Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

[oshfdk]

Now, what about that ‘a’. The letter ‘a’ obviously is not a ‘t’.

Not obvious to me. It's not hard to argue that this is very close to a bit mangled T rotated 45 degrees clockwise. Consider this glyph from f116v, that is often interpreted as T. If you get an open bottom EVA a, it is somewhat similar.

   

Perhaps it is the first word we can safely claim to have translated in the VM. Is it?

This doesn't look convincing to me at all. The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is way above 6 characters for a simple character mapping. If your method can produce a plausible reading for at least 50 continuous symbols from the text, then this will look interesting to me. The fact that "botrus" may match the image is curious but not a proof of anything.

If you wish I can provide you with a set of labels from the manuscript that I use as a standard test for new deciphering attempts.