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Dating of VMS
- Dating of VMS
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Dating of VMS
don of tallahassee > 04-02-2016, 04:32 AM
A little over a year ago I tried to figure out the dates for the four individual folios that were carbon-dated and thus the date of the VMS. Attached are the results.
I was told afterward that the actual method was a weighted mean of the raw data or some such.
The answers come out about the same.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Dating of VMS
ReneZ > 04-02-2016, 09:36 AM
The entire process is explained in some detail here:
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It is to be kept in mind that this is the result of a long process of statistical analyses (namely to put together the calibration curve) and the resulting date range is also a formal statistical result, taking into account known uncertainties and error sources. -
RE: Dating of VMS
Diane > 06-02-2016, 10:42 AM
Rene.
in theory that's absolutely right, but the formal processes require a formal method (international standards exist and are normally applied) from the first moment the test begins. That means that sampling decisions are taken according to standard methods, not just that once the samples are taken they are run through the lab properly.
Given the small number of samples taken, the fact that the choice of samples was not done 'by the book' or anything like it, and that samples only came from the top few quires, no formal scientific paper could be written from those results. In technical terms, the method was corrupt.
However, since the experts were willing to work under those constraints, and were in a position to make due allowances etc., the usual thing is either to doubt the results entirely, or accept them as published.
I've chosen the latter course: the date range is thus 1405-1438.
However, since nothing at all was taken from the bottom eleven quires (!), we are chiefly relying on palaeographic evidence, and statistical analyses of the text to argue completion of the whole within that range - neither earlier nor later.
For all we know, though, those bottom eleven quires could have returned dates in the range 1350-1400.
What I do think unacceptable is to refuse to accept the dates and published, yet use the lab's results to push for a date range way outside them. One might as well argue for seventy-five years earlier, given the conditions under which the University of Arizona were obliged to work. I realise that the library couldn't let more than four samples be taken, but one might wish with the Uni of Arizona, as indeed with McCrone that the experts had been just given the brief to report on the pigments, or the parchment's date, and let get on with it. At least then we'd have expert and scientific method, and informed selection of admittedly limited no. of samples. -
RE: Dating of VMS
ReneZ > 06-02-2016, 11:54 AM
Well, in the end everyone is free to make up their minds on what he / she wants to believe or not.
Even if it involves the Beinecke Library and/or Sterling lab of Yale University twisting the Univ. of Arizona's arm on which samples to take, or either of these universities not following scientific standards.
(Actually, as I was present, I can report that the selection was made in dialogue between the two: the owner of the MS and the expert in radio-carbon dating). -
RE: Dating of VMS
don of tallahassee > 06-02-2016, 06:05 PM
(06-02-2016, 11:54 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, in the end everyone is free to make up their minds on what he / she wants to believe or not.
Rene - I am so glad you and Diane both seem to agree that the best dating available according to scientific methods us for the VMS is between 1404 and 1438 (even though Diane thinks the content came from earlier).
Even if it involves the Beinecke Library and/or Sterling lab of Yale University twisting the Univ. of Arizona's arm on which samples to take, or either of these universities not following scientific standards.
(Actually, as I was present, I can report that the selection was made in dialogue between the two: the owner of the MS and the expert in radio-carbon dating).
I thought you two had agreed to disagree on everything.
Now, if we can just get the other Voynicheros (or is it Voynicheroes?) to adopt these dates, it might help cut down on the scenarios that others keep putting forward that date the manuscript to a later time (up to the early 20th Century, in one or two cases).
It doesn't seem feasible that the folios for a manuscript with foldout pages (not seen before this period in manuscripts) would be prepared much in advance of the writing/inking/drawing/painting. Or that a single forgery/fraud/hoax document of the length and scope of the VMS would be made with no counterparts from any time that I can find reference to. Only a handful of multipage manuscript forgeries/frauds/hoaxes from any time period have ever been found (5 ?) - none like the VMS in any way and all much shorter. Forgeries are normally kept short (often only a single illumination or image) to keep them from being found out. (Most of this info came from you, Rene, when I was asking questions in my normal uninformed way, to whom and for which I am very grateful.)
I remember asking one fellow for information about the scope of manuscript forgeries - all I got was mushmouth talk about how the lack of other such forgeries/frauds/hoaxes didn't have any bearing on the VMS not being one. The person talked all around the issue (didn't even want to give numbers of such forgeries/frauds/hoaxes), I think because he didn't want others to know just how unlikely his ideas were to be true.
Anyway, it is nice to see you two agreeing on something.
And yes, Diane, those bottom quires could have returned earlier dates (or even 20th Century ones?), but I too am going to keep considering the early 15th Century date as probably the correct one (unless and until it is proven wrong) for the whole manuscript. To do otherwise is not believable or rational to me without a lot more proof than I've seen.
