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RE: Help me out here
Bluetoes101 > 17-01-2025, 06:17 PM
(17-01-2025, 05:48 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(17-01-2025, 03:35 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.quire 13 is completely out of order
Analysis suggests that the majority of the manuscript sections were written sheet-by-sheet and not in book page order.
Do you have a link to this? -
RE: Help me out here
dashstofsk > 17-01-2025, 07:48 PM
(17-01-2025, 06:17 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(17-01-2025, 05:48 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Analysis suggests that the majority of the manuscript sections were written sheet-by-sheet and not in book page order.
Do you have a link to this?
Of course I don't have definite proof. But it is a strong hypothesis given that the manuscript is in a mixture of 'hands' and 'languages'. Read the opinions of a professional: figure 8 and table 1 in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. highlight what seems to have happened. In particular you will read 'This very unusual collaboration method bears emphasizing: the work of Scribes 1 and 2 (and 5) in the botanical section varies by bifolia - not by page, text, or quire.' This is enough to suggest to me that it might be so. -
RE: Help me out here
Bluetoes101 > 17-01-2025, 09:15 PM
I'll take a took but unless Lisa has changed her opinion recently I know that she felt it may have been created in a workshop by several people working on different bits and sharing ideas.
As for the order, if you consider Q13 to not be entirely transparent with its imagery the manuscript follows a pretty typical pattern. Ingredients > Processing (Q13) > Finished products > Recipes. "Processing" being heavily interlinked with astrology and cosmology is very typical, especially if you consider our "ingredients" are plants and our "Finished products" could then be processed plants in some way for a purpose. I think when you look at it this way it doesn't look like a jumble, more a few pages out of order and Q13 is weird.
That's just my take on it, I'm no expert. I do recall seeing an extremely well done post about the binding of the manuscript on this forum though, it is likely in "physical material" and might be something that interests you. -
RE: Help me out here
dashstofsk > 17-01-2025, 09:50 PM
(17-01-2025, 06:16 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(17-01-2025, 05:48 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To those of us like myself who have come to the conclusion that the text of the manuscript must be meaningless it really makes little difference if some of the sheets are not in their original order.
Why do you think it must be meaningless? Is it mainly because all attempts of finding any meaning have not been successful?
Of course I have no proof that it is meaningless, and it is not simple. I will just summarise the main points.
It is my conclusion after having spent a lot of time on the manuscript. Initially I though it could be writing in a known language. I endeavoured to try to find some linguistic patterns in the text to prove this. But I was unsuccessful. I used the statistical techniques of hypothesis testing to analyse the text, and found that the text was outside the bounds of statistical confidence. In short there were too many statistical anomalies in the text for it to be a genuine language. I also read the attempts of other people, many of them professionals in their field who used deep computational algorithms. They also were unsuccessful. Almost every language has been put forward as a candidate. No luck so far in that field.
If not in a known language then perhaps in cypher? This seemed to me to be even less plausible and raised a number of questions. The biggest one being why? ( See my post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) Also then how could this explain the differences in the language clusters? A and B being the significant ones, both very similar but at the same time both different. Two cypher books? Doubly complicated.
So what is left? Meaningless text. To the question ‘why’ I found that I had a plausible answer. The scenario I can envisage is that the author wanted to fabricate some bogus writing, fill it with claims about secret magic ( herbal medicine, astrology and other sciences ), claim that it came from some distant land where they used a strange alphabet, and make profit from it. The manuscripts would have been of immense curiosity and would have been greatly prized, and the author might have been able to command a substantial profit. I feel this can also offer a suggestion for the order in which the sections were written and an explanation for the variable professionalism in the illustrations ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ). Also it can explain the language differences ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ).
So, meaningless text seems to me to be the most plausible hypothesis. -
RE: Help me out here
R. Sale > 17-01-2025, 10:49 PM
"Meaning" has not been found in the written text. That's a fact.
"Meaning" = interesting and relevant visual interpretations have been found in the VMS illustrations. That's the place to start. -
RE: Help me out here
oshfdk > 18-01-2025, 09:22 AM
(17-01-2025, 09:50 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If not in a known language then perhaps in cypher? This seemed to me to be even less plausible and raised a number of questions. The biggest one being why? ( See my post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) Also then how could this explain the differences in the language clusters? A and B being the significant ones, both very similar but at the same time both different. Two cypher books? Doubly complicated.
Thank you for providing a detailed answer!
I agree that if this is a cipher, it's unlikely to be a book cipher, exactly for the reason you mentioned. However, I see no problem with this being another kind of cipher after all. The reason for hiding the whole text could have something to do with legal (as in "the Spanish Inquisition") implications if the text or even its topic is disclosed. Writing in an invented script with no plaintext anywhere gives a huge advantage in hiding one's handwriting and giving the option of plausible denial. If the author wrote in normal Latin (Greek, Hebrew, Arabic...) letters, it would be possible to prove the authorship by matching the handwriting. It's much harder to do this if the text is written in a custom script, not used elsewhere. Even letters similar to those of Latin alphabet show very high level of irregularity in Voynichese. I'm not sure this is the right explanation, but I think this could explain both the invented script and the total absence of plaintext. (I'm not sure Latin marginalia is original, and even if so it's certainly possible to adjust one's handwriting for 20-30 words, but certainly not for a book of 240+ pages.)
