With the advent of 2017, I decided to have a look back at the small-plants section, where I started my Voynich research about a year ago. After many months spent almost exclusively looking at nymphs, it was a bit strange to see "my plants", as I somewhat affectionately call these monsters, back.
I couldn't help but sense how this section, just like the large plants, breathes a completely different atmosphere than the nymphy sections. It is almost as if the only thing connecting them is the script, and the fact that they are bound in the same book. And above all, perhaps, a decent amount of Voynich special sauce.
This special sauce, in this section, appears to be the fact that the plants are not what they seem at first sight. Others before me have noted a number of examples: the elephant leaf, the faces in the roots of two plants, the one that looks like a claw, the one with the snake in the root...
I like these obvious examples, because they show beyond any doubt that non-botanical images have been worked into the plants, for whatever reason.
Then, about a years ago, I dug deeper. I noticed that especially the f89 foldout contained a high concentration of non-botanical imagery, which I believe relate to various mythological figures and creatures.
Now, a couple of days ago, I had a closer look at the preceding page, f88 (both sides). I wasn't expecting anything special, just a "random" hidden image in some plants. But I am becoming more certain that
the f88 hidden images also have a theme: animals.
For example, You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. , have a look at these three:
Octopus with eight arms and suction pods:
Another kind of octopus or squid:
A jellyfish?
On the revers, You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. , there is the hind part of a monkey:
The animal theme also blends over into the adjacent foldout, where we find a rearing cobra:
A snake, two animals in the leaves, a fishy tail...:
Those are the obvious examples, they are the evidence I use as a base to launch the hypothesis that the plants on f88 are drawn to include animal parts. The other plants are more cryptic though, so I was hoping if anyone saw something else in them. For example, there is this one which looks like a spine (of a fish?):
This one looks like a quadruped animal with antlers ??
Two wings that are crossed for some reason?
A fish tail or fox tails??
This thing is intriguing as well. Beneath the paint it looks scaly or hairy:
And what to make of something like this, which clearly looks sculpted and twisted somehow to make a certain shape, but what is it?
One last intriguing bit. Several plants have been hit hard by the "heavy painter", obscuring the line work or any writing below, and on at least one plant apparent writing is visible:
So... any ideas?