Expert Opinion

[proto57]

When I say expensive and elaborate, I'm not necessarily thinking of parchment and ink.

I'm thinking more of reactivating the tannic acid through a wooden cover that isn't there, but explains the wormholes, and only on the cover side, just to give the first and last page a darker appearance. And that with so much moisture that it works, but does not warp the parchment that it was once stretched.

For me, it's all the little details that he must have spent so much time on, and for what? These are just a few. It's also the interplay.

Maybe it's just thin coffee or tea causing the discolouration. A real expert would have to get involved here.

I see what you mean by that, then. Well I am not sure why any such features, if artificially done, should be assumed to be "expensive [nor] elaborate".

It is a difficult effect to describe, but we have all often seen it: Something seems amazing, and we wonder just how it was accomplished to get it "exactly like that". But one problem is in the assumption that exactly what we see is exactly what was aimed for. Well yes, it may be difficult for us to then replicate "exactly that", but that is the wrong way to look at it. The creator may just have been satisfied with a darker or lighter effect, or more holes or less, or bigger ones, or smaller ones. Perhaps the parchment simply didn't happen to warp, because the moisture happened to be at such a level.... but a bit warped would have been fine, too. This all may just be how it happened to come out, and it might be a mistake to assigning a high degree of control or method, when none were needed nor used.

Imagine trying to perfectly recreate a Jackson Pollack painting, and when one fails, saying it was impossible for him to have done it, himself. No, there is a large degree of randomness to it, and a million Pollacks with a million years could not recreate one of his own works.

Another way to look at my point here might be by an example: Say I were to try and recreate the results seen here, but putting a wooden board over a sheet or two of parchment, adding some live insects, at a random humidity, and leaving it for a few days. Then when I check it, the parchment is darker than the Voynich f1r, there are more "wormholes", and the parchment is a bit warped. Does this disprove that this was done by a forger? I would say not at all... it is then a "proof of concept", and we can just assume some slightly different humidity, time, "worms", wood, whatever, had been used.

As for further expert input on more detailed questions about these features, of course I'm all for that. But as I've pointed out before, there is a great deal of forensic testing that has already been done, and I believe the problem is not as much a need for more testing, but a more pragmatic and less biased evaluation in the opinions derived from that testing. So yes, more testing... I would not hold out hope, though, that whatever is found is likewise edited, manipulated, and excused to fit "Genuine 1420". How can I say this?

- The radiocarbon results were averaged to be made into 1404-1438, based on an assumption the Voynich is genuine, and was made in less than ten years. But the results of the individual samples actually span 60 years or more!

- The McCrone ink analysis, wrongly claimed to perfectly support genuine and old, actually revealed several anomalies in the composition of inks and paints. Even in the very same report, McCrone suggests further testing to resolve these. This has not been done, nor even asked for.

- In the Yale Voynich publication, many anomalies and anachronisms are admitted to exist in the materials, content and construction of the Voynich, by the experts who examined it, and the tests they performed. Yet, these are either spun into being other than what they are, or are subsequently ignored, misstated, or selectively edited to appear to either not be there... all to, again, to support 1420 and genuine.

- Several test have been done, and not shared... such as multi-spectral analysis, of which only a very small sampling has been released. We still don't have the graphs from McCrone, and although I was finally able to get the radiocarbon report released after over ten years, it still does not include the graphs. There are higher resolution images of pages of the Voynich, that many have asked for, but have not been forthcoming. So there is much information "out there" which is not shared with "us". Why?

- ... and much more.

The point being, yes, more tests... but I would fear, as the history of this has so far shown... almost any test, with any result, will be morphed into the same story: 1420 Genuine European Cipher Herbal. And the few, like me, who notice this, when reporting on these problems, are met with disbelief. So call me a pessimist, but whatever the experts would say about those features you describe, would not matter much, as they would probably receive the same "processing" through a 1420 filter as everything else has to date.

Well on brighter days I'm more hopeful, and whether or not I am right or wrong in my fears for future testing, "yes" I am with you on hoping for it to come to pass.