[split] Jorge's Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Again, I now believe that the VMS was extensively restored, decades or  centuries after it was written, because large parts of it had faded to the point of near invisibility, or even beyond. The restoration consisted of carefully retracing the faded parts of the text and figures with somewhat similar ink, as well as possible.  For the most part, this retracing was quite careful and thorough on the text, somewhat less so on the figures.  

The evidence for this restoration includes

• Sudden variations in ink color and stroke weight, often in the middle of what should have been a single stroke, that cannot be explained by ink flow and recharging dynamics.
  
• In particular, traces that are faded to the point of near invisibility next to traces with "normal" weight.
  
• Darker traces that were meant to cover fainter ones, but deviate from the latter, exposing them.
  
• Parts of glyphs, such as the plumes of r and s, that were traced slowly in the wrong direction.
  
• Glyphs that are malformed in ways that make sense only as having been misread and mangled by a Retracer who (unlike the original Scribe) did not know the alphabet and had no feeling for the structure of Voynichese words.
  
• Figure details that are particularly incongruous and coincidentally were drawn in darker ink.
  

As a working hypothesis I have been assuming three separate rounds of restoration -- Rt1, Rt2, Rt3.  The last two passes would have been necessary because the parts that had not been retraced in Rt1, as well as the result of Rt1 itself, kept fading over time.  

The three passes would be distinguished by weight and ink color, and by the last two being less careful than the first one.  However, the assignment of a stroke to one of these rounds is subjective, and there may have been only two passes, or (less likely) only one.

So, here is part of what I think I see on page f57v, "the 4 x 17 sequence page":
   
In the following legend, please assume "probably", "apparently", "perhaps" etc. before each claim:

• A composite of clips of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that cover some of the weirdos in the 4 x 17 sequence (text ring R2, left column) and the occurrences in the other text rings (right column). 
  
•  Specifically, in the left column: the "curly r"; weirdos &170 "claw" and &171 "fancy puff"; a normal-looking y; weirdo &249 "angular C" that alternates with I and C; and weirdo &172 "updown lambda". 
  
• In the right column: &172 "updown lambda" from ring R2 at ~07:30; &171 "fancy puff" from R4 at ~02:45; and weirdos &171 "claw" and &249 "angular C" also from R4 at ~00:00. 
  
• Colors distinguish original traces (A-D, green), and retracing stages Rt1 (F-I, blue), Rt2 (K-N, purple), and Rt3 (P-R, orange). 
  
• (A) Circles C1-C4, original. 
  
• (B) Original or Rt1 plume of r glyphs. 
  
• (C ) Original stroke in weirdo &171, visible only on the first occurrence.
  
• (D) Other original glyph strokes. 
  
• (F) Rt1 plume of r. 
  
• (G) Rt1 body and dot of &170 "claw". 
  
• (H) Other Rt1 strokes. 
  
• (I) Rt1 leg and part of loops of &171 "fancy puff". 
  
• (K) Rt2 body of r. 
  
• (L) Rt2 retrace of whole r. 
  
• (M) Rt2 leg and loops of &171 "fancy puff". 
  
• (N) Other Rt2 strokes. 
  
• (P) Rt3 retrace of r plumes, in wrong direction (CCW). 
  
• (Q) Rt3 retrace of loops of &171 "fancy puff". 
  
• (R ) Rt3 retrace of &172 "updown lambda".