I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS

[rikforto]

Can you really reason all that away with "boys will be boys" when talking about a document of such historical significance?

I can, on two counts. First of all, I can say that for documents of actual historical import, but second of all, I would not count the VMS in their number. To the latter point, we cannot read the VMS, and from what we can glean it appears to be from a tradition that left no other mark on the historical record. In this way translating it would be of interest to specialists---and it is possible, though I think doubtful, that the contents turn out to be consequential---but that is very different from being significant.

To the former point, I was just telling a friend about the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., one of our scant sources for the layout of the Roman road system, and I think it is instructive. We don't know much about its early years, it surfaces in 1494, and the reason we don't know about its time before that is that its owners wanted to conceal what was likely theft. While the details are different, this has contributed to questions about its authenticity. There are gaps in our knowledge of the history of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., especially before it was put into a single manuscript, and I would argue that is one of the most important manuscripts in English literature. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was looted from Mexico and obscured before turning out to be a genuine and contains unique knowledge of pre-Columbian Mexico. All of which is to say that the Voynich is not, at face, unusual in this regard.

Again, I recognize this situation is ripe for forgery---and more to the point, forgers have long recognized this.