ancestry company they tend to generally provide people with a very crude idea as to where your ancestors are from; how narrowly can we expect to be able to narrow down our scribe's geographical origins now and in the future? For example if we could say that the scribe is from "Europe" that information would not be of much use or interest. Alternatively if we could say for example that the scribe is from "Sardinia" that would be much more interesting. In the light of recent discussions determining the scribe's gender would be interesting. Is it conceivable that we might be able to narrow down even further on who specifically the scribe might be and where more precisely they were from? Would it be realistically conceivable that through comparison with other DNA on a large contemporary DNA database that one could identify the scribe through their line of ancestry? So could we say as an example that the following list of people are descended from our scribe and then trace back the family tree to the individual in question, assuming they have surviving descendants?
(I don't expect you, Michele, to answer these questions as I know there are a lot and they are highly speculative in nature.)
However there are clearly questions that would need to be answered:
1) In 400 years how much DNA from the original scribe(s) is likely to have survived? This is why I raised the question to Michele as to how rapidly DNA from the touch of the scribe would have degraded and so how much there might be left around now.
2) How can the DNA from the scribe be distinguished from other later human DNA on the manuscript? Personally I think when ordinary people reading a manuscript touch that manuscript it is usually in the corner or on the side, whereas a scribe touches a manuscript where there is writing/drawing. So I think if a sample were taken thoughtfully from somewhere the scribe would have left their DNA, but where a normal reader would not have left their DNA the need to compare DNA from 100s of samples would be far less likely to exist. Is it realistically possible that a scribe's DNA could be preserved in the ink? Are there better places to look for a scribe's DNA?
3) Then there is the issue of ensuring that no damage is done to the manuscript. In principle it seems that this should be perfectly possible as with Carbon dating and the vellum DNA discussed elsewhere. However if little scribe DNA survives or is hard to locate then I can see that being problematic. I agree with other commenters that doing any significant damage to the manuscript would be highly unacceptable.
4) If a scribe's DNA is sequenced what information about the scribe can realistically be found out? This will increase with time as our ability to read DNA improves. At the moment if one sends one's DNA to an ancestry company they tend to generally provide people with a very crude idea as to where your ancestors are from; how narrowly can we expect to be able to narrow down our scribe's geographical origins now and in the future? For example if we could say that the scribe is from "Europe" that information would not be of much use or interest. Alternatively if we could say for example that the scribe is from "Sardinia" that would be much more interesting. In the light of recent discussions determining the scribe's gender would be interesting. Is it conceivable that we might be able to narrow down even further on who specifically the scribe might be and where more precisely they were from? Would it be realistically conceivable that through comparison with other DNA on a large contemporary DNA database that one could identify the scribe through their line of ancestry? So could we say as an example that the following list of people are descended from our scribe and then trace back the family tree to the individual in question, assuming they have surviving descendants?
(I don't expect you, Michele, to answer these questions as I know there are a lot and they are highly speculative in nature.)