Any and all theories or ideas to the contrary will need a whole lot of proof to change the dating of the manuscript for most of us, I think. Not just conjectures, hopes, dreams and wild ideas. If an idea/proposition/theory doesn't fit the scientific evidence, we must reject it.
I think the same is true for all encoding/encrypting/enciphering methods not used or invented or proposed until after this period.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Dating of VMS
david > 06-02-2016, 09:01 PM
I'm not aware of any realistic theories disputing the findings of the report.
Certainly people may complain about the way the samples were taken; and the non-publication of the analysis (due entirely, I understand, to copyright issues).
But I think everyone accepts the dates. Even the person you hint at above has reduced his arguments to suggesting the vellum is original (but kept blank in storage for many centuries) which is, of course, a different tangent to explore.
And, realistically, the only counter-theory I'll personally accept would be from someone knowledgeable in the field of carbon dating.
So I think the question is currently pretty much settled Don. For now....
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RE: Dating of VMS
Diane > 08-02-2016, 12:39 AM
Query to Rene
Could you clarify about the Sterling lab's having decided which folios were to be tested?
My understanding was that a television company from Austria had connections to somebody in a technical colllege in Austria and asked their local person to specify which pages were to be tested, and that these instructions were passed on to the Beinecke and/or the University of Arizona as part of the contract.
Plainly, I've fallen victim to the Voynich plague - reliance on gossip.
Please do give me the correct details, if you know them.
Thanks -
RE: Dating of VMS
don of tallahassee > 08-02-2016, 04:27 AM
(06-02-2016, 09:01 PM)david Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not aware of any realistic theories disputing the findings of the report.
Certainly people may complain about the way the samples were taken; and the non-publication of the analysis (due entirely, I understand, to copyright issues).
But I think everyone accepts the dates. Even the person you hint at above has reduced his arguments to suggesting the vellum is original (but kept blank in storage for many centuries) which is, of course, a different tangent to explore.
And, realistically, the only counter-theory I'll personally accept would be from someone knowledgeable in the field of carbon dating.
So I think the question is currently pretty much settled Don. For now....
Sorry. After a lot of blah, blah, blah, my point was at the end.
I'll try to cut down on the chatter.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Dating of VMS
ReneZ > 08-02-2016, 07:03 AM
One has to realise that, at the time the selections were made, nobody really knew what the outcome was going to be. The 'best guess' was second half of the fifteenth century to early 16th Century, and several people were thinking 'Paracelsan'. From a presentation by Greg Hodgins made a few days before the samples were taken, it became obvious that this time frame is not very favourable for C-14 dating, but it turned out to be clearly earlier.
I was not at all involved in the selection of the folios for the ink and paint samples. I don't know Dr. Alfred Vendl who is mentioned in the report, but it is clearly stated that he provided recommendations. Certainly, Joe Barabe made the final decisions with the aid of a microscope. As the Table in the report shows, he could take many different samples.
For the parchment samples, there were discussions beforehand, with the indication that three samples could be taken. On the event itself this was changed into four. The suggestion to select one folio that had other dating information was made by Greg Hodgins himself. These aren't very copious in the MS, and we could only think of two concrete ones: the signature of Tepenec, which puts a terminus ante quem and, more uncertain, the castle. The final approval had to come from the Beinecke curator, and she did not wish the large (double) foldout to be damaged. Thus, folio 8 was decided on the spot. There were two Yale conservators as well, both working in the laboratory of the Sterling library, where the MS was at the time, where the samples were taken, and where, in October of the same year, the relevant parts of the movie were recorded. One of them, Paula Zyats, had just conserved the MS, by fixing a few week spots and flattening some of the badly curled pages. She could report that the MS was basically homogeneous, and showed no signs of having very different origins. The only clear variations are in the handwriting. The other conservator, as I found out later, had just worked on the investigations of the "archaic Mark", which also involved Joe Barabe, and in which it could be confirmed that that MS is a fake. -
RE: Dating of VMS
Diane > 08-02-2016, 02:33 PM
Rene,
Thank you for that very full account. Yes, I'm aware of the work done on 'Archaic Mark' and also the work which McCrone did in central Asia among other things.
Both these groups have an enormous reputation in my area, and I had hoped to see the sort of reports which they have produced for other projects. As you say, being privately commissioned, their ability to write anything for publication was restricted. Pity, but there it is. Someone had to pay them.
I recently looked at the video again, and only after reading your account of the events did it occur to me that the business of having you stand by, point to particular folios and nod after you were looked at enquiringly by the sampler was probably nothing more than the programmer's instructions, trying to add a bit more dynamic to the scene.
Sorry.
For other readers, perhaps I should clarify Rene's last point.
Zyats couldn't confirm that the content was homogenous, but that to her it seemed as if the present copy was made of consistent -looking vellum and there was no drastic variation in hands or in the quality of ink.
As to whether the content all came from one place or time - quite a different matter. All we know is that it was brought together to wherever it was copied by c.1438.