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• Pond creatures (f79v)

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  Linda > 05-07-2016, 08:24 AM

  (05-07-2016, 05:38 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ah, I see. Yes, that's only partially. Do you have any ideas about the peculiar way the water routes are represented? I.e why it's not just a map?

  
  I think it was meant to be obscured and yet contain enough references to be understood by those already in the know, i.e. others familiar with maps and places. I see parts of it as being a commentary on existing maps of the time. Some of the diagrams seem to be exaggerated versions of the confusing images repeatedly portrayed in old maps. Some seem to remind us what certain sea bodies look like under different water level circumstances. I have yet to see an old map showing the red sea islands as they appear now, perhaps they knew that it was wrong and were commenting, but did not want to go against the powers that be, so kept their work exclusive by making a large body of water look like a pond to the casual observer.
  
  It's very interesting looking at all the copied Ptolemy maps and their differences. I had recently rethought my identification of the Armenia page and decided that the 90 degree river was the Araxes and the big green lake was both Urmia and Van, because of the divide between the two parts, as I was wondering why Van wasn't represented, and so this seemed appropriate to me to look at it this way. To my astonishment I found this is indeed how the lakes are portrayed in some of the Ptolemiac maps, as one lake divided by a mountain, and with the 90 degree river leading from them. Today I was looking at the Tabula Asiae maps of India and also the Caspian Sea, and again I found some that show things I see in the manuscript, and some that don't.
  
  I'm hoping there is a pattern to it and will show the same sets are what they saw, perhaps it can put a place and/or time to the manuscript's making. Some of the 14th and 15th century maps also show these details. So far this has bolstered my belief in what I think I see, so I'm trying to put together some of these examples into a new paper. Have been working on only 3 of the pages so far, and haven't yet documented the maps, so I have a long way to go before it will be ready in its entirety, but I'll try to put some images together soon to post here. I also see similar commentary in the rosettes especially in the swirly one with the T-O map attached, have a paper started on that too.

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  -JKP- > 11-03-2017, 05:10 AM

  Koen, I couldn't find the other thread on this plant but I thought I would post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that shows a plant that matches the features fairly well. It always has twin leaves and a single stalk coming out from between the leaves with grape-like buds along the top (in the spring). There are a number of plants shaped like this and they often have names like two-blade, twayblade, bifolium, etc. Listera is not the only plant with twin leaves, thready roots, and small knobby buds but is fairly widespread and is included in old herbals.

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  Koen G > 11-03-2017, 08:16 AM

  JKP: which plant do you mean, and how did you end up in the pond creatures thread?

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  -JKP- > 11-03-2017, 02:00 PM

  (11-03-2017, 08:16 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP: which plant do you mean, and how did you end up in the pond creatures thread?

  
  It's a response to post #15 (about the small plants section).

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  -JKP- > 16-09-2018, 01:16 AM

  I've often wondered if the pond critters on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are a simple collection of "monsters", not intended to be specific animals. Many bestiaries and natural history books had a page or a section devoted to "monsters" or strange animals that they weren't quite sure were real.
  
  Often these monsters were shown in water, as in Lauber's Buch der Natur that I blogged about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
  
  
  
  
  Note that there is a reptilian-looking "monster" in this group, and there is also a VMS pond critter that is somewhat reptilian. There is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the other pond who has no arms, almost as though she is being swallowed by her tail, with a pond critter very much like the other VMS pond critter (pic posted You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. halfway down on the left):
  
  
  
  Here is an example from the LOC Buch der Natur of "monsters" not in water:
  
  
  
  
  There are many medieval and Renaissance manuscripts with a page or a pond (or ocean) full of "monsters".
  
  
  
  It's the concept of "monsters" that is being expressed in both examples, even if they are different style and content, and perhaps the VMS pond is also expressing the concept of "monsters" (with one of them big enough to swallow a woman), rather than being specific animals.

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  Linda > 18-02-2019, 09:01 PM

  Further to the monster idea, i had the idea they could be related to fossils, among other things.
  
  Previously i had thought they represented landforms, and still do. Recently i came to the conclusion that they are volcano related, as my identification of the area puts them in areas of volcanic islands and the East African Rift is an active zone for volcanic activity. I would have expected more finials but i thought maybe they switched the icon, that perhaps it would have given things away too easily, since there is already a finial icon for a volcano on the page, plus it is not the same type of volcano, as the others are generally older dormant or extinct types, and these are more active.
  
