Jars

[Tisquesusa]

Tisquesusa,

That 'thought' about the samovar was presented by one of Rene Zandbergen's co-workers whom he invited to a Voyich conference - I think the person had  a degree in optics, or lense-making or something of that sort.  He also reprised an old idea of the 'bathing ladies' as in an eastern sort of baths.

Ah thanks, I didn't know that.

The difficulty with sudden 'notions' like that is (a) they do not first address existing treatments of the imagery, or explain why they think a different 'notion' is needed at all and (b) they have no historical or other context offered.

For example, you would have to discuss the times and places where samovars were used, and then show why those time, regions or cultures should be considered in relation to any other image, or part of the manuscript.  Was the person trying to argue that the plants in the botanical section all come from samovar-using regions, or that the calendar's roundels are in a distinctively Russian style of drawing?  How does the samovar notion fit in with the red letters on the first folio, or the handwriting style...?

All that is said, really, is that the person looking at the images has consulted whatever he holds already in his memory, that this is the closest thing that comes to the surface.  So what we hear is about the viewer - and not so much about the intentions of the persons who first made the imagery.  That said, I really can see why that notion might have surfaced.

Sure, I realise I am "projecting my own experience/recognition" on what I see. But I am a hobbyist. If I would be a trained iconography expert or an experienced Egyptian art specialist, I probably would interpret different things.

As all the comparisons seem to fall in the same category; it could be A, but also could be C, etc. the spread of possibilities is large.

I've read some blog posts by yourself and Koen and your comparisons to Egyptian/Arabic/Middle Eastern details of course have their own merits and your expertise in those subjects count.

But that doesn't mean an amateur/hobbyist like myself cannot think of other things.

What has been proposed as far as I have seen is:
- a central-European/Italian/Germanic origin (what has been thought early on)
- an English origin (one of the users here, I forget who exactly, was it R.Sale?)
- a Middle-Eastern origin like you and Koen propose as an option

But what about the Russian sphere of influence? Vast areas with access to trade routes (Silk Road but also many others) that give access to exotic plants?
The open areas of Russia where the skies are clear and the stars can be observed?
Another point is the characters in the manuscript; I see a vague resemblance of the gallow characters with the Cyrillic characters of zh, ch, tch, tchch, etc.

I am not claiming I have the solution, and I never will have that, it's just hobby and I really don't care how "valuable" my ideas are. It's for fun, nothing more.

The only area I could add my expertise is on the mineral that is said to have been recognised in the VMS. That is boleite, a blue lead-copper-silver salt: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

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Questions about that:
- which folio should contain this mineral?
- how could a mineral that has been found first in Mexico late 19th century appear in a pre-Columbian era (if that's true) manuscript?

How the samovars fit into the rest is thus pretty irrelevant. As there is not a single hypothesis presented that integrates everything. The samovars can be taken from location A where the author(s) traveled to or got acquainted with and the nymphs from an earlier document, copied in the VMS (like Koen strongly thinks) and the plants are fantasy anyway and possibly the result of combining the roots of plant A with the stems of B and flowers/fruits/leaves of C.

It is impossible to understand the intentions of the creator(s) at this stage. After all those years of research, essentially not much progress has been made. See the topics discussed here; one thinks it is a (combination of) natural language(s) and doesn't like the term "cipher" and the other thinks the opposite; "it cannot be a natural language because of the low entropy, short words, etc."

The only things we can be sure of, are:
- it's a mystery
- it contained at least so many folios that we have, a lot is missing (even complete quires could be missing
- it is illustrated and the text is unreadable
- the probability of different authors is high (Currier A, B, Hand 1, 2, and more, the bad paint job over a good drawing)

All the rest is speculation. So leaves room for anyone interested.