New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"

[LisaFaginDavis]

This is terrific work, Koen! I really look forward to your analysis of the handwriting on f. 116v. Your initial results have definitely changed my views on this. The work you are doing demonstrates the value of detailed paleographic analysis, comparing graphic components of an unknown sample to those of a known date and place of origin. If your work does indeed suggest that the script of f. 116v is roughly contemporary with the C-14 results, then it certainly MIGHT have been written by one of the scribes, although I don't see any characters that are diagnostically useful for determining WHICH scribe it might have been. It's also of course possible that those lines were written not by one of the scribes but by an early owner.

Thanks, Lisa! I certainly agree that it need not be one of the original scribes. This work also made me understand how tricky paleography can be. Marco and I hyper-focused on this particular sample for several weeks before we were even able to narrow down properly.

Time became clear much sooner than place.

The place were we found our best hits is unexpected, at least it was for me. It's an area nobody is looking exactly at, as far as I am aware. But some of our best hits were from the same city (one I hadn't even heard of before), and others are from nearby. Still, I don't think I'll ever feel confident about calling a place.

The biggest challenge is that the baseline data is so limited. You can only work with manuscripts with a known date and place of origin, which severely limits the comparative group.