The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Well you know it was written by the "original author", or one of them, right? The 2009 McCrone tests revealed that this last page marginalia, with a possible "Pox Leber", is written in the same ink as the main text of the Voynich. This find obviates the previous contention that this marginalia was written "In another hand at a later date", analyzed by some to be at least 150 years later.
 3) I’m reading the ink report of McCrone wrong
 4) McCrone must have information they did not reveal, which will show the ink is not the same
 5) I’m reading it right, but ink always looks similar enough to be deemed the same

McCrone did not say that the ink of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was the same as that of the main text.

They did claim, in the summary, that all the inks were iron-gall ink.  But even that was only an "educated guess".  None of their instruments can positively identify iron-gall ink.  The instruments showed only that all the text and drawing inks contained iron; but a watercolor-type ink with ocher or siena pigment would pass that test too. 

McCrone concluded that  it was iron-gall because professional scribes would not use any other "black" ink on vellum.  But iron-gall is waterproof, and we know that (1) the VMS ink washes off completely with water (or "ketchup"), and (2) the VMS Scribe was not a professional scribe -- at least, not used to copying books.

In fact the composition of the ink, as determined by X-Ray  emission spectra, varies all over the place:

smp page  type XE# C    Cl  Na  Mg  Al  Si  P    S    K    Ca  Ti  Fe  Cu  Zn  Sn  As  Ag  Hg
--- ----- ---- --- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
s01 f26r  text XE1 43.36 0.00 1.59 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.27 0.58 2.20 3.78 0.00 3.34 0.73 0.28 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s02 f26r  draw XE1 40.73 0.00 1.06 0.00 0.51 0.46 0.17 2.21 3.15 4.54 0.00 1.59 3.54 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s09 f78r  text XE1 60.82 0.00 0.97 0.21 0.00 0.19 0.00 4.79 4.67 7.94 0.00 1.80 0.64 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
s09 f78r  text XE3 46.59 0.00 1.27 0.22 0.15 0.99 0.00 1.62 1.41 5.47 0.00 1.89 0.72 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.68 3.09

s13 f86v  text XE1 38.67 0.18 2.31 0.37 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.80 3.15 5.79 0.00 3.41 0.46 0.39 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s14 f86v  draw XE1 47.18 0.16 1.47 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.18 1.22 0.83 3.15 0.00 0.94 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s15 f26r  pgno XE1 48.68 0.41 2.64 0.18 0.40 0.41 0.71 0.74 2.25 3.42 0.00 3.05 0.69 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
s15 f26r  pgno XE2 34.85 0.00 1.23 0.00 0.17 0.18 0.26 4.07 2.55 1.25 0.00 9.62 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s16 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text XE1 33.19 0.28 1.39 0.32 0.00 0.00 0.42 3.11 4.06 8.75 0.00 3.43 0.71 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s17 f70v  draw XE1 43.66 0.19 1.88 0.28 0.00 0.44 0.40 0.17 1.89 4.88 0.00 4.03 1.38 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.57
s17 f70v  draw XE2 37.79 0.22 1.96 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.53 1.44 2.56 6.41 1.32 5.68 2.28 0.00 0.00 0.90 0.00 2.86
s17 f70v  draw XE3 38.99 0.22 2.53 0.31 0.00 0.22 0.52 1.46 2.41 6.34 1.35 5.38 2.13 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.86
s17 f70v  draw XE4 38.30 0.24 1.49 0.22 0.25 0.40 0.38 0.89 1.60 5.04 0.00 3.11 1.34 0.00 7.74 0.00 0.00 1.43

s19 f8v   qrno XE1 59.39 0.24 1.48 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.30 0.88 1.94 2.67 0.00 1.29 0.00 0.55 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

s20 f1r   marg XE1 60.85 0.15 0.76 0.42 1.09 2.94 0.20 0.67 0.96 1.65 0.00 0.82 0.23 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
s20 f1r   marg XE2 49.14 0.09 0.46 0.14 1.22 0.53 3.24 0.33 0.30 6.61 0.00 0.31 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
s20 f1r   marg XE3 49.84 0.36 0.58 0.47 2.36 4.34 0.40 0.73 1.78 2.33 0.00 1.93 0.38 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
s20 f1r   marg XE4 55.91 0.85 0.00 0.55 2.60 5.66 0.40 1.38 3.02 5.94 1.94 6.69 0.84 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Legend: draw = drawing, pgno = page number, qrno = quire number, marg = marginal writing on f1r. The numbers are % in weight.  With the mean atomic mass one can compute from those numbers the % in number of atoms (which is given in the report).

The instrument (apparently a scanning electron microscope) has a very small probe radius, so it can detect different compositions for different parts of the same tiny sample. Thus for some samples they report two or more spectra (XE1..XE4).

McCrone simply trusted the output of their instruments, even when it was rather absurd.  The problem is that the spectra of some elements have peaks at the same energies, so computing the element percentages from the peak intensities in principle requires solving a largish system of linear equations -- and such systems can be unstable ("poorly conditioned") so that small measurement errors create large errors in the results.  

For example, one of the four spectra of sample 17 (drawing ink of f70v) said 7.74% of tin (Sn) by weight.  Tin is not normally found in inks or paints, and that was the only spectrum that showed it.  But it turns out that tin has only one peak in its X-ray emission spectrum, that coincides with the largest peak of calcium. 
   
So that result was quite probably a small error in the computed % of calcium, which lead to some of that peak being assigned to tin instead.  Computation error must be the explanation also for the alleged 0.9% of arsenic (As) in another part of the same sample, of 4.68% of silver (Ag) on some part of sample 09 (text ink from f78r), and of mercury (Hg) and chlorine (Cl) in several of the ink samples.

Moreover (as they note in the summary) many collected samples were contaminated by chalk (calcium carbonate) and maybe other powders that were used to smooth out the surface of the vellum.  That must be where the calcium came from.  It is not expected in ink, either iron-gall or in ocher/siena watercolor.

As you can see from the table above, the element percentages are all over the place.  You may have fun plotting them. So we cannot tell from them whether the inks are really "the same".  Including that of f116v.

By the way, the report includes high-res images of the areas where the samples were collected.  But for some reason there is no image for f116v.  So we don't know whether the sample was collected from the "poxleber michiton" text (which are probably later restoration from a big water spill), or from the "aror sheey" or the nymph and lamb in the margin (which are likely to be original).

All the best, --stolfi