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[split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
- [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
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RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Bluetoes101 > 18-12-2025, 07:26 PM
This d is really weird (in your example). You can see the normal d under/over the the dash, the sharpness and colour of the dash don't look a match for "normal Voynich"
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RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
oshfdk > 18-12-2025, 08:14 PM
(18-12-2025, 01:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:- ink defects. For example, gooey droplets of dark ink suspended in lighter ink
If this was the case, we would expect the dark strokes to be distributed much more irregularly, with many more transitions between light and dark occurring at random points in the middle of a stroke. Instead were mostly see whole glyphs traced in darker ink. The few cases of transition within a glyph generally occur in larger glyphs, or (more rarely) between whole strokes of the same glyph, like the left and right of an a of Ch.
The way I see it, imagine a gooey blob of dark ink. When it's mixed with the lighter more watery ink, it will tend to cling to the inside of the quill and let the light ink seep around it, however when the scribe makes a strong/wide stroke, the gooey part is more likely to detach and smear on the surface along the path of the nib. This would create dark patches mostly in situations when the pressure is higher and these dark patches will transition to watery ink when the blob ends.
It's also quite possible to adjust wet strokes to achieve a smooth transition to a complex flourish. In this case the scribe can first write a thick short stroke and then lift the nib, move it a bit back and continue with a light pressure precise stroke. I can execute this maneuver when I want to write a complex glyph with a quill, so certainly this wouldn't be a problem for a professional scribe, I just don't know whether they would do this or not in practice. Wet ink gives you a lot of opportunities for merging and extending strokes smoothly and without any sharp transition. However if the ink of the original strong stroke was much denser, it won't mix perfectly and there can be an abrupt transition, I think.
(18-12-2025, 01:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:- bad vellum surface.
The same objection above applies here too. Moreover, we should see many more cases of dark glyphs vertically adjacent across consecutive lines. While those cases exist, they are rather rare.
This depends on the nature of the problem with the vellum. I know nothing about this, but imagine if the folio is covered with a thin film of material that won't let the ink react with the vellum. Strong strokes with considerable pressure may just physically scratch off this film and let the ink come into direct contact with the vellum, while lighter strokes won't penetrate this thin layer. There will be transitions at the point where the pressure falls below what is needed for properly scratching this film off. The variable thickness/sturdiness of the film itself would just produce a secondary effect here, with the level of the pressure of the nib as the primary factor, which in turn depends on what glyph the scribe was writing.
- out of order writing. For example, grille based ciphers[/quote]
If true, this would be a huge discovery for those who are trying to crack the "cipher" or prove that it is gibberish.
But it seems very unlikely too. Consider the first qo in that clip. The o is practically obligatory after a q. How could the "grille method" say "leave a space after a q to be filled later with a glyph to be determined"?
[/quote]
"o" is obligatory after "q", but "q" is not obligatory in front of "o". So, these two still could have been written independently.
On the contrary, glyphs that almost always stick together - like c and h, I think are usually in the same shade of ink?
(18-12-2025, 01:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And, again, it would be sheer insanity to run any encryption method with output directly to vellum.
I don't find "sheer insanity" to be a priory incompatible with the Voynich MS. I don't think we should expect the creators of this weird manuscript to be primarily governed by rationality. Especially by rationality as we see it now.
(18-12-2025, 01:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The simplest explanation is that those dark glyphs were retraced some time (minutes or centuries) after they were first written. Maybe by the original Scribe, to straighten a glyph that came out malformed or too faint. Maybe by a later Retracer, because it was too faint. Either way, those dark glyphs are good evidence that perfect retracing is quite possible.
While the ink was still wet, it's possible to adjust the glyphs quite easily. However, if this changes the glyphs in any way, this is out of order writing too. It doesn't matter if the scribe wrote complete new glyph or changed parts of existing glyphs. -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 18-12-2025, 09:56 PM
(18-12-2025, 08:14 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.glyphs that almost always stick together - like c and h, I think are usually in the same shade of ink?
Not true, there are many examples of the first e in one ink and the second in a different ink. Sometimes the ligature is fainter than both... You can see some in the following snippets:
(There are also a couple of examples of imperfect retracing, and a case where a qo was mutated to qe. And there is one example where a vellum defect did interfere with the writing.
Quote:I don't find "sheer insanity" to be a priory incompatible with the Voynich MS. I don't think we should expect the creators of this weird manuscript to be primarily governed by rationality. Especially by rationality as we see it now.
Still, if the Author was writing straight from brain to vellum, with a complicated encryption that requires leaving blanks spaces to be filled later, we would expect many corrections, with cross-outs, insert-heres, etc. -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 18-12-2025, 10:14 PM
(18-12-2025, 07:26 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This d is really weird (in your example). You can see the normal d under/over the the dash, the sharpness and colour of the dash don't look a match for "normal Voynich"
Indeed, I don't think that dash is writing at all. It looks like a bit of dirt that got stuck to the vellum.
May be like the bits of red skin in the big red stain of f102v1:
My conjecture is that the stain is from goulash or some other sauce with red peppers, and those bits are the skins of the peppers...
By the way, the corresponding stain on the facing page includes a clear example of retracing to restore damaged text:
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
oshfdk > 18-12-2025, 11:10 PM
(18-12-2025, 09:56 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not true, there are many examples of the first e in one ink and the second in a different ink. Sometimes the ligature is fainter than both...
