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[split] Darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

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  • [split] Darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
• [split] Darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

• RE: [split] Darker ink, retracing of text and drawings

  oshfdk > 3 hours ago

  If there are any examples from f70v1 or f71r, I can make channel split images from the MSIs. They are a bit higher resolution and much better at separating inks from the vellum.

• RE: Pisces (Folio 70v) and the New Year on the 1st of March in the Republic of Venice

  Jorge_Stolfi > 39 minutes ago

  (4 hours ago)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I can see that the tip of the weird e glyph in y keeody wasn't very visible and that the plumes of r and n were very faint, but it still looks like a single character written once and not a retracing, but that's about it.

  
  So we seem to agree that on those (and several other) words there are both dark strokes and very faint ones.  The dispute is whether both were drawn at the same time, and came out different because of ink flow effects; or the word was written once, was or became faint, and then was carefully, but not always completely, retraced with dark ink.  Is that a good summary of the issue?
  
  As evidence for the second view, let me point again to my example #3 in this gallery
  
  
  
  (Note that the label is almost upside down here.)
  
  In this image, the dark strokes create two invalid glyphs, a reversed "i" with serif and an incomplete infinity symbol.  I don't see how those symbols could be interpreted as valid glyphs with some parts missing.  Whoever drew the dark strokes definitely drew them in the wrong place and with the wrong shape.   I can make sense of the "infinity" only by assuming that the original was a "ch" (whose ligature I think I can see poking out in the middle of the "infinity") that was retraced by someone who mistook the two "e" strokes for two joined circles.  And the reversed "i" before it was perhaps an "e" whose bottom half was too faint, and was mistook for a straight stroke with a serif.
  
  In example #4, the "i" stroke after the "a"/"o" would be a valid glyph, but the word endings "oi" and "ai" are very rare, if they occur at all.  On the other hand "or" and "ar" are very common words; and indeed I think I can see a very faint "r"-plume that starts at that "i" stroke, glances off the nymph's hand, and curls above the gap between that "i" and the next glyph.   I am sure that anyone who was familiar with the Voynichese alphabet (like the Scribe who wrote most of the VMs) and with "typical" word patterns would have guessed an "r" there.
  
  These examples are all from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. because it is the image I had at hand at the time.  I will try to show examples from other pages too.
  
  Even if my interpretation is correct, it will make little difference for the understanding of the text of the VMs -- since the hypothetical Retracer was obviously very careful there, and the errors that he made (like that "infinity" above) would be negligible compared to all the other errors that are likely to exist.  One place where this question may be relevant is the 17 x 4 sequence on page f57v: the failures in the repetition may be due to incorrect retracing.
  
  The retracing may have a greater impact in the interpretation of figures, since certain puzzling details -- like the crown on the Libra page, or the barrels at the top of Sagittarius -- appear to have been wholly created by the Retracer from nothing.
  
  All the best, --jorge

• RE: Pisces (Folio 70v) and the New Year on the 1st of March in the Republic of Venice

  oshfdk > 11 minutes ago

  (39 minutes ago)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So we seem to agree that on those (and several other) words there are both dark strokes and very faint ones.  The dispute is whether both were drawn at the same time, and came out different because of ink flow effects; or the word was written once, was or became faint, and then was carefully, but not always completely, retraced with dark ink.  Is that a good summary of the issue?

  
  Yes, this is a good summary.
  
  

  (39 minutes ago)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In this image, the dark strokes create two invalid glyphs, a reversed "i" with serif and an incomplete infinity symbol.  I don't see how those symbols could be interpreted as valid glyphs with some parts missing. 

  
  The infinity symbol is rare, but still appears a few times in the MS. Probably this is just e and o jammed together. There has been a discussion about these fused symbols, I think it was Dobri who started it. Here's the thread You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and I'm attaching a sample image of fused characters I made for that thread. So, yes, it's rare, but I don't think it's an invalid character in the sense that by producing it the scribe indicated their lack of knowledge of the script.
  
  As for "reversed "i" with serif", I think there are a lot of base minim/curve variations in the MS, so I'm not sure this symbol is particularly strange, it's just not the most common version. If needed I can try hunting for more examples, I don't have them ready.
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