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The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
- The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
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The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
SherriMM > 31-07-2025, 08:37 PM
New blog post on my site (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) - today I'm highlighting the pattern of the second circle in the wheel on 57v - a pattern of 9 symbols. At first glance it seems to repeat four times, but actually [font=proxima-nova]the first two patterns use the “one leg, one loop” glyph as the ninth character, and the second two patterns use the “one leg, [b]two loops[/b]” glyph as the ninth character. [/font]
[font=proxima-nova]I'm sure this is not new information, but I'm having trouble finding relevant research. I've seen this referenced in a chart by M.E. D'Imperio before, as shown in my blog post, though her chart doesn't mention the change. [/font]
Would love any help finding threads or other work about this pattern, and the others in vertical on 49v and 66r (and in the star of 69r).
Thanks!
Sherri
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RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Jorge_Stolfi > 01-08-2025, 01:07 AM
Two important things that people should keep in mind when doing this sort of analysis, on this page or anywhere else:
(1) The Author of the manuscript (who invented the script, chose the book contents, composed the text, etc) is not the same person as the Scribe(s) who actually wrote the manuscript on the vellum. It would be very stupid for anyone to write such a book directly from head to vellum. The Author surely wrote the text on paper, edited it as needed on paper, and eventually gave a final draft to the Scribe(s). The draft possibly included sketches of the illustrations, but the degree of detail in those sketches is uncertain, with the rest having been left to the Scribe(s) to provide. The Author may even have just described some of the figures verbally to the Scribes.
This is an important detail because the Scribes must have had only very basic knowledge of Voynichese, namely the basic alphabet; and almost surely did not understand the meaning of the diagrams. Thus they may have mis-read or mis-copied many glyphs, especially weirdos like those of f57v, and botched many details of the illustrations. There is plenty of evidence of the latter in the Zodiac pages, for instance, where the Scribes left out a couple of stars and/or nymphs that should have been there.
(2) Over the 600 years after the VMS was created, a lot of the original writing and drawing, on many pages, faded almost to the point of invisibility, or beyond. Seeing that, at least one of the later owners undertook to restore the book by retracing the faded parts. And there may have been another owner, even later, who extended this restoration a bit further.
The first Retracer was very careful on the text, covering almost completely the original strokes of the glyphs -- almost, but not totally. On some glyphs, one can see parts of the original sticking out from under the retraced version. Often he retraced only part of a glyph, or only a glyph or two of a word.
Retracing is often obvious in the plumes of r and s and the tails of y and m. In the original scribing, a plume or tail is smoothly curved and becomes gradually thinner and lighter, ending in a sharp needle-point. The shape is produced by a swift stroke of the pen, while gradually reducing the pressure along the way.
But the Retracer must go over such details rather slowly, otherwise the new strokes will not cover the old ones. (That is why automatic signature recognition uses the pen's motion as a time signal, taking the speed into account, rather than just the image of the final signature.) But when a quill pen moves slowly, it will produce a trace that has a definite minimum width and ink density. Thus the retraced plume or tail will be "fat" and will have a blunt end, rather than a needle-point one. Moreover, the slow stroke will usually be a bit more jittery than a quick one.
Indeed the Retracer seems to have been quite conscious of this problem, and thus often stopped the retracing of plumes and tails half-way, leaving half of the original stroke sticking out from under the new one. To make matters worse, the Retracer often drew parts of the glyphs, such as plumes and loops, in the wrong direction.
It is important to keep this fact in mind, because the Retracer made many mistakes that added to those made by the Scribe. He sometimes failed to see original strokes that had faded too much, and thus, for instance, would sometimes turn a y with almost invisible tail into a perfectly formed o. He would also magnify the defects of originally misshapen glyphs, e.g. turning an r with slightly bent body into an s, or vice-versa. And sometimes he would turn a misshapen glyph into what would seem to be a new weirdo. That's because the Retracer, unlike the Scribe, did not even know what the Voynichese alphabet was supposed to be. His knowledge on this point must have been even less than ours.
On page f57v, in particular, I would say that most of the text was retraced (and some glyphs even redone by a second Retracer, an unknown time after the first). The figure outlines were retraced only in some places, and the parts that were not retraced give an idea of how badly the original writing had faded. (In fact, those parts that were not retraced must have been those that had faded less.)
In conclusion, I would say that the differences between the four repetitions of the sequence are not intentional. The Scribe probably mangled those unfamiliar glyphs to some extent, and then the Retracer magnified the mangling.
All the best, --jorge -
RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Aga Tentakulus > 01-08-2025, 04:19 AM
Nothing has faded and nothing has been redrawn.
The ink simply behaves this way. If you don't stir it for a few days, it becomes lighter. I've always wanted to know how many days it takes for the particles to settle and the colour to become lighter.
Example from Marco f49: Colour differeenc
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There are endless examples like this.