  Then i thought maybe fossils are also indicated. Even by Kircher's time 200 years later, fossils were not well understood, and rocks that resembled things were also considered as such. So in that way it combines geology and biology, plus hints at evolution.
  
  
  
  So, i started to think that this page, beyond my regular geographical, hydrological, and now volcanic interpretations, could be talking about things seen in rock.. It seems to fit, since not much would be known about it, but obviously through time there would be such discoveries of fossils and the like.
  
  
  This includes actual fossils, especially volcanic fossils, like how things are preserved in ash, and may show the actual shape of the living creature that was fossilized, but possibly it also includes rocks that look like things, and things seemingly portrayed on rock or of rock
  
  
  Camel Rock at Al Wajh, Saudi Arabia. Just an example of an anthropomorphized rock.
  
  Bear with me because the juxtaposition of real fossils, things that look like fossils, and things that look like pictures in rock, along with volcanic activity are all kind of swirling around in my head, just trying to make sense of it as i go...just going to let some free association happen and see what comes out...
  
  Fossilization could explain the deadness of the look of some of these animals, ie an actual animal found seemingly made from stone? An imprint in the ash? Just features that are so rugged as to lend themselves to seeing things in it? Bones found, so they know there were animals there? Maybe older bones, really big bones?
  
  
  These are found in the area between the nile and the red sea. 
  
  This is an animal preserved by Vesuvius ash. It strikes me as reminiscent of the red animal in the manuscript.
  
  
  
   
  
  In this pic of JKP's it shows some sort of flow coming off the red animal, could it mean lava or ash flow, or silt flow? The animal' colouration is well known to be associated with hot, and would be near Yemen, where the new volcanic islands are forming now. The lines look similar to those drawn on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at the bottom of the ring lady diagram where it looks like silt to me. This is saying something about a delta? Like before it joined to the Aden straight perhaps! It is interesting to see the Persia Gulf from the other side bleed through because they both reach into the greater Arabian Sea in a similar way, and if you take this to be purposeful, then it looks even more like the red sea when you include the bleed through portion that doesn't overlap. Maybe that is fanciful on my part, but it seems visually poetic somehow, especially if it tells the story of how the sea came to join with the ocean. 
  
  It seems some think that to be the case, it may have been a land bridge at some point and was evidently a major route of migration out of Africa. The routes of the entire quire can be seen as backwards flow of time, if seen as migration patterns. This idea links to the zodiac ages, and gives the idea of movement through time and space.
  
   
  
   
  
  Islands can also disappear due to volcanic activity. Could the colours indicate the many colors of the islands themselves? Or, does the bent shape of the red animal show it to be an actual erupted volcano, as the shape is very reminiscent of a caldera. 
  
   
  
  Perhaps it refers to the type of rock found there, recognized to incorporate previously living material?
  
   
  
  Or maybe it is everything i have mentioned rolled up into a morphing view, like so many other parts of the manuscript. Or maybe none of it has anything to do with it, but it seems that way to me. 
  
  I see the one that is half in, half out of the water as basically showing the East African Rift, actually, the triple junction thereof. The body is basically the Afar Triangle.  
  
  
  
  What do we find at the Afar Triangle? You guessed it. More volcanoes.
  
    
  
  For a long time i thought, and still do, the islands in the red sea make a bit of a face. So the three animals together on one side of the pond make it look a bit like the red sea to me, being analogous to three main clumps of islands.
  
  
  
  It also makes the whole sea look sort of like the fish to me, it seems to be drawn with a double tail, just like the red sea has the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba as its tail.
  
  The fish also resembles to me the rift in the sea that takes a bend toward the east.
  
  Look at stage d for the turn. Now look at the rocks in that area of the shore. It joins into a silty sandy lagoon at that point, as if a large amount of water once coursed through there and deposited sand into the rift.
  
  
  
  Here it is in more detail of colour by elevation. See the pink figure that looks like someone with outstretched arms?
  
  
  
  So, turn it so the sea is horizontal, with that colour zone upright and what does that look like? To me it looks like that is where the nymph is drawn on the green pond, including the spray of silty water on her hand.
  
  
  
  What is really freaky to me is the satellite view of where her right hand would be (or the left side, as we look at her, since she is not real).
  
