Hi
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: You wrote ( on thread You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. ):
You can see some of the reasoning behind my list in this video. It is a recreation of the lecture at the NSA Conference:
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
But to address your points, because you don't realize the origins of them, or the reasoning behind them:
"1) Elicits multiple, widely contrary expert opinions - welcome to manuscript studies, it’s really hard, takes decades of training and people disagree all the time. The disagreements about the VMS are nothing special in manuscript studies."
Well this is arguable, but in my experience... although an amateur... with hundreds of manscripts, but more importantly, the world of historic manuscript and art forgeries, through a great many books: The Voynich has a far greater number of expert opinions which differ on geography, age (before the C14 dating, but still even though...), origin, meaning, purpose. It is not only the number of opinions, but the extraordinary range of them, which sets it on a pinnicle in this area. Can you cite for me any genuine work with comes close?
"2) Has poor, contrary and/or missing versions of provenance - this is absolutely normal in manuscript studies; some manuscripts may only have gaps of a few decades, others may have gaps of over a millennium. A key part of palaeography training is learning to identify marks, symbols, and letterforms that can help you to date and locate a manuscript in the absence of a helpful note saying when and where it was written and all the places it has been since then. Researchers also use things like bindings, quire marks, library catalogues, letters and lots of other details to try to understand where a manuscript has been throughout its history, and sometimes the question cannot be answered. This problem extends to many other medieval manuscripts (and medieval and ancient artefacts more generally) and is not restricted to the VMS."
We are discussion two different things here: I was referring to external, written provenance, not provenance implied by internal content. The "poor, contrary and/or missing" provenance I mean are the lack of any good descriptions of the Voynich in all history previous to 1912, and the contrary versions given for origins by Wilfrid. The Voynich exists no where, with any acceptable written or oral provenance, before Voynich claimed to have found it. The other evidence of provenance is a different matter, for a different discussion than the one I meant. But the lack of written provenance is a major feature of all forgeries, because of course the thing didn't exist when claimed... so it has to be created, borrowed or implied.
"3) Contains anachronistic content - you need to define the anachronism, but to my eyes, there is nothing obviously anachronistic in the VMS."
For those who consider the Voynich genuine, even, you will read a great many comments to the effect of, "This or that looks too new for it", or "This or that looks like this newer thing", followed by "But of course it can't be, because the Voynich is newer". There are dozens of such examples: I've long seen that as a clear indication of a rejection of evidence to support preconceptions, which is the opposite of good scientific, investigative practice. Many of my own, and the observations of others, have been agreed upon as being very good comparisons to newer items, but then dismissed as being impossible. For instance, many have agreed my optical device comparisons are very compelling, but only that such devices are "too new" for the 15th century. That is one example of many: I can generalize some of it, but for a few topics: Modern (to the 15th century) optical devices; writing styles, dress, celestial observations, Rosicrucian symbolism, "plumbing", art historical styles, seeming copies from "later" works, New World plants, animals, styles, and so on.
"4) Owner/seller lies about provenance - this does happen sometimes, it’s particularly common for items looted from places like Syria, Egypt and Iraq, or for items that were confiscated from Jewish families during the Second World War. Even if it turned out that there were lies about where the VMS has been since it was made, it is still a manuscript written on 15th C parchment that looks like a product of the 15th century."
Well it is true that many dealers in art and antiquities often lie. So of course there is no way to know that Voynich was lying in this case, for this reason, or not. It is used as a reason for his known lies on provenance, and I posit that this is a red flag of forgery, because it is. But even if he was only lying to hid the improper purchase, or whatever: One must then throw out all his testimony, and not cherry pick that which we thinks supports genuine, because we do not know when he was lying, and when he was not.
"5) Contains incorrect uses of iconography - you need a strong foundation in the history of art to make judgements about the incorrect use of iconography. The VMS is definitely weird, but nothing strikes me as ‘incorrect’."
This is the thinnest forgery argument on the list, as most of the Voynich's iconography can be said to varied, and applied to both proper and improper use. There are arguable cases, but the only example I cited was the "gallows", which were a decorative element in the closest known use (cited in Cappelli), but used by the VMS author, seemingly, as meaningful characters in their own right. But I would agree with you that this is also arguable, as we don't know if the gallows are the same as Capelli, nor if they are used for meaning.
"6) Improper tools, methods, and/or materials used - the carbon dating tells us that the VMS was written on 15th C parchment, the production techniques and mise-en-page are standard for a European codex of this period, and the only way to safely test the pigments would be with various spectroscopy techniques."
Yale points out that many features of the binding imply a possible newer origin. But this is not all: The foldouts are also admitted to be anachronistic to the 15th century. They are. It was hundreds of years before such foldouts were seen again, used this way. This is totally anachronistic. But also, the carbon dating also told us that the material chosen was too old for the content: I don't know how long you have been "on the scene", but before the C14 test, the majority of expert opinion was WAY off the eventual C14 results. It is the cherry picking of opinions, and content supporting those picked opinons, post-C14, that gives the false impression the correct vellum was chosen to write on.