If the nib goes deeper into the barrel, the ink also becomes darker. Simply because it has not been stirred.
EVA r and S are two different symbols. There has been no tampering.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version) -
RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Jorge_Stolfi > 01-08-2025, 06:01 AM
(01-08-2025, 04:19 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Nothing has faded and nothing has been redrawn. The ink simply behaves this way.
Yes, I am well aware of normal weight variations due to dipping the pen in ink. And also on the Scribe going back and re-drawing some earlier glyphs that came out light because the pen was running out of ink. Or maybe even skipping over some glyph, asking the Author what the hell was that scribble in his draft, then writing that glyph with a freshly loaded pen.
But still there are plenty of weight variations, ink color differences, and other anomalies that cannot be explained that way. The ink of the VMS did fade in many places, to the point of being unreadable. It is not plausible that the Scribe would have written faded glyphs that are almost unreadable (like the y ch at 07:00 in that 4x17 sequence) and not felt the need to redraw them. (Can you even see the h in the ch?) If you look closely you will see that most (if not all) of the text, on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and many other pages, must have become faint like that, before it was restored by the Retracer(s).
There is nothing like that in the manuscript you showed. In fact, that example shows how an experienced scribe could keep the pen properly inked at all times, how real iron-gall ink looks like, and how it resists fading and rub-off.
All the best, --jorge -
RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Aga Tentakulus > 01-08-2025, 06:27 AM
You mean this detail. It is a combination sign and stands alone and is not a ‘ch’.
It is also used in other symbols and, in combination, represents a new character.
Example:
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RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Aga Tentakulus > 01-08-2025, 06:58 AM
Here is a better example from 2016 -
RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Jorge_Stolfi > 01-08-2025, 07:31 AM
(01-08-2025, 06:27 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You mean this detail. It is a combination sign and stands alone and is not a ‘ch’.
It is also used in other symbols and, in combination, represents a new character.
Look closer Real close. Dowload the full resolution jpeg form Beinecke and
look at it with 200% magnification and play with the color curves:
You should see a very very very faint h (only a lttle fainter than the y of pchhy at 05:30 on the outer ring). Making that weirdo at 07:00 into a perfeclty normal ch.
It is too bad that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is not one of the pages which were considered in the multispectral imaging project.
That 4x17 "quasi" repetition (and a LOT more of what we see on that and other pages) will suddenly make more sense if we accept that a lot of the original writing and drawing has faded out completely by now, and what we see of those parts are just the guesses of a later owner (or two) who decided to retrace them because they were already about to become invisible by then.
How could the supposedly indelible iron-gall ink fade so badly? I have a simple theory, but will leave it for another post...
All the best, --jorge -
RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Aga Tentakulus > 01-08-2025, 07:47 AM
I'm sorry, but there's nothing there. -
RE: The Pattern of the Wheel on 57v
Yavernoxia > 01-08-2025, 08:15 AM
(01-08-2025, 01:07 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(1) The Author of the manuscript (who invented the script, chose the book contents, composed the text, etc) is not the same person as the Scribe(s) who actually wrote the manuscript on the vellum. It would be very stupid for anyone to write such a book directly from head to vellum. The Author surely wrote the text on paper, edited it as needed on paper, and eventually gave a final draft to the Scribe(s). The draft possibly included sketches of the illustrations, but the degree of detail in those sketches is uncertain, with the rest having been left to the Scribe(s) to provide. The Author may even have just described some of the figures verbally to the Scribes.
This is an important detail because the Scribes must have had only very basic knowledge of Voynichese, namely the basic alphabet; and almost surely did not understand the meaning of the diagrams. Thus they may have mis-read or mis-copied many glyphs, especially weirdos like those of f57v, and botched many details of the illustrations. There is plenty of evidence of the latter in the Zodiac pages, for instance, where the Scribes left out a couple of stars and/or nymphs that should have been there.
I'm sorry to contradict someone as knowledgeable as you, Stolfi, but the parts highlighted in bold are speculation as far as I'm concerned. We cannot be certain that the author and the scribe(s) are different people; the author could very well be one of the scribes. As for the text, yes, it is surely likely that it was first written on paper and then copied onto vellum, but here too we have no certainty about this, so saying “must” seems exaggerated to me. But the most important thing of all is that to say that the scribe did not have a great knowledge of Voynechese is 100% impossible to know; in fact, I would say that statistically the opposite is more likely.
(01-08-2025, 01:07 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would say that the differences between the four repetitions of the sequence are not intentional. The Scribe probably mangled those unfamiliar glyphs to some extent, and then the Retracer magnified the mangling.
The difference between the 3rd caracther in the first of the four circles seems significant to me. It's not a coincidence, on the whole text there's a clear difference between j and d.
(01-08-2025, 04:19 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Nothing has faded and nothing has been redrawn.
I agree.
The ink simply behaves this way.