29-11-2016, 04:31 AM
VV:
I was about to reply with a post explaining why it just can't be a spindle, but I may have to reconsider.
In my opinion, and a thread throughout much of my personal Voynich analysis, is that very much in tge manuscript is two things at once. Sometimes seemingly unrelated things. Like if you tried to draw something that would evoke in the modern viewer both a television and a fork.
Now of course these things are not unrelated at all! They each tell something about the image. For example, if I draw a guy watching a television shaped like a big fork, this might mean that he was a famous fork salesman on a tv show. In the VM we can't read the text, but I might add 'Johnny missed selling forks on tv' and you would have no problem understanding my image.
Why was this done? Well, one possible explanation is that these things are incredibly powerful memory boosters. If I actually drew this image, and then ask you days later what Johhny used to do for a living, you would certainly still remember. It has to do with the way our brains are wired, and people before the printing press were masters at this stuff.
Back to the figure. Quite some time ago, through analysis of the implied storyline on this page, I concluded that she had to represent either Ursa Major or Ursa Minor. One of the Bear constellations. This did not help me to understand the thing at all, but the only logical conclusion was that a bear had to be there. This is supported by the base upon which she stands and the shape evoked by her upper body, but I won't go into details here.
I just didn't know what the thing was.
Diane had explained the thing as a navigator's tool. She later told me that this and other clues in the figure itself had led her to believe she was Ursa Minor. That is of course a massive coincidence, because we had come to the same conclusion through a different path.
This was great news for me. Since Ursa Minor spinned so closely around the celestial pole, she was the preferred constellation by the best navigators. So such a tool made sense.
One thing that kept bothering me is that in iconography, this tool was always represented with a curve in the body, like a cornucopia with a spike on top.
And this thing is shaped like a full spindle. As if she'd been spinning rather well. Around the pole, perhaps.
I was about to reply with a post explaining why it just can't be a spindle, but I may have to reconsider.
In my opinion, and a thread throughout much of my personal Voynich analysis, is that very much in tge manuscript is two things at once. Sometimes seemingly unrelated things. Like if you tried to draw something that would evoke in the modern viewer both a television and a fork.
Now of course these things are not unrelated at all! They each tell something about the image. For example, if I draw a guy watching a television shaped like a big fork, this might mean that he was a famous fork salesman on a tv show. In the VM we can't read the text, but I might add 'Johnny missed selling forks on tv' and you would have no problem understanding my image.
Why was this done? Well, one possible explanation is that these things are incredibly powerful memory boosters. If I actually drew this image, and then ask you days later what Johhny used to do for a living, you would certainly still remember. It has to do with the way our brains are wired, and people before the printing press were masters at this stuff.
Back to the figure. Quite some time ago, through analysis of the implied storyline on this page, I concluded that she had to represent either Ursa Major or Ursa Minor. One of the Bear constellations. This did not help me to understand the thing at all, but the only logical conclusion was that a bear had to be there. This is supported by the base upon which she stands and the shape evoked by her upper body, but I won't go into details here.
I just didn't know what the thing was.
Diane had explained the thing as a navigator's tool. She later told me that this and other clues in the figure itself had led her to believe she was Ursa Minor. That is of course a massive coincidence, because we had come to the same conclusion through a different path.
This was great news for me. Since Ursa Minor spinned so closely around the celestial pole, she was the preferred constellation by the best navigators. So such a tool made sense.
One thing that kept bothering me is that in iconography, this tool was always represented with a curve in the body, like a cornucopia with a spike on top.
And this thing is shaped like a full spindle. As if she'd been spinning rather well. Around the pole, perhaps.