28-09-2025, 01:10 PM
The issue I have with the retracing hypothesis is that, no matter how diligent, the retracer should have missed some strokes. We do not see this. Also when overwriting Voynichese with latin letters, we obviously should see something underneath in the multispectral images. Even if the original pigment completely faded, some other components of the ink or binding materials should leave a signal somewhere in the spectrum. Which proposed ink would utterly fade from UV to IR?
Second, a thoroughly overwriting leaving no trace must be equivalent to the source or verbose. It does not explain single letters or the short phrases. Again, there is nothing in the multispectral images suggesting there was ever more.
Third, why retrace the marginalia in such unreadable way if you're obviously not sure? That makes no sense unless the goal was to make the marginalia unreadable. We cannot rule that out but I doubt it.
There's something that has always bothered me:
Throughout the VM there is one recurring theme. Style-wise everything appears to be very closely related, but not quite. We see that in:
.)Imagery in Alpha vs. Beta plants and Nymph evolution
.)Imagery parallels in marginalia drawings (Nymphs, goat)
.)Voynichese in different scribal hands
.)Marginalia and color annotations have similar and dissimilar letters
How can this 'close but not quite' stylistic overlap be explained? I fail to believe this is a coincidence as it spans the entire manuscript. And the more people we add (artists, scribes, marginalia writers, month and quire number writers, painters, retracers), the more improbable it gets.
Second, a thoroughly overwriting leaving no trace must be equivalent to the source or verbose. It does not explain single letters or the short phrases. Again, there is nothing in the multispectral images suggesting there was ever more.
Third, why retrace the marginalia in such unreadable way if you're obviously not sure? That makes no sense unless the goal was to make the marginalia unreadable. We cannot rule that out but I doubt it.
There's something that has always bothered me:
Throughout the VM there is one recurring theme. Style-wise everything appears to be very closely related, but not quite. We see that in:
.)Imagery in Alpha vs. Beta plants and Nymph evolution
.)Imagery parallels in marginalia drawings (Nymphs, goat)
.)Voynichese in different scribal hands
.)Marginalia and color annotations have similar and dissimilar letters
How can this 'close but not quite' stylistic overlap be explained? I fail to believe this is a coincidence as it spans the entire manuscript. And the more people we add (artists, scribes, marginalia writers, month and quire number writers, painters, retracers), the more improbable it gets.