Good to know, but this is not inconsistent with an out of order scheme either, since ch can also be cKh, cTh, etc. Especially given there are cases of ct without h, etc.
(18-12-2025, 09:56 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Still, if the Author was writing straight from brain to vellum, with a complicated encryption that requires leaving blanks spaces to be filled later, we would expect many corrections, with cross-outs, insert-heres, etc.
We cannot know if there are corrections. Maybe daiin means ignore the last block and start over, who knows. Also, a scheme based on a grille or some similar method is not complicated at all. I tried it in another post, the hard part was creating a good grille which won't waste too much of the space on the page. -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Bluetoes101 > 18-12-2025, 11:30 PM
(18-12-2025, 10:14 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(18-12-2025, 07:26 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This d is really weird (in your example). You can see the normal d under/over the the dash, the sharpness and colour of the dash don't look a match for "normal Voynich"
Indeed, I don't think that dash is writing at all. It looks like a bit of dirt that got stuck to the vellum.
May be like the bits of red skin in the big red stain of f102v1:
My conjecture is that the stain is from goulash or some other sauce with red peppers, and those bits are the skins of the peppers...
By the way, the corresponding stain on the facing page includes a clear example of retracing to restore damaged text:
All the best, --stolfi
I was going to say it looks too straight for dirt/stain, but if it were something chopped (skins of peppers) that might make sense.
[Edit] - Actually I changed my mind, I forgot you can see the loop of d through the dash. So I guess I'm back to "it's far too angular for dirt/stain".
The interesting thing about the text in the stain is that it looks like the ink was applied while the vellum was still wet. Is there any half convincing way this all might be caused just by the spill?
A weird thing is if it was a "repair", the ink looks to have been applied to a still wet surface, but then the spill transferred to the other page and not the ink.. it's hard to imagine they did the spill, closed the page, went and got some ink and a pen, repaired, then waited to dry before closing again.. and selectively repaired.. there's some clear (but faded) glyphs they miss.
Confusing.. -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
oshfdk > 18-12-2025, 11:49 PM
(18-12-2025, 11:30 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The interesting thing about the text in the stain is that it looks like the ink was applied while the vellum was still wet. Is there any half convincing way this all might be caused just by the spill?
A weird thing is if it was a "repair", the ink looks to have been applied to a still wet surface, but then the spill transferred to the other page and not the ink.. it's hard to imagine they did the spill, closed the page, went and got some ink and a pen, repaired, then waited to dry before closing again.. and selectively repaired.. there's some clear (but faded) glyphs they miss.
Confusing..
If it was wet surface, doesn't necessarily mean it was wet because of the original spill. Maybe the stain was discovered after a while, part of the stain was cleaned with wet cloth and then written over.
To me it looks like the stain definitely goes over the green paint, what do you think? -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Bluetoes101 > 19-12-2025, 12:01 AM
"stain definitely goes over the green paint" Seems like it to me. Whatever it is looks to be corrosive to the paint (black on green and red paint), much less so to ink.
Not sure if that gives any clues to the substance?
Something that would make me think not "cleaned with wet cloth" is the faded outer stain on both looks like they would have done this on both.. as in they saw it didn't work at all and just made things worse, then thought "I'll do it again!.."
I don't know honestly, but its hard to think of a way in which this was an original scribe (they presumably knew what they wrote and what was ruined). So it seems later, plus a confusing (to me atm) sequence of events.. but them doing the same "fix" on both even though it was not very good isn't impossible, maybe they just hadn't seen how it looked once dried yet -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 19-12-2025, 01:49 AM
Goulashmancy = the art of predicting the past by inspection and interpretation of sauce stains on ancient mysterious manuscripts.
Not long ago I wrote a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about the stain on f102v1 + f103r.
Here are some annotations on the image of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. stain, specifically.
This clip spans the right end of lines 1-9 of page 103r, including the big red stain near its NE corner. The spilled material apparently was some reddish sauce, like goulash or tomato sauce, that presumably contained both greasy and watery components. The spill was probably on this page or perhaps on the facing page f102v1, but the book was closed before completely cleaning the spill, so that both pages got matching stains. Some component of the liquid seeped through the vellum and stained additional pages on other folios.
The spilled liquid must have softened the text ink, so that, when the spill was finally cleaned, a large portion of lines 1-7 was largely erased. The part of the damaged text within the blue outline (A) was retraced, but a large part (B) was not.
The retracing inside the stain used broad strokes and dark ink similar to that of the retouching pass Rt2 on other pages. However, the person who tried to fix this damage (RtX) may have been a separate Retracer distinct from the retracings of other pages.
Unlike the general restorer Rt1, RtX retraced the glyphs that had been less affected by the spill. Note that he refrained from fixing some glyphs that are still quite legible, like © and (D), and incorrectly restored others, like (E) and (F). This indicates that RtX did not know the Voynichese alphabet.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: [split] Retracer Thread: darker ink, retracing of text and drawings
Jorge_Stolfi > 19-12-2025, 02:12 AM
My best guess is that someone was reading the book while eating, and let a drop of sauce fall on f102v1 or f103r. The drop was fairly thick (say, 2 mm) but small (say less than 5 mm across). So the guy did not notice it and closed the book. That caused the drop to spread out to the extent of the current stain. Someone (the same person or someone else) eventually saw the stain, while it was still fresh, and wiped it off. Then saw that the ink had come off too...
All the best, --stolfi