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• New images: Marci letter wax

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  tavie > 29-10-2025, 06:36 PM

  Please take it to PM, Rich.

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  asteckley > 29-10-2025, 08:55 PM

  (29-10-2025, 06:06 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.OK, I'm stepping in here before we have another round of this debate.  We have a policy of one thread per theory.  

  
  ?!? I'm not sure what "one thread per theory" really means. It is infeasible to isolate the numerous theories about the manuscript so that they are mutually exclusive.  There is far too much overlap between all the theories and ideas that are the whole purpose of this forum.  I presume though that you really mean "one topic per thread"? 
  
  

  (29-10-2025, 06:06 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Discussions about whether the manuscript is a modern hoax should stay on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  Let's keep this thread on topic.

  
  Proto57's post prior to yours -- which is presumably the one you are referring to -- WAS on topic! It was not about whether the manuscript is a modern hoax (!?). it was directly addressing the "absence of evidence" argument that was being made to suggest that conclusions could be drawn if another letter were found with the same watermarks. That is, obviously, well within the scope of this thread's topic -- at least to the extent that the comment it was responding to was within scope.  If a thread cannot include commentary on the strengths and flaws in the arguments being made, then there's little value left in most ANY of the threads on this forum.
  
  Frankly, anyone who reads it as a discussion or defense of a modern hoax theory is completely missing the several relevant and valid points that were made.

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  tavie > 29-10-2025, 09:03 PM

  As I already asked, please PM me if you want to discuss how the one thread per theory rule is applied.  Let's keep on topic about the watermark here.

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  ReneZ > Yesterday, 07:15 AM

  By coincidence, yesterday I received some additional inputs related to this type of watermark.
  As expected, there exist several variations. I'll wait until I have a more complete feedback, but there is nothing really new so far.

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 07:26 AM

  (29-10-2025, 05:43 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For instance, two samples of the Voynich ink contain titanium...

  
  I suppose you mean samples 17 and 20.  But the titanium signal is weak. 
  
  Titanium is a common contaminant of iron minerals.   Its presence in sample 17 does not imply forgery.  The Vinland Map was exposed as forgery because its ink contained not just titanium, but a titanium white -- a specific synthetic mineral of titanium that only became available in the last 200 years or so.
  
  The (weak) signal of titanium on sample 20 is more intriguing, since that sample is from the "iron-free iron-gall ink" of a Latin letter "a" in the washed part of f1r. But that page has gone though so much that this analysis is not very significant.
  
  By the way, the McCrone report is, how shall I say, unsatisfactory in many ways. 
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  ReneZ > Yesterday, 11:09 AM

  (Yesterday, 07:26 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Titanium is a common contaminant of iron minerals.   Its presence in sample 17 does not imply forgery.  The Vinland Map was exposed as forgery because its ink contained not just titanium, but a titanium white -- a specific synthetic mineral of titanium that only became available in the last 200 years or so.

  
  This is a good example of what Tavie pointed out: hashed and rehashed.
  For an earlier discussion see (among others) here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  especially posts in the 20's+ range.
  
  Let's stick to the watermark here.
  (Had the watermark been from 2 centuries later - or earlier - we would have to have the other discussion).

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  proto57 > 11 hours ago

  (Yesterday, 07:26 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (29-10-2025, 05:43 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For instance, two samples of the Voynich ink contain titanium...

  
  I suppose you mean samples 17 and 20.  But the titanium signal is weak. 
  
  Titanium is a common contaminant of iron minerals.   Its presence in sample 17 does not imply forgery.  The Vinland Map was exposed as forgery because its ink contained not just titanium, but a titanium white -- a specific synthetic mineral of titanium that only became available in the last 200 years or so.
  
  The (weak) signal of titanium on sample 20 is more intriguing, since that sample is from the "iron-free iron-gall ink" of a Latin letter "a" in the washed part of f1r. But that page has gone though so much that this analysis is not very significant.
  
  By the way, the McCrone report is, how shall I say, unsatisfactory in many ways. 
  
  All the best, --stolfi

  
  Hi Jorge: Yes the Titanium found in the Vinland Map is (said to be) a modern, processed form of anatase, but it was even more modern than you say, and newer than (about) 1917. The process to form the observed crystals was invented a few years earlier.
  
  But as to 'Titanium is a common contaminant of iron minerals", I don't think so, at least not as found in Medieval inks, and not in the levels found in the Voynich, although small. If you look at the Richard Hark graph, you will see that he found measurable Titanium in only one or two samples, of 120 samples, from 50 Medieval manuscripts. That is very rare. But it is also possible that those samples ARE the Voynich, which would mean that except for our favorite manuscript, none was found in the 120 manuscript sampling.
  
  But of course the amount and type of Titanium in the forged Vinland Map and the suspected Voynich is very different, as you point out. I was only using that example to point out the use, by Hark of Yale, of "absence of evidence" AS actual evidence, which is proper and scientific. That is what he was doing here: My point was really about the watermarks (and so, "on topic"!), by demonstrating that, if we find no other examples of the same "three tasseled hat" watermark in the other (known genuine) papers of Marci, even though we cannot see every scrape of paper of his, nor the imagined "scribe" (previously used to explain observed problems with the 1665/66 letter), it is still evidence that that letter maybe inauthentic.
  
  "Absence of evidence" can be used, and is properly used, and should be used, in the case of watermarks, exactly as it was used by Richard Hark, and often used in any scientific testing, and law, and many other intellectual endeavors. And those who propose just about any theory of the VMs, all of us, commonly use absence of evidence as evidence. It would be no different in the case of the watermarks... we don't find it where we should, and that tells us something, and that something should not be ignored or worse, dismissed.

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  ReneZ > 10 hours ago

  (11 hours ago)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.if we find no other examples of the same "three tasseled hat" watermark in the other (known genuine) papers of Marci, even though we cannot see every scrape of paper of his, nor the imagined "scribe" (previously used to explain observed problems with the 1665/66 letter), it is still evidence that that letter maybe inauthentic.

  
  Patently incorrect.

• RE: New images: Marci letter wax

  tavie > 10 hours ago

  Third and final time I'm saying this in this thread. If you disagree with how the one thread per theory rule is being applied, PM the relevant moderator.  Please do not litigate it in the thread, since one reason for the rule is to stop threads being derailed with arguments.
  
  I received no PMs on this and the thread is still getting derailed with modern hoax arguments so I'm going to move most of the recent posts to the modern hoax thread.  This thread will be locked until I can find the time later today to untangle them from what should stay.
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