  
  
  Look at the bottom right corner and imagine it is turned 45 degrees so that the spray is coming down on the light coloured hand. But of course it is not water, but the remains of erosion on the landscape from water or lava flow or both. The hand itself is a bunch of volcanos. Very alien looking when you zoom in on google maps, like it should be found on a moon around Jupiter or something. Also, note there seems to be a kind of shoreline here, this follows the green of the pond, it is not the current red sea but ancient lava shoreline, the current shoreline jives with the hole she is standing in, ie where the nymph stands in the fish, it is circular like some if the bucket things other nymphs stand in, i now think of them as sheltered ports or lagoons.
  
  This is the area that appears to be a naturally protected port near where the rift joins the landscape. It is the light blue area seen below.
  
   
  
  The other hand is also a volcano, marked by the red pin above. Instead of stretched out like the phantom of the elevation, the nymph's other arm points downward. I used to think it looked like she was holding something in the drawing, but it is a trick of the green paint. Or maybe it is purposefully so. If you look for the analogous spot on the landscape, you find a black volcanic area with fingerlike appendages that seem to hold something. This pic is oriented upside down, take a look at the pic above to orient it.
  
  
  
  It just seems like all these anomalous formations in the landscape are being pointed out. Figures in the rocks. Not fossils, but geologically historical nonethless. If fossils are also involved then life comes into the mix of fire and water again.
  
  I think Koen is right about there being layers in the depictions, and stories of transformations to rock or other such metamorphoses could well figure into the mix.

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  -JKP- > 18-02-2019, 10:42 PM

  Linda, I'm completely with you on this.
  
  The possibility of there being geographical representations (or something else) coded into the way things are drawn (and possibly even into the text) seems quite possible to me and you used exactly the picture that made me wonder about it (the pond critter where I removed some of the green paint to show the "flower" tail that looks like a strange flowing shape).
  
  
  
  After I You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I remember looking at that for a long long time and thinking, "What is really going on here and why did they hide that (and other things) under the paint?"

  • Was it because the painter was obscuring something that was too obvious to the casual viewer, that might give something away?
    
  • Was it a change of mind?
    
  • Was it a reference to something related to the critter in some proverb or myth (like a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., for example)?
    
  • Or was it because the painter didn't understand the significance of the illustrator's shapes and covered it up as anomalous or "unimportant"?
    

  It wasn't just one tail, it was two.
  
  
  FWIW, I'm pretty certain these pond critters were drawn by the same illustrator who drew the zodiac symbols. The confusion in hind-leg anatomy is the same as the zodiac animals and it's quite uncommon for this particular anatomical error to be made in quite this way. I collected thousands of examples of medieval animals and only found a VERY small number that show this strange propensity (one of which was in the Lauber manuscript I referenced You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
  
  
  As for whether the painter and the illustrator were the same person, I'm still unsure. I'm pretty certain there were at least two painters and I don't get the feeling that the sloppy one could have made these careful drawings. They are not expert drawings, the artistry is not good, but they are still moderately careful, within the skills of the person doing them.

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  Linda > 19-02-2019, 01:41 PM

  (18-02-2019, 10:42 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Linda, I'm completely with you on this.
  
  The possibility of there being geographical representations (or something else) coded into the way things are drawn (and possibly even into the text) seems quite possible to me and you used exactly the picture that made me wonder about it (the pond critter where I removed some of the green paint to show the "flower" tail that looks like a strange flowing shape).
  
  
  
  After I You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I remember looking at that for a long long time and thinking, "What is really going on here and why did they hide that (and other things) under the paint?"

  • Was it because the painter was obscuring something that was too obvious to the casual viewer, that might give something away?
    
  • Was it a change of mind?
    
  • Was it a reference to something related to the critter in some proverb or myth (like a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., for example)?
    
  • Or was it because the painter didn't understand the significance of the illustrator's shapes and covered it up as anomalous or "unimportant"?
    

  It wasn't just one tail, it was two.
  
  
  FWIW, I'm pretty certain these pond critters were drawn by the same illustrator who drew the zodiac symbols. The confusion in hind-leg anatomy is the same as the zodiac animals and it's quite uncommon for this particular anatomical error to be made in quite this way. I collected thousands of examples of medieval animals and only found a VERY small number that show this strange propensity (one of which was in the Lauber manuscript I referenced You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
  
  
  As for whether the painter and the illustrator were the same person, I'm still unsure. I'm pretty certain there were at least two painters and I don't get the feeling that the sloppy one could have made these careful drawings. They are not expert drawings, the artistry is not good, but they are still moderately careful, within the skills of the person doing them.