"7) It looks "too new” - the VMS doesn’t look too new. It has filthy pages near the beginning and the end, and mild to moderate staining and damage throughout the rest of the leaves."
There are many people who, on examination in person, have declared how surprisingly bright and new the pages look. Yes it has some staining. But the late Glen Claston, Adam MacLean, Dana Scott, and many others, have noted the very new look of the Voynich: You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
See the above link for some examples. I wrote that in 2009, before I thought this could be a modern fake. Like many things, I chose not to ignore these concerns, and let them lead me to where I finally am today.
"8) There is a reluctance to produce, and/or test, original - both of these are false in relation to the VMS. The Beinecke will produce the manuscript to anyone with the credentials and a suitable research question, which is how it works for virtually every other medieval manuscript in major public collections around the world. Lisa Fagin Davis who is an expert palaeographer and belongs to this forum has seen it (at least?) a couple of times, and I believe René Zandbergen and Nick Pelling have seen it as well. You would have a much harder time seeing something like the Book of Kells (Trinity College, Dublin) or the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (Chantilly, Musée Condée, MS 65) both of which have heavy restrictions on who can see them and for how long and no one is using those restrictions to argue that they are fakes. The Beinecke has already consented to one round of testing, how else would we know the carbon dating results? I am sure if a suitably equipped team approached them about doing non-invasive tests such as spectroscopy they would consider it. It is not unusual for museums and libraries to refuse tests which would damage their collection by taking tiny pigment samples: in the 21st century it is more unusual to find a museum or library that will permit invasive tests like that."
Everything you say is true to some extent (not entirely, but a larger discussion on that would be necessary), but you missed my meaning here: I am referring to "the old days", when Wilfrid, Ethel, and Anne Nill strongly controlled access to the manuscript, and to photocopies of it, based on how "friendly" the person was to a Roger Bacon origin. It is in the discussions, in their letters, all of which I read, in all collections in New York and Connecticut. They didn't want any opinions of the origins or age of the Voynich that would undermine what they wanted to be the official opinion.
"9) Copy of illustrations from books and catalogs - I’m not sure I understand how this objection might relate to the VMS specifically, but to no other medieval manuscript. Medieval manuscript art borrowed from, was inspired by, and occasionally reduplicated almost perfectly other pre-existing manuscripts. Some medieval artists also invented things. One of the ways we can attempt to understand the VMS is to look at art and iconography from all over the world and see whether we can see any visual influences or similarities. I’m aware of a few forgery cases where the forger copied illustrations, and there’s a whole universe of forgery and fake provenance among the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, but in the case of the VMS if you want to make an argument that the illustrations are copied from somewhere else, you need to present people with the original sources and see if they agree."
In two ways: Either or both of: 1) Copies that are anachronistic to the claimed age; and 2) items so varied in sources, geography, meaning, usage, that the writer would have had to had access to an impossible (for a genuine 15th century item) corpus. The former is direct evidence of forgery, the later evidence by weight of implausibility. When you see, for instance, Elihu's Seven Sister strings to stars Pleiades, and also the illustration from D'Oresme, in the same manuscript... and dozens of other such comparisons it trains the possibility that they came from one or two genuine, 15th century origin, and supports that a person or persons with access to all those varied sources at once used them. And of course, a 19th century prolific bookseller would be a good candidate, over any 15th century scribe.
"10) Financial or other incentive is offered for positive opinion:
Step 1 - Become interested in VMS.
Step 2 - Write positive thing about VMS.
Step 3 - ???
Step 4 - PROFIT!!!"
You also were unaware of the source of this: I found evidence, in one shorthand note by Anne Nill, and in a letter to Newbold... presumably seen by other researchers in the archives, but not mentioned (as much evidence counter to genuine is not mentioned), that Newbold was offered 10% of the first $100,000 sale price of the Voynich, if he, Newbold could make Roger Bacon stick in the minds of the experts. And he was offered a further 50% of the anything over $100,000. In short, Voynich was dangling a huge sum of $$$ in front of the poor expert Newbold, to nudge him in his studies. This is unethical, one, and two, a red flag to forgery, as it is often done. Provenance, when it does not exist, is often paid for.
"11) Claimed disappearance of original - the VMS is in the Beinecke where it is available to view by appointment subject to the standard manuscript research checks that all libraries undertake when you ask to see their stuff. I’m sure the poor Beinecke Librarians wish they could make it disappear, but alas, it remains available."
Number 11 is the one which does not apply to the Voynich. The only one that is not arguable, to some degree.
But while the other 10... or 9, if one does not chose to consider the iconography arguable, and I'll give you that... there is no... none, read every book you can find on manuscript and art forgeries... that comes remotely close to the Voynich in numbers of red flags here. One or two has called into question, if not condemned, many items... three or four, there is no question. Nine is practically unheard of... I don't think any historic forgery could have so many points made about it, arguable or not, and some are not (experts disagree, Voynich lied, access was limited, opinion was paid for, etc... all inarguable, and part of the record).
Rich.