No text, but a visual code

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Writing was obviously careless too (unreadable or very ambiguous) a few times per page on average. So by the same logic the text was written by scribes who didn't understand its meaning.

Indeed!  As I see it, it is almost certain that the Scribe was trained by the Author to write the alphabet, but had no idea of what the text meant.  Many word variations seem to be cases where the Scribe misread the Author's handwriting on the draft.

Although that also applies to the BEEPs.

All the best, --stolfi