  
  Well, let's see, free association again. The tail on the blue one reminds me of the tail on the river near the bottom right on f80v. 
  
  I cant imagine what that would mean though, except another river to be denoted here? Like there used to be a river but it got covered up by sea?
  
  Or is it like you mention a similarity with Scorpio? The age of Scorpio maybe? Circa 20000 BC. 
  
  Hmmm. Evidently this is during the ice age and people clustered in these areas, possibly because of the volcanism for more warmth? The animals would cluster there too.
  
  
  
  This is a DNA cluster map from about that time. They disappear from Arabia after the ice age ends. That seems like quite a coincidence.
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  May be related to the stone gates in the volcano fields, although generally they say 7,000 to 10,000 b.c for that, but some have been reclaimed by the earth so maybe longer.
  
  I guess they would have deified the volcanos? I dont really see anything familiar in the ancient stones though, at least not with respect to the manuscript page we are talking about.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  Wow. Are these the finials that are meant to be volcanoes? Circle leading to a tunnel through the earth.
  
  Maybe the paint is purposely on top because these are places that got covered up with water at a later time, like recording change. The island areas were mainland then. The pattern of that end of the sea in this pic looks a bit like that tail on the red animal.
  
  
  
  I read something about there being not much in the way of fossils, or not as many as they would expect. It is probably all under water.
  
  Also the yellow animal now reminds me of the Cerberes that Marco just posted, except of course it has only one head. 
  
  
  
  The tail on that yellow animal seems similar to the Awash river 
  
  
  
  Well, that is all i can think of for now. What do you think? Anything relevant?

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  -JKP- > 19-02-2019, 11:52 PM

  Linda, it's so hard to know how it might be interpreted.
  
  For one, there is the question of scale. Let's pretend for a moment that there are geographical details in the VMS...
  
  
  How big or how small are these details in relation to real structures, and how big or small are they in relation to each other?
  
  
  And then there's the different mindset that people in the Middle Ages had about "reality". The line between myth and science was very thin (and sometimes nonexistent).
  
  And are they meant to be read as a literal geographical map? Or as a symbolic map? Or as a mythical map?
  
  I have seen a "map" in a British manuscript that was actually a "map" of classical scholars. Another was a map of the seven hills of Greece (which have a lot of mythical significance related to the gods, but also actually exist in real life).

• RE: Pond creatures (f79v)

  Linda > 20-02-2019, 02:31 PM

  (19-02-2019, 11:52 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Linda, it's so hard to know how it might be interpreted.
  
  For one, there is the question of scale. Let's pretend for a moment that there are geographical details in the VMS...
  
  
  How big or how small are these details in relation to real structures, and how big or small are they in relation to each other?
  
  
  And then there's the different mindset that people in the Middle Ages had about "reality". The line between myth and science was very thin (and sometimes nonexistent).
  
  And are they meant to be read as a literal geographical map? Or as a symbolic map? Or as a mythical map?
  
  I have seen a "map" in a British manuscript that was actually a "map" of classical scholars. Another was a map of the seven hills of Greece (which have a lot of mythical significance related to the gods, but also actually exist in real life).

  
  I think the cross staff gives a clue, things which can be seen are bigger than they appear to the eye.
  
  
  
  This is the area i think is shown. You are right about strange orientations. The Persian Gulf is on the previous page, and is not part of this page other than reference.  The first two nymphs are those two bays in India in a north south orientation. Note the first one is connected to a river, that would be the Indus. Then turn the map 45 degrees so that they are at the top.The next one is the Gulf of Oman. From there you can get back to the Persian Gulf or go on to the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, i think that is what that one says. The next tube thing describes the Gulf of Aden, which in this orientation does look like a funnel type thing, and now the red sea looks horizontal as well. 
  
  I really believe it is showing a tour of the major lakes, seas, gulfs and rivers and how they interact with each other. Ive been taking it to the extreme in terms of what time period is being shown but if the zodiac describes ages of civilization then i think it is a plausible consideration. 
  
  There could well be further alternate symbolism beyond that.
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