30-01-2016, 06:42 AM
Oops, 21 April is a silly typo, of course, and that should be March.
That in the intervening centuries people let the calender get out of phase has nothing to do with precession, but is a miscount of the number of days in a year. It is an interesting suggestion that the person composing the zodiac cyle in the Voynich MS was trying to compensate somehow for this effect. One could look into that.
As regards the completeness and order of the cycle, I would turn the argument of JKP around: the fact that we see them in the correct order in the MS is strong evidence that in his area the pages have not been shuffled around.
But there is much more that we can say on this.
There are two signs at the end of one quire (#10). Then there is one quire (#11, which is a single large foldout) with only zodiac illlustrations, and then there is a quire fragment (#12) with two more illustrations.
At the start, as we have it in the MS, we have Pisces and half of Aries side by side on the same piece of parchment.
There is only one way in which one can fold the large intermediate foldout such that the second half Aries ends up next to the first. This is how it is now, and this puts all subsequent signs in the right order.
The remaining fragment is only one folio and has the next two signs.
We are missing Capricorn and Aquarius, but at the place where they should have been there is an excised leaf. There is a cut mark in the upper left corner of the next folio (f75) as evidence for this.
Finally, it is not possible to fold Q10 in a different way, such that Pisces ends up at the end, not, at least, without having other non-zodiac drawings ending up in between.
I guess the only way to become fully convinced of this is to try it out for oneself.
That in the intervening centuries people let the calender get out of phase has nothing to do with precession, but is a miscount of the number of days in a year. It is an interesting suggestion that the person composing the zodiac cyle in the Voynich MS was trying to compensate somehow for this effect. One could look into that.
As regards the completeness and order of the cycle, I would turn the argument of JKP around: the fact that we see them in the correct order in the MS is strong evidence that in his area the pages have not been shuffled around.
But there is much more that we can say on this.
There are two signs at the end of one quire (#10). Then there is one quire (#11, which is a single large foldout) with only zodiac illlustrations, and then there is a quire fragment (#12) with two more illustrations.
At the start, as we have it in the MS, we have Pisces and half of Aries side by side on the same piece of parchment.
There is only one way in which one can fold the large intermediate foldout such that the second half Aries ends up next to the first. This is how it is now, and this puts all subsequent signs in the right order.
The remaining fragment is only one folio and has the next two signs.
We are missing Capricorn and Aquarius, but at the place where they should have been there is an excised leaf. There is a cut mark in the upper left corner of the next folio (f75) as evidence for this.
Finally, it is not possible to fold Q10 in a different way, such that Pisces ends up at the end, not, at least, without having other non-zodiac drawings ending up in between.
I guess the only way to become fully convinced of this is to try it out for oneself.