01-08-2025, 01:07 AM
Two important things that people should keep in mind when doing this sort of analysis, on this page or anywhere else:
(1) The Author of the manuscript (who invented the script, chose the book contents, composed the text, etc) is not the same person as the Scribe(s) who actually wrote the manuscript on the vellum. It would be very stupid for anyone to write such a book directly from head to vellum. The Author surely wrote the text on paper, edited it as needed on paper, and eventually gave a final draft to the Scribe(s). The draft possibly included sketches of the illustrations, but the degree of detail in those sketches is uncertain, with the rest having been left to the Scribe(s) to provide. The Author may even have just described some of the figures verbally to the Scribes.
This is an important detail because the Scribes must have had only very basic knowledge of Voynichese, namely the basic alphabet; and almost surely did not understand the meaning of the diagrams. Thus they may have mis-read or mis-copied many glyphs, especially weirdos like those of f57v, and botched many details of the illustrations. There is plenty of evidence of the latter in the Zodiac pages, for instance, where the Scribes left out a couple of stars and/or nymphs that should have been there.
(2) Over the 600 years after the VMS was created, a lot of the original writing and drawing, on many pages, faded almost to the point of invisibility, or beyond. Seeing that, at least one of the later owners undertook to restore the book by retracing the faded parts. And there may have been another owner, even later, who extended this restoration a bit further.
The first Retracer was very careful on the text, covering almost completely the original strokes of the glyphs -- almost, but not totally. On some glyphs, one can see parts of the original sticking out from under the retraced version. Often he retraced only part of a glyph, or only a glyph or two of a word.
Retracing is often obvious in the plumes of r and s and the tails of y and m. In the original scribing, a plume or tail is smoothly curved and becomes gradually thinner and lighter, ending in a sharp needle-point. The shape is produced by a swift stroke of the pen, while gradually reducing the pressure along the way.
But the Retracer must go over such details rather slowly, otherwise the new strokes will not cover the old ones. (That is why automatic signature recognition uses the pen's motion as a time signal, taking the speed into account, rather than just the image of the final signature.) But when a quill pen moves slowly, it will produce a trace that has a definite minimum width and ink density. Thus the retraced plume or tail will be "fat" and will have a blunt end, rather than a needle-point one. Moreover, the slow stroke will usually be a bit more jittery than a quick one.
Indeed the Retracer seems to have been quite conscious of this problem, and thus often stopped the retracing of plumes and tails half-way, leaving half of the original stroke sticking out from under the new one. To make matters worse, the Retracer often drew parts of the glyphs, such as plumes and loops, in the wrong direction.
It is important to keep this fact in mind, because the Retracer made many mistakes that added to those made by the Scribe. He sometimes failed to see original strokes that had faded too much, and thus, for instance, would sometimes turn a y with almost invisible tail into a perfectly formed o. He would also magnify the defects of originally misshapen glyphs, e.g. turning an r with slightly bent body into an s, or vice-versa. And sometimes he would turn a misshapen glyph into what would seem to be a new weirdo. That's because the Retracer, unlike the Scribe, did not even know what the Voynichese alphabet was supposed to be. His knowledge on this point must have been even less than ours.
On page f57v, in particular, I would say that most of the text was retraced (and some glyphs even redone by a second Retracer, an unknown time after the first). The figure outlines were retraced only in some places, and the parts that were not retraced give an idea of how badly the original writing had faded. (In fact, those parts that were not retraced must have been those that had faded less.)
In conclusion, I would say that the differences between the four repetitions of the sequence are not intentional. The Scribe probably mangled those unfamiliar glyphs to some extent, and then the Retracer magnified the mangling.
All the best, --jorge
(1) The Author of the manuscript (who invented the script, chose the book contents, composed the text, etc) is not the same person as the Scribe(s) who actually wrote the manuscript on the vellum. It would be very stupid for anyone to write such a book directly from head to vellum. The Author surely wrote the text on paper, edited it as needed on paper, and eventually gave a final draft to the Scribe(s). The draft possibly included sketches of the illustrations, but the degree of detail in those sketches is uncertain, with the rest having been left to the Scribe(s) to provide. The Author may even have just described some of the figures verbally to the Scribes.
This is an important detail because the Scribes must have had only very basic knowledge of Voynichese, namely the basic alphabet; and almost surely did not understand the meaning of the diagrams. Thus they may have mis-read or mis-copied many glyphs, especially weirdos like those of f57v, and botched many details of the illustrations. There is plenty of evidence of the latter in the Zodiac pages, for instance, where the Scribes left out a couple of stars and/or nymphs that should have been there.
(2) Over the 600 years after the VMS was created, a lot of the original writing and drawing, on many pages, faded almost to the point of invisibility, or beyond. Seeing that, at least one of the later owners undertook to restore the book by retracing the faded parts. And there may have been another owner, even later, who extended this restoration a bit further.
The first Retracer was very careful on the text, covering almost completely the original strokes of the glyphs -- almost, but not totally. On some glyphs, one can see parts of the original sticking out from under the retraced version. Often he retraced only part of a glyph, or only a glyph or two of a word.
Retracing is often obvious in the plumes of r and s and the tails of y and m. In the original scribing, a plume or tail is smoothly curved and becomes gradually thinner and lighter, ending in a sharp needle-point. The shape is produced by a swift stroke of the pen, while gradually reducing the pressure along the way.
But the Retracer must go over such details rather slowly, otherwise the new strokes will not cover the old ones. (That is why automatic signature recognition uses the pen's motion as a time signal, taking the speed into account, rather than just the image of the final signature.) But when a quill pen moves slowly, it will produce a trace that has a definite minimum width and ink density. Thus the retraced plume or tail will be "fat" and will have a blunt end, rather than a needle-point one. Moreover, the slow stroke will usually be a bit more jittery than a quick one.
Indeed the Retracer seems to have been quite conscious of this problem, and thus often stopped the retracing of plumes and tails half-way, leaving half of the original stroke sticking out from under the new one. To make matters worse, the Retracer often drew parts of the glyphs, such as plumes and loops, in the wrong direction.
It is important to keep this fact in mind, because the Retracer made many mistakes that added to those made by the Scribe. He sometimes failed to see original strokes that had faded too much, and thus, for instance, would sometimes turn a y with almost invisible tail into a perfectly formed o. He would also magnify the defects of originally misshapen glyphs, e.g. turning an r with slightly bent body into an s, or vice-versa. And sometimes he would turn a misshapen glyph into what would seem to be a new weirdo. That's because the Retracer, unlike the Scribe, did not even know what the Voynichese alphabet was supposed to be. His knowledge on this point must have been even less than ours.
On page f57v, in particular, I would say that most of the text was retraced (and some glyphs even redone by a second Retracer, an unknown time after the first). The figure outlines were retraced only in some places, and the parts that were not retraced give an idea of how badly the original writing had faded. (In fact, those parts that were not retraced must have been those that had faded less.)
In conclusion, I would say that the differences between the four repetitions of the sequence are not intentional. The Scribe probably mangled those unfamiliar glyphs to some extent, and then the Retracer magnified the mangling.
All the best, --jorge
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