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Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

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• Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  R. Sale > 13-02-2018, 08:23 PM

  JKP
  
  The Central Rosette has a second marker in the circular band of text, just to the right of 12:00.

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  -JKP- > 14-02-2018, 01:15 AM

  Oh shoot, you're right. I knew that and was in too much of a hurry (I am always in hit-and-run mode on the forum, I never have time to actually sit and read or post in a leisurely way).
  
  I have added the missing marker and uploaded a correct version.
  
  
  
  Thanks, R. Sale, for pointing it out.

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  -JKP- > 14-02-2018, 01:19 AM

  Corrected version with two markers in the central wheel:
  
  

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  Anton > 14-02-2018, 07:29 PM

  I think it's all pretty simple, and he inscribed the labels as he "followed" this "map" or "chart". Which is the starting point I would not tell at a glance, but surely the default orientation is as it's been scanned by Yale - with the domes of the heavenly Jerusalem facing upwards. Then suppose he started from the section left to Jerusalem and went upwards along the "path" toward the circle with the orarol pipes. And so on, clockwise. In fact, the "paths" may have been drawn in the same pass, after the circles were already in place. E.g. the supposed lighthouse of Alexandria looks rightwards, not leftwards.
  
  There are some labels though that are not in line with this direction.

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  Diane > 14-02-2018, 09:15 PM

  Anton's observation is very good,  entirely original and merits both congratulations and our admiration.  
  
  The comments made afterwards did startle me, I confess - given that I have already published enough, in enough detail and with historical, cultural and contextual notes to fill a small book altogether. 
  
  
   I don't make the stuff up you know. It doesn't originate from my head, but from a prior grounding and some time spent in the profession.
  
  
  The drawing in question is a map ...   more exactly,  a chart...  Its centre is meant for Arin (whose notional location shifted over time).  I should think - though I am not certain of this detail - that this Arin was in the Yemen, and probably near the old dam of Mar'ib. 
  
  
  That location intersects  precisely with other information provided by the primary source, and also with the historical matter which I've only briefly mentioned so far in connection with the astronomical 'bathy-' folios. 
  
  
  
  The three-dot detail is not the marker for north, but for South.  
  
  That's not guess-work, either, nor speculation nor 'common sense' nor theorising.
  
   The symbol is a very old one - well known to historians of art, as it happens, and its  application in the map shows it related to a custom by which the three stars which marked the notional 'southern Pole' were likened to the three holes in an anchor.  The symbol survived through millennia to appear even in European works of the earlier medieval period.  In a couple of the Celtic-influenced monastic works  most closely deriving from Coptic and Ethiopian monastic precedents, we see it employde it as a 'shield against the south' -  an apotropaic mark in those cases because south was supposed the direction of hell and its fire.  
  
  It is also made as a  'shield' in the Voynich map.  
  
  Later, in Europe, the three-dots became a general pattern to mean stars, and finally just a pattern.   
  
  By the twelfth century, European art appears to have forgotten its original significance (as the Voynich map has not), and in (e.g.) Latin herbals of the 12thC, a form of the '3-dot' appears with the Paeony, where it is now plainly a symbol for the triune deity of Christian belief and one sees the figure of a demon being repelled.  
  
  The use of this motif, in the form it has in the map, is a sign of age and cultural origins for the drawing's first enunciation
  
  I know that will sound too complicated and generally TMI, but I want to be clear that when I reach a conclusion it is a conclusion from evidence not from imagination and false analogies devised by reference to some theoretical-fictional narrative.  (Which is not to say that's what all members do; it's what often happened in the past, and still does in some cases).
  
  [rest removed, to shorten]

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  Koen G > 14-02-2018, 09:34 PM

  (14-02-2018, 09:15 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anton's observation is very good,  entirely original and merits both congratulations and our admiration.  

  
  Hey it's not because we're both pink that we're the same person, I deserve the admiration
  
  No but seriously, all I was trying to get across was that there seems to be a dynamic way the map is supposed to be held. 
  Anton, I think you're right about the orientation of the middle circle, but this doesn't appear to have much impact on the rest. If there was a default orientation I'd expect more labels to be aligned the "proper" way.

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  Anton > 14-02-2018, 10:09 PM

  Not that I intended to blow the discussion up with novelty, just expressed my simple view on that. In fact, I was being busily discussing a paypal refund in the parallel browser window, so my apologies if my comment lacked in depth. 
  
  But nonetheless it's the most straightforward explanation. You have a comparatively large (say, six times the square of a Voynich folio) foldout, with many objects in there to label. That's a tedious and cumbersome task. So what systematic way do you undertake for inserting all those labels? You select some object as a starting point (after all, you need to start with some) and orientate the foldout in such a way so as to have the object "properly orientated". E.g. if you have a figure of a cat and you are about to label the various parts of it, it's ever better to have the cat depicted with its head up and legs down than otherwise, i.e. upside down or rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. Having inserted labels for the first object, you move to the next object. The peripheral sections of the "map" are visually looking as some "path" (from one circle to another) along which the observer can (visually) "travel". So for the creator it's just natural to follow that path when labeling the objects. E.g. when he comes to the circle which Wastl & Feger consider Africa, he just rotates the sheet so as to have the "top" of the "Africa" looking upwards, and continues to label. And so forth.
  
  As I said, such might have been the way of depicting those intermediary "paths" as well. Note that the "lighthouse" and the "three towers" are both orientated clockwise (the mansion opposite to the "lighthouse" is, however, orientated in an opposite direction).
  
