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Let us count the days

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• Let us count the days

• Let us count the days

  008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f > 16-03-2025, 10:27 AM

  The Zodiac Section Overview
  
  The Voynich Manuscript (VMS) contains an astrological section featuring 10 zodiac signs. Two signs appear to have been removed from the original sequence. The remaining sequence begins with Pisces and continues through to Sagittarius.
  Astrological images of this type and era typically convey specific information: the day and month of the year, degrees within the zodiac ecliptic, religious holidays, celestial timings, and similar data. This makes the zodiac section a promising candidate for locating numerical systems, as such charts essentially function as organized lists of numbers.
  
  Visual Structure of the Charts
  
  A review of the zodiac images reveals a series of characters, predominantly female with some male figures. Many (though not all) have their hands reaching toward or connecting with stars. These figures are arranged in concentric circles, with "words" assigned to their star connections as well as appearing above and below them in many cases.
  
  It's worth noting that the month names written in these zodiac charts appear inconsistent with standard astrological knowledge. Zodiac signs do not correspond directly to specific months—each sign spans portions of two months. This suggests the month names may be later additions by someone with limited astrological expertise.
  
  Identifying Numbers in the Zodiac Charts
  
  My approach was to search for numbers by considering what information would typically appear within each zodiac sign. The Pisces/Aries charts seemed particularly interesting since Pisces marks the end of the zodiac year while Aries marks the beginning. This boundary condition should reveal distinctive numerical patterns.
  
  What numbers would we expect to find here? Pisces occupies the 330-360 degree range of the zodiac, and we know the Julian year in the 15th century consisted of 365 days. Therefore, the numbers from 330-365 could represent either degrees or days of the year.
  After broader examination of the zodiac tables, it became apparent that the female figures likely represent days of the year, while their connections to stars represent degrees in the zodiac cycle. This hypothesis is supported by the numerical proportions: there should be more women than star connections since there are more days in the year (365) than degrees in a circle (360). Indeed, each zodiac sign typically contains 28-30 female figures, corresponding to the number of days in that month, and careful study reveals that not all have star assignments.
  
  Analysis of Aries and Pisces Charts
  
  Returning to the Aries chart on folio 70v1, the innermost circle lacks "words" while all other circles contain them. This suggests the beginning of a sequence where connections from preceding zodiac signs would otherwise appear. This positioning makes sense given the manuscript's ordering, indicating this folio is likely the first in a new sequence.
  
  In the Pisces chart (folio You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), an interesting arrangement of female figures appears on the inner circle around the 10 o'clock position. Two figures face each other, with one joined to a third by what resembles a "pipe" or channel forming what looks like the number "0".
  
  
  Decoding the Numerical System
  
  The two facing figures have the "words" "otaral" and "otalar" associated with them. This pairing is intriguing because they contain identical characters but with the 'r' and 'l' positions swapped. Considering what numbers in the expected sequence of 330-365 might appear with such a relationship, 356 and 365 emerged as promising candidates.
  
  If we take "otalar" to represent 356 and count the 8 women clockwise around the inner circle, we reach "otaral" at the 365 position. This provides some validation that these pairs might indeed represent those numbers. 365 represents the last day in Pisces and the end of the Zodiac year. I assume that's why the "pipe" connection looks like a "0", a new start.
  
  A Roman Numeral-Like System?
  
  This pattern suggests a positional numbering system similar to Roman numerals, where the value depends on evaluating preceding and subsequent numbers as part of a whole. Characters' values can be modified by their neighbors and cannot be interpreted in isolation. This might explain why many VMS words have an overabundance of specific characters in certain positions and why the text doesn't conform to typical European language patterns.
  
  Proposed Number Mapping
  
  Based on this analysis, I propose the following mappings:

  • otaral = 031514
    
  • otalar = 031415
    

  
  The key assumption is that numbers are treated as column pairs that must be summed to derive their final values:

  • 0+3=3
    
  • 1+5=6
    
  • 1+4=5
    
  • Total: 365
    

  
  This system functions similarly to Roman numerals conceptually, without being Roman numerals. Indeed it may just be a columnar representation of digits.
  
  Central Pisces Symbol Analysis
  
  Looking at the center of the Pisces sign, we see two fish connected to a star with the word "otolal" (note: the Voynichese site lists this as "otylal," but closer examination suggests this is an error).
  
  
  Applying our decoding method to "otolal" gives us 030415 and 345. This fits perfectly within the expected degree range for Pisces (330-360).
  
