RE: No text, but a visual code
R. Sale > 09-06-2021, 10:25 PM
I think most of us are hoping to learn more about the VMs. Your interpretations are interesting, but there needs to be evidence of their relevance to VMs investigation. That's pretty much the situation for all of VMs investigation, determining the validity and relevance of all the various interpretations.
For me, if some interpretation is valid, then there can be certain implications and these require further examination. The concept is simple, but the VMs makes it difficult. It doesn't always work and it can be difficult to determine if the cause is innate in the data (It wasn't meant to be.) or if there are investigative omissions (facts not yet taken into account). Botanical identifications exemplify this difficulty. If an illustration is a representation of "dillweed", then in a standard herbal, the text is also concerned with "dillweed". The history of medieval herbal tradition shows that the text is often borrowed from prior sources. The attempt to establish this correspondence for even the most certain of the VMs plant identifications has not succeeded.
There are, however, a few VMs examples where this type of investigative chain can be found, if A is true, then B; if B is true, then C, and so on. They are in the cosmic and zodiac sections. Another example is the so-called VMs mermaid. The background for this representation is provided by two illustrations from Lauber. One shows a mermaid among 'sea monsters'; the other has a mermaid among 'fish'. The mermaid, like all the other creatures, is a generic representation, not a particular individual mermaid.
There is a similar illustration in Harley 334, a mermaid among fish, and Harley 334 is connected with the VMs through the investigation of the Cosmic comparison.
Is the VMs illustration a generic representation of "the mermaid and her companions" or not?
If the VMs mermaid is generic, why does she have thighs and knees? Mermaids don't have knees. If she does have knees, then this might be indicative of a transitional creature, able to change from fully human to semi-human forms. If this is a transitional creature and female, that fits quite well with the medieval myth of Melusine.
As it turns out, there are several versions of this myth which impart certain characteristics to Melusine. In the Lusignan version she is a dragon and tends to be green. In the Luxembourg version, she was more like a mermaid and favored blue. One description said her mermaid-like parts were blue with circular silver droplets of water. Take a close look at the VMs image. Doesn't that lousy slap of blue paint do a great job of hiding this identification and confirming it at the same time.
Melusine has been inserted in place of the generic mermaid. And as far as the technique of combined or inserted images, this ploy of disguise and obfuscation is also present in the cosmos and elsewhere.
The VMs mermaid is not generic, she is Melusine. And she is a specific version of Melusine. In this version, she was held to be the ancestress of the rulers of Luxembourg. And this connects directly to the Valois rulers of France, Burgundy, etc. during the C-14 dates and beyond.
As a second, simpler example, there have been certain illustrations in the VMs interpreted as representing the fleece from the medieval, knightly Order of the Golden Fleece. If this is valid, we know the Order was founded by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy in 1430, within the C-14 dates, and that he was a descendant of the Valois family lines. So both of these items have clear Valois connections.
For me, this conveys the implication that the VMs artist has some familiarity with the C-14 current events, the "social media" of that era, has chosen to selectively use those elements, and at the same time decided to disguise, obscure, obfuscate and otherwise create ambiguities that might trick or deceive any subsequent readers who were not acquainted or adequately familiar with the relevant information. Assuming this was done for a purpose, it still remains to reveal that purpose.