The difference in language clusters could be as simple as a variation of the underlying cipher. -
RE: Help me out here
dashstofsk > 18-01-2025, 11:52 AM
(18-01-2025, 09:22 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The reason for hiding the whole text could have something to do with legal (as in "the Spanish Inquisition") implications if the text or even its topic is disclosed.
From what I can read online ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) the mediaeval inquisitions were primarily concerned with suppressing heretical belief. Catharism in the 14th century and before. Non-christian belief in Spain following the reconquest. ( The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478. ) Then Protestantism in northern Europe. ( The protestant reformation began in 1517. ) But even so it seems that the most serious of sentences were given for only the most serious of offences. Softer sentences, something penitential 'for the salvation of the individual', were the norm. History doesn't seem to point to there being much heresy during the time of the manuscript, so it is difficult to understand what it is in the manuscript that had to be kept secret. From what I can see many manuscripts at that time had herbal illustrations, or had charts of the sky with astronomical text or illustrated the houses of the zodiac. Yet these manuscripts were written in a readable language. So why could it not have been so with the VMS? Secret writing could itself have raised suspicions. Could also have been labeled a heresy. At an extreme level it could have left the author open to the accusation of sorcery, that he was writing in the language of the devil. -
RE: Help me out here
oshfdk > 18-01-2025, 12:40 PM
(18-01-2025, 11:52 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.From what I can read online ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) the mediaeval inquisitions were primarily concerned with suppressing heretical belief. Catharism in the 14th century and before. Non-christian belief in Spain following the reconquest. ( The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478. ) Then Protestantism in northern Europe. ( The protestant reformation began in 1517. ) But even so it seems that the most serious of sentences were given for only the most serious of offences. Softer sentences, something penitential 'for the salvation of the individual', were the norm. History doesn't seem to point to there being much heresy during the time of the manuscript, so it is difficult to understand what it is in the manuscript that had to be kept secret. From what I can see many manuscripts at that time had herbal illustrations, or had charts of the sky with astronomical text or illustrated the houses of the zodiac. Yet these manuscripts were written in a readable language. So why could it not have been so with the VMS? Secret writing could itself have raised suspicions. Could also have been labeled a heresy. At an extreme level it could have left the author open to the accusation of sorcery, that he was writing in the language of the devil.
I'm sure each age and place has its own taboo topics, in 1400s Europe depending on the country this could be mocking the Pope or the royal family(-ies), accusing the church (of stifling progress or worse), promoting other religions or discussing change in governance. Or praising current or past enemies of the state.
Your last point regarding the dangers of secret writing is exactly why having an invented script that is hard to match against known handwriting would be a good choice, if one plans on denying the authorship.
I understand that the themes I listed don't match the drawings, but this was by far not an exhaustive list. On the other hand, if the actual topic is taboo, it's quite plausible that the drawings shouldn't be taken literally. After all, not a single of the drawings having universally accepted interpretation is weird, but would be understandable if, say, the author while drawing plants or stars was actually referring to something else entirely. -
RE: Help me out here
dashstofsk > 18-01-2025, 01:23 PM
(18-01-2025, 12:40 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.promoting other religions or discussing change in governance
Somehow I can't believe that the purpose of the writing was to promote an ideology. In order to succeed at such a thing you would need to proclaim it loudly, spread the word as far as possible, post the message, brief and to the point, for all and singular to read. Expensive calfskin books that no-one can read won't get your ideology far.
(18-01-2025, 12:40 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.it's quite plausible that the drawings shouldn't be taken literally.
If the drawings shouldn't be taken literally then why have them? Why waste expensive calfskin vellum? -
RE: Help me out here
oshfdk > 18-01-2025, 01:45 PM
(18-01-2025, 01:23 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Somehow I can't believe that the purpose of the writing was to promote an ideology. In order to succeed at such a thing you would need to proclaim it loudly, spread the word as far as possible, post the message, brief and to the point, for all and singular to read. Expensive calfskin books that no-one can read won't get your ideology far.
Well, I didn't say they succeeded
(18-01-2025, 01:23 PM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the drawings shouldn't be taken literally then why have them? Why waste expensive calfskin vellum?
It's not that expensive, as far as I understand. Quite suitable for some important writing. Drawings could be to explain why you keep this strange codex at home in the first place.
- Okey, now face the judge and answer, what is that?!
- Officer, it's a herbal and science book my late father brought from Africa. It's in a foreign language that I can't read, but the drawings are interesting, I'm trying to understand which plants are these.
- Isn't this the bad bad book that you wrote and that says nasty things about the cardinal, the book that our informer warned us about?
- Officer, I have no idea what you are talking about! I couldn't have written it, I don't know this language and it doesn't look like my handwriting, does it? It's obviously a foreign herbal book, look all these plants are not even local.
- Hmmm, what about these naked ladies?!
- Oh, they certainly mean no bad, look one of them is even holding a cross! I don't know what they are, how about you drop this pointless trial and join me on the quest of deciphering the Voynich Manuscript?
- The WHAT manuscript now?