  Onward
  
  Hopefully by solving enough of the numbers we can have a foothold on the letters and progress from there. The structure of the numbers also suggests pairing of characters which would be a good way to obfuscate the underlying letter frequencies (first by breaking them up into pairs, but then even more so by having multiple pairs that can represent a plain-text character). As I suggested earlier, this approach to encoding a cipher would result in the identified characteristics spotted in the VMS (namely that looking at single characters evidences serious deficiencies in expected representations and data density).

• RE: Let us count the days

  oshfdk > 16-03-2025, 02:30 PM

  Looks interesting. Overall, I like how the top five labels form a pattern:
  
  otaram otaral otalar otalam
  ot[o/y]lal
  
  I'm not sure this pattern (if we read the top as 364, 365, 356, 357) is compatible with your interpretation, though?
  
     

• RE: Let us count the days

  008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f > 16-03-2025, 02:49 PM

  (16-03-2025, 02:30 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Looks interesting. Overall, I like how the top five labels form a pattern:
  
  otaram otaral otalar otalam
  ot[o/y]lal
  
  I'm not sure this pattern (if we read the top as 364, 365, 356, 357) is compatible with your interpretation, though?

  
  I think it validates it, if you start at 356 and count your way clockwise along the female characters you'll land on 365 8 places away, or am I misunderstanding?

• RE: Let us count the days

  oshfdk > 16-03-2025, 03:06 PM

  (16-03-2025, 02:49 PM)008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it validates it, if you start at 356 and count your way clockwise along the female characters you'll land on 365 8 places away, or am I misunderstanding?

  
  If I understand it correctly, you are counting days clockwise from otalar (356) to otaral (365), in which case otalam, immediately following otalar, should be 357 and otaram, immediately preceding otaral, should be 364, but they both end in -am.

• RE: Let us count the days

  008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f > 16-03-2025, 03:15 PM

  (16-03-2025, 03:06 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (16-03-2025, 02:49 PM)008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it validates it, if you start at 356 and count your way clockwise along the female characters you'll land on 365 8 places away, or am I misunderstanding?

  
  If I understand it correctly, you are counting days clockwise from otalar (356) to otaral (365), in which case otalam, immediately following otalar, should be 357 and otaram, immediately preceding otaral, should be 364, but they both end in -am.

  
  Ah, I see. So "otaram" is a strange one, it appears as "otar am", I'm not super sure what function the space serves so I pass on that one. More generally the "m" character appears to be a special case based on its positioning at the end of a word. Which is all a long way of saying "I don't know and I'd need to spend more time puzzling out the many, many remainders behind this idea".

• RE: Let us count the days

  davidma > 16-03-2025, 03:24 PM

  Looks promising; there is a 2020 paper by Matlach, Dostal and Janeckova  (VM: Symbol Roles Revised) which basically argues that the entire VM is a cipher, and that the complex characters are ligatures of simpler ones, which brings down the total count of characters to 10 (which the authors argue fit well with a basic number sequence: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). 
  
  Funnily enough, if you have a look at f49v, there is a sequence of characters and more interestingly of numbers 1 to 5 in the same hand and ink than the rest of the page. 
  
  It would be interesting to see if any other "values" could be derived on the Pisces zodiac folio. There are 10 figures in the inner circle and 19 in the outer one, I've copied the vords below, starting at North-West and going clockwise.
  
  Inner:
  
  1: otar am
  2: otaral
  3: otalar
  4: otalam
  5: dolaram
  6: okaram
  7: oteosal
  8: salols
  9: okaldal
  10: ykolaiin
  
  Outer: 
  
  1: otar
  2: oty
  3: okyody
  4: otyar
  5: okaly
  6: otody
  7: otald
  8: otaldar
  9: okody
  10: opysam
  11: chckhhy
  12: otaly
  13: otal rar
  14: otal dy
  15: okeoly
  16: okydy
  17: okeer
  18: otalalg
  19: okady

• RE: Let us count the days

  oshfdk > 16-03-2025, 03:30 PM

  (16-03-2025, 03:15 PM)008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ah, I see. So "otaram" is a strange one, it appears as "otar am", I'm not super sure what function the space serves so I pass on that one. More generally the "m" character appears to be a special case based on its positioning at the end of a word. Which is all a long way of saying "I don't know and I'd need to spend more time puzzling out the many, many remainders behind this idea".

  
  It is not specific to -m, if it was otaran and otalan the problem would remain.
  