  That view is actually invariant to what's the object in the centre. I used the point from Wastl & Feger about the heavenly Jerusalem, but it could be anything. As long as its domes are facing upwards, I believe one has the proper orientation of the foldout - if it has "proper" orientation at all, - but at least the orientation which was initially taken by the map-creator, since I have no doubt that "Jerusalem" was the first thing elaborated in the folio after the geometric schema was laid down.
  
  Bottomline: I believe the "dynamic orientation" is inherent not to the way the map is supposed to be held, but to the way it was drawn. Hence, orientating the labels in the way of conveniently reading them would orientate the respective object "properly".

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  -JKP- > 14-02-2018, 11:07 PM

  One of the things I have noticed in many of the rota in the VMS is the reluctance of the scribe to turn the page until absolutely necessary.
  
  One can see quite frequently where the angle and shape of the letters degrade (note the zodiac-symbols section, particular) and then straighten up again, degrade and straighten up again, as the hand tries to turn to follow the circle and then eventually, when it's too much of a twist of the hand to be comfortable (or legible), the folio is turned again.
  
  
  This might be laziness, or it might be because the folios were scribed at a podium (as was common for monks and commercial scriptoria), rather than on a table. On a table, it's not hard to rotate a page, on a podium it's a problem because you only have four edges on a sheet, if you rotate only part way, then the corner of the folio points down like a pivot point and doesn't want to stay still, it wants to slide, so there would be a reluctance to turn it until you can put it on the next "footing" edge.
  
  
  I haven't methodically gone through every page with rota analyzing the slant of the letters (haven't had time) to see if they all have this characteristic, but I have looked at quite a few of them.
  
  
  If an amateur did this (someone who didn't have access to a podium in a  traditional scriptorium), it's possible they did it on a flat surface. If it were done in a scriptorium, it's more likely done on a podium because that's how they were trained to do it. and both secular scribes and monks were trained in procedure and very disciplined.
  
  
  I thought it might provide a tiny clue as to the environment in which this was done but it's hard to tell because maybe the scribe didn't bother to turn the page until necessary in order to do it quickly (and well enough) rather than doing it perfectly.
  
  
  ....
  Another possibly related point... those who are unfamiliar with working with a quill or stylus pen very often will accidentally smear the ink with the opposite hand (or sometimes the pen hand) because they forget to let the ink dry before letting a hand touch the surface. If you are turning a page to write in a circle near the edge of a folio, it would be especially easy to accidentally put a finger on a part that was just inked.
  
  On vellum/parchment it takes even longer for the ink to dry (less porous than paper), and it takes time to learn not to touch it accidentally, children will almost always accidentally smear the ink.

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  Linda > 07-02-2019, 05:29 PM

  (09-02-2018, 12:18 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another note about direction is that the drawing that resembles a T-O map orients the labels so that what was traditionally read as Africa is at the top (in contrast to Isidore of Seville's mappa mundi, and those of many others in the Middle Ages who put Asia at the top)

  
  Im not sure what you mean by Africa on top re label orientaion. Then Europe is also on top, right?
  
  
  
  Ok i think i see what you mean, since the writing is on an angle, if you straighten up the circle to put the text horizontal, then Africa is on top. A YO map, so to speak.
  
  I thought the direction was written as though the person was showing where they were when they step off the bridge that connects to the TO map at that point. You would be entering northern Asia, and so the writing and positioning shows you where you are in the world if you go there. It seems purposeful, and not a factor of easiest to write it that way. It is not aligned with the page edges, and i think the attached rosette, and indeed the rest works out best with TO Map up like a diamond shape, but it doesnt go with that. So to me it is the bridge, and therefore the river connection that is making the writing to be angled that way.
  
  If you want to leave that rosette,  which i take as variously indicating the World, Europe, and Italy, then you are to turn it to face the direction you want to go. The castle looks right when you travel the bridge to get to the top centre rosette in its initial orientation. The writing on the TO map is aligned to be read properly when you continue turning the entire map to take the outer river connect from that bridge from the castle to the bridge to the Asia part of the TO map.
  
  I take this castle bridge to be the area of what is today France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, as i take the next rosette in the castle direction to be Andorra due to all the mountains shown, with indications of a temporary layover to get to the next bit, which is Spain, and then the other rosette is Ceuta, which i think also stands for Portugal. I take the river system to indicate the Rhine (which connects to the North Sea at the Netherlands), Danube, Don, Volga, and Ural which would get you to northern Asia.
  
  So i guess i was confused by the Africa up statement, because that is just a factor of how it worked out to show this connection. On the other side, it shows a river connecion to what i think of as the Black Sea bridge, to get to what i think of as the Aegean rosette, and hence you can get to the Mediterranean, which is the line between Europe and Africa on the TO map, that points to that connection. I think we are to ignore the writing direction at this point and just identify with the line, meaning you can get to the Black Sea from Gibraltar and Ceuta, the pillars of Hercules, and vice versa. Note that this river system is not blue everywhere, i think that is to indicate this one is not a freshwater trip, or at least not all of it, depending on where you are. I guess they didnt have any green paint handy.
  
  
  
  I believe similar connections are shown in quire 13, with the two quires seeming to  inform the other, as i see it. In fact, i guess this is why so many world tours start at the mouth of the Mediterranean, because the other two edges of the TO map are less clearly defined insofar as where the edges actually are, and the Mediterranean touches all three parts of the world.

• RE: Direction of labels on rosettes foldout

  Ruby Novacna > 11-02-2019, 04:29 PM

  Opera rotarum for Liber rotarum ?
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