Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image

[Diane]

possibilites, re the tradition idea

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Also I found this one reminiscent of the face in the manuscript:


This too

Linda - it's nice to see you using these examples.  I mean that sincerely.  They are exactly the examples I used myself when discussing this image, and which I have reproduced since.


The reason - if I might suggest - that the argument in this thread is running in circles is fairly simple. First, there is a confusion about whether the point is to elucidate the manuscript or find support for a preferred argument.  The second attitude rarely has led anywhere in Voynich studies, in my experience. 

Secondly and perhaps more importantly, no-one has thought to set the chosen examples into a single time-line.

If you do, I should predict that you will find the nearest to the Voynich figure* to be on coins of the Hellenistic era produced in the Persian-Phoenician north, and in Phoenician-influenced regions of the south-western Mediterranean and north Africa.

After the end of the Hellenistic period and onset of Roman domination, the nearest to all points in common will probably be in mosaics produced in the remnants of that culture and chiefly in north-west Africa and in parts of northern Syria.  In mosaic.

Thereafter, you still find some versions (much tamer looking) in Islamic art, especially that from the south-eastern Mediterranean

Finally, versions occur in the non-Islamic west, but still in those areas formerly influenced by North Africa in the pre-ROman period: Sicily, Tunis, Spain and so on.

Last of all, you see it first in southern (Iberian/Sephardi) Jewish works, then in Ashkenazi works, '

and thereafter in German works.

That's what I'd suggest the pattern will be which emerges when these comparisons are set out in a time-line.  Transmission.

NB:  when making comparisons, the usual habit among people who do this sort of thing for a living (but which Rene may not call "real" experts, whatever that means) is to give equal weight to each point being compared.

There's no absolute weighting for one detail over another: just points of similarity, or points of difference.

So a curled-through tail has no particular importance. The crossed eyes, uplifted paw, spotted hide, absent or very minimal mane, the hound-like haunches and so forth are all of equal importance and for any match to be a match all must be present.

Otherwise, you have a more, or a less, similar image, depending on how many points you match.

Not even the Carthage lion is a perfect match - simply because it shows a lion, and the image in Beinecke MS 408 does not show a lion.

But the habit of mind, and of drawing does appear to me ('real' expert or mere professional) to be close.

D.