Hi all,
recently Anton made a remark about the length of the 116v thread, and this inspired me to create a spin-off thread here about a specific element of that folio:


Reading up the thread, I note that Searcher suggested that it may be related to similar shapes in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. marginalia:
"And, finally, the last letter "o" with the four points above it may be not a letter at all. It could be some kind of a pictogram which means a stone (maybe, tartar) which left a body."

Later in the thread it was mentioned by Anton that davidjackson had suggested this could be a kidney stone a few years ago, however I was not able to find that reference ( davidjackson.info/voynich/ appears to be abandoned and all links to articles bring up a "page not found" message... has it moved?).

I am sure there must have been more suggestions about this element, but I can't track them down... So  I am hoping other forum members with better memory than me will be able to remember where this feature was discussed in the past.


Can we try and put together the various ideas about the "plummeting stone" that have been made over the years?
Does this motif appear elsewhere in medieval manuscripts, especially at the end of a text or near charms/spells/prayers/recipes?

I wish I could link to my blog on this topic because I don't want to have to write it all a second time, but it's incommunicato at the moment. I'll post a link when things are working again.

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Edit: It's up again but I still haven't located the problem, so it might white-screen again, but for the time being, here's a link:

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(22-10-2017, 09:28 AM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
Does this motif appear elsewhere in medieval manuscripts, especially at the end of a text or near charms/spells/prayers/recipes?

Hi Vviews,

I have no direct reference to the "plummeting stone", but there is a reference to a distillate called "water from goat's blood"". It "healed" kidneys and urinary gravel. I posted it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .


Addition: "... das grien in den lenden ( lenden =  engl. lumbar )" and "... das grien in ... in der blasen ( blasen = engl. bladder )"

At least we have a billy goat on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ( although the one in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. looks better ).

Sometimes stars and constellations are drawn like this. I think Sam once made a thread about this.

I think this is one of the toughest elements of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to identify. Judging by its position in the folio, I am disinclined to think that it depicts any object graphically with the purpose to illustrate any concepts of the text.

It does not look as a separate illustration, rather it is firmly built into the line of the text. It does not look specific, it is a very general shape. All this is quite the opposite as compared with the objects in the left margin. They are elaborate, detailed, separated from the text and framed together, and feature a label for what I consider to be abomasum.

I see no evidence to logically link the round shape on the right with the imagery on the left - in the first place because they are not spatially linked.

Hence my tentative guess would be that the circular shape serves as a sign rather than illustration. In its potential capacity of a sign, it resembles an amulet with a rope, to be worn on one's neck. This is in agreement with wearing medieval (and not only those) charms on the neck. In other words, this may be a modus operandi sign.

Another option for me is that the "o" is a correction or abbreviation. The dotted line should be explained in this regard, which is not simple.

HI VViews,
The blog is back up and running now. Did you mean this page?
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Yes that's what I referred to.

I wonder to what extent it's anachronistic to see the rock as "in motion" because of the dots behind it. Are the little dots to be taken literally or are they just symbolic, to make the rock look plummeting? Something tells me that seeing an in motion effect is a deception of our modern eyes.

Now I have seen two things that look like this in other manuscripts: constellations and signs in Hebrew texts.

Anton,
I agree that its placement sets it apart from the other illustrations on the page.
Like the crosses in the line above it, it seems really embedded into the text, and seems to mark it or punctuate it rather than illustrate it.
Its location as the final sign on the page and in fact, as the final sign in the entire MS makes it particularly interesting to me: much like the big red weirdos which initiate the text, this is the sign that ends it.
I know this is completely anachronistic (and probably something I should rather post in the Voynich humor section) but it behaves almost like of some sort of a Voynichese version of a  mic drop

bi3mW,
Interesting, if it is an illustration, then the "urinary gravel" is definitely a great candidate considering the nearby goat. The thing that makes me doubt this interpretation is  that medical manuscripts tend to place illustrations in the margins, not right in the middle of the text zone... or are there such examples?

Koen Gh,
Yes! I too recall seeing something similar in Hebrew manuscripts, but I really can't remember what or where it was... for some reason I am remembering this motif as a decorative feature only... hopefully references to this will surface again.
It is tempting to read this as a downward moving object, but what else could the small dots above the "stone" be?
Going back to Anton's idea of the drawing as a sign, I wonder if it could stand for something like "precipitate"?

Found the link:
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