  In general, as far as I can see, the counting validates your idea only if the 8 labels between otalal and otaral are sequential days. If they are not sequential days, then there could be any number of them and there is no special meaning to there being exactly 8 labels.
  
  Which means otaram (or otar,am) should be 364 and otalam should be 357. Also, there is okaram at the position where the number should be 359.
  
  It's quite possible that you are onto something, but to me it looks like it's not as simple as adding adjacent character values, if the sequence is supposed to represent sequential numbers.

• RE: Let us count the days

  davidma > 16-03-2025, 04:02 PM

  If you count the labels on the zodiac folios, you get 29 for March, 15 for April 1 and 2 (so 30 for the month), 15 for May 1 and 2 (so again 30), 29 for June, 30 for July, 30 for August, 30 for September, October, November and December. Could these be days? or "zodiac" coordinates?
  
  Interestingly, march is the only one with a "label" star in the central circle, which adds up to 30. And in the June zodiac there is a figure in the outer circle with no label, the only case in the Zodiac folios. Perhaps the scribe forgot to add a label to that one
  
  Which would make all zodiacs have 30 labels. And each zodiac sign is 30 degrees, so arguably it would make sense for each label to be a degree.

• RE: Let us count the days

  008348dc760f858fd668476b75fb6f > 16-03-2025, 04:14 PM

  (16-03-2025, 04:02 PM)davidma Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you count the labels on the zodiac folios, you get 29 for March, 15 for April 1 and 2 (so 30 for the month), 15 for May 1 and 2 (so again 30), 29 for June, 30 for July, 29 for August, 30 for September, October, November and December. Could these be days? or "zodiac" coordinates?

  
  So, I'd count the characters (women/men) as days and the stars as degrees of the zodiac. Sometimes you'll be missing a person or two but then there they are, right in the middle as part of the zodiac sign (e.g 2 characters of gemini).
  You have 30 degrees in each sign and a variable number of days in each sign. The labels in different positions likely represent different things, two of which I propose are degrees of the zodiac ecliptic and the day of the zodiac year.
  
  Have a look at the Catalan Atlas, it's a really near description of the kind of data astrological calendars would include.
  
  The Julian calendar was pretty volatile at this time in history, a century or so later it's replaced by the Gregorian calendar so things changed.e.g my understanding is that on a leap year you'd have Feb 24th appearing twice, instead of adding a day to the end as we do today.
  
  Currently reading through Symbol Roles Revised, frustratingly I don't see a clear indication on how they think all the characters map to each other. There are some likely ligature to character mappings but not a complete layout. Still, I like the idea of considering the ligatures in this context. I need to have a think to see if there's some way for me to try and resolve characters to likely ligature compounds.
  
  p.s thank you for the pointer to f49v, in all my time looking I've not seen those numbers before 
  
  "Which would make all zodiacs have 30 labels. And each zodiac sign is 30 degrees, so arguably it would make sense for each label to be a degree."
  So, not all women/men are connected to a star. Most are but some are not. Meaning there are more days than degrees. It's kind of a Where's Wally puzzle finding the unconnected sneaky ones.

• RE: Let us count the days

  davidma > 16-03-2025, 05:16 PM

  "Which would make all zodiacs have 30 labels. And each zodiac sign is 30 degrees, so arguably it would make sense for each label to be a degree."
  So, not all women/men are connected to a star. Most are but some are not. Meaning there are more days than degrees. It's kind of a Where's Wally puzzle finding the unconnected sneaky ones.
  
  The Zodiacs with labels without stars are June, July, August, September and December. There is 1 or 2 missing from June (looks more like 2 but one of them has a "blotchy" star next to it, but looks more like a patch on the vellum rather than a star with no borders as found on the same zodiac folio), 2 missing from July, 1 missing from August, September and December. Could it be scribal forgetfulness? After all, it looks pretty obvious they forgot to add the label on the June zodiac since it is the only figure with no label, so it wouldn't be impossible that the scribe simply forgot to draw a star for some of these, especially since a couple have an arm extended but no star. Still, that would result in the below count:
  
  March: 30 labels // 30 stars
  April: 30 labels // 30 stars
  May: 30 labels // 30 stars
  June: 29 labels // 27 stars
  July: 30 labels // 28 stars
  August: 30 labels // 29 stars
  September: 30 labels // 29 stars
  October: 30 labels // 30 stars
  November: 30 labels // 30 stars
  December: 30 labels // 29 stars
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