RE: Greatest unexpected clues about VMS?
MichelleL11 > 14-02-2021, 07:21 PM
Okay, Pyth -- I'll bite.
Keep in mind I'm coming up on my one year anniversary at this problem that is the VM, so I am still a newbie, but here are my impressions/opinion on this topic.
I am coming to realize that there is really nothing in the VM that is truly "unexpected," only avenues of investigation that haven't been fully researched. Or perhaps, if they have been fully researched, the extensive amount of time since the manuscript was written (and the attitudes prevalent during that intervening time about the possible "evils" of written work) or the vagaries of academic scanning means that the materials needed to see a particular aspect of the manuscript as "expected" are just not available.
That's not to say there there is nothing unusual or even unique about the manuscript, just that the great, great majority of what is there can be found elsewhere, in parallel forms. Given the situation it is going to be very difficult to ever definitely say that any part of it (including the text and its characteristics) are somehow telling "clues" to who, what, where, when and why than merely saying its the product of the times (which I see as the 15th century).
Of course, I would love to be wrong about this and have some sort of document show up that allows a really good match -- whether it's some sort of Zodiac-like cycle that shares so many parallels that it must be a source, or the holy grail of some sort of "key" to the text.
I know how "privileged" I am in being comfortable in making such a conclusion -- and I am well aware that such a conclusion was not available at times when people on this board were actively studying the VM. But I do think that seeking that "unexpected" clue is likely not to bear fruit and will merely be reflective of a misunderstanding of a culture that was so far in the past from ours.
You can say I'm being semantic -- but really and truly I don't believe any of this is "unexpected."
I readily admit that this realization was a process and the hardest one for me to let go of is the seemingly complete lack of a "consistent" pattern to the text that could allow it to be transformed into the plaintext of a language that has the similar traditions as the imagery. But again, this is completely consistent with the times -- where spelling was optional and very fluid, cryptography (and the downsides for not using a pattern) was likely still not universally understood, and it was routine to just leave off letters from words because everyone "knew" what they were from context. Alternatively, we may have to wait for computer technology to reach a point where so much information loss can be filled in -- but there are obviously practical limits to this no matter how much computing power you have.
So, there it is -- research whatever aspects of the VM that seem "unexpected" to you -- but keep in mind, if you keep at it hard enough, you will likely find that such aspect is an expected result of the times and may be much less "telling" to answering the open questions than you would prefer.