26-08-2016, 09:13 AM
(26-08-2016, 07:20 AM)Diane wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The weakness of a micro-specialist is that they can tend to take the parameters of their own specialty as absolute, and also that if you present them with an artefact which *you* say belongs within their range: fifteenth-century, Latin Christian, zodiac etc. they tend to take those 'givens' as true as a rule, and then tend again to define what they see according to that description, unless it is plainly impossible. It is a constant characteristic and not the fault of anyone: just how it goes, but as I see it this pre-empting of the initial definition by amateurs, enthusiasts or people who adopted the old and entrenched theories has been a constant drag for Voynich studies.
This paragraph summarizes well how I feel about the experts that have been consulted until now. The problem can also be summarized as an opposition between diachronic and synchronic analysis. Many experts referred to so far have been asked (directly or indirectly) whether the the VM series of images corresponds to what they know about a certain period. Their answer is usually along the lines of "it looks a bit like it, but it's still very weird".
The kinds of experts I would like to hear more are those who can answer questions about a wider geographical and chronological range: where and when does this come from?
As it happens, I recently had an email conversation about the Voynich with a curator at the Getty museum. This would be the kind of macro-specialist Diane is talking about. Whe I showed her the VM feline, she said its style reminded her of an item from the Getty collection. A mosaic of a griffin, " which is said to be from Syria, dated to the 5th or 6th century AD."
Now I had not mentioned Syria, nor the 5th or 6th century. Nor have I ever written about this region or those centuries in relation to the VM. But the mosaic she showed me did, indeed, resemble the style of the Voynich critters (with of course a number of notable differences as well, as there are bound to be). I'll post it in the Qasr mosaic thread.