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Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

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• Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) > 01-01-2026, 04:52 AM

  @ R. Sale, Thanks for your note and directing me to that page (I will take a look more carefully if I ever go back to the chart).
  
  I was aware that the topic has been discussed as far as the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart is concerned (as I noted in my post). I had not seen considerations of the chart involving geomantic figures. Even your own 4x17 (rather than 4x16, separated by the “ligature,” in my reading) illustrates that you were not considering it from the geomantic vantage point. So, I am suggesting a different reading of the chart. You may disagree with this, but that is how we can recognize different interpretations offered (admittedly speculatively on all sides) even when looking at the same chart, in the past or now.
  
  Another point I was adding was regarding the interpretation of the depictions of the persons on the right and the left in the center. I was stating that their right and left hands are indicating directions, their faces serving to tell the reader that the right and left hands are being used to suggest directions in the chart. Face orientations, in other words, serve the identification of right and left hands raised. I may have missed others pointing that out before, but I thought it had not been explained as such before, so I was sharing it just in case.
  
  Whether you consider the above as parts of the elephant missed before is of course your choice. I thought those were new suggestions. You are welcome to your own opinion.

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) > 01-01-2026, 04:56 AM

  @ Jorge_Stolfi, thank you also for providing me with that detailed study of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart. 
  
  My main interest in that chart at this point is whether its 3rd circle (from center) serves geomantic functions. As I noted to R. Sale above, I am not sure if the chart has been considered from that vantage point. Whether there is any value in it, I don’t know. I will hopefully have time to look at your detailed study. As you also noted before, it may not be a priority at this time for me as well. I just wanted to bring the two points about the chart to others’ attention, in case they’d be interested to follow up with them.
  
  I think what the scribe(s) were intending to do in the chart can be subject to alternative interpretations/speculations. So, of course you are entitled to your opinion. In mine, at this point of thinking about it, I think there are 4x16 series of seemingly repeating “letters” separated by a “ligature” on that 3rd ring from the center. The ‘o’ on 10:00 was meant to be accurately placed, since it seems the scribe was drawing a radius line there to make sure he or she started from there at least. I have no more speculations about that chart at this time. I may go back to it.
  
  In the illustrations that I will post next (separately from this post), I have included two referring to the pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r, as discussed before. I rotated the list, and then rotated each letter back so that the order of the items in each column can be read as a row, horizontally, left to right. I hope it can be helpful to you and others wishing to further study any link the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart has to those pages. 
  
  I still think there is some connection there, because some of those rare symbols are appearing in the chart and the columns; what their significance is, I don’t know at this point, and hopefully others in this forum can help with their expertise, especially if they know more about matters related to geomancy.
  
  In the rotations that I did, I tried to clean up the surrounding text, so please ignore the background inconsistencies of the two strips I will post.

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) > 01-01-2026, 05:21 AM

  The following images are related to my previous recent post (#42) about the possible interpretations of the three images on f1r, the first page of the Voynich manuscript. I had provided links to the pages, but I thought seeing the images directly can make things easier.
  
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
  
  

  (01-01-2026, 04:56 AM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the illustrations that I [am posting below] I have included two referring to the pages You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f66r, as discussed before. I rotated the list, and then rotated each letter back so that the order of the items in each column can be read as a row, horizontally, left to right. I hope it can be helpful to you and others wishing to further study any link the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. chart has to those pages. 
  
  I still think there is some connection there, because some of those rare symbols are appearing in the chart and the columns; what their significance is, I don’t know at this point, and hopefully others in this forum can help with their expertise, especially if they know more about matters related to geomancy.
  
  In the rotations that I did, I tried to clean up the surrounding text, so please ignore the background inconsistencies of the two strips I will post.

  
  The following are related to the post #35 above and the discussion we were having with Jorge_Stolfi. They can be studied in relation to the image Jorge_Stolfi kindly provided in post #45 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)
  
  Jorge, the first one is related to the column on page f49v 
     
  
  The next one is related to the column on page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.    

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) > 03-01-2026, 03:15 AM

  The next point I want to raise in this thread has to do with the “does it exist?” question.
  
  What should be the proper unit of analysis of the Voynich manuscript in its research? Does the material pertaining to that unit exist today?
  
  I have seen in the discussions going on in this forum and elsewhere instances where it is stated that this or that information does not exist in the VM manuscript, often without a qualification that the manuscript is incomplete.
  
  It is commonly agreed today that the existing manuscript is incomplete. It is lacking many bifolia and two cut-out bifolia halves, based on quire and page numbers that had been added to it much later than its (vellum) production time, suggesting that at some point, it had included those missing pages when it was produced.
  
  It has recently been posited that the vellum may not have been bound originally, debatable or not in terms of the intention of its binding plans. The existing quire and bifolia/page numbers did not necessarily originate in the original production but were added later when a compiler had decided to put them in order presumably for intended binding of the collection. And based on further arguments made and evidence shown, many agree that the current order of the quires and bifolia is not correct.
  
  If the quire and page numbers were added later than the original production, we cannot really set aside the possibility that there could have been even more quires or bifolia, including even any original cover or title page, that have also gone missing, and we do not even know of their going missing (or being removed).
  
  The missing quires or bifolia (or even original title page) may have included more information we lack today. Anyone who states that the manuscript does not include this or that information cannot be reasonably sure whether the original manuscript had included it (such as the charts of planets; more information about its author(s) or any astrological charts associated with any person; when and how it came about; perhaps even some table or key for reading its texts, also likely unbound and accompanying it, if it was meant to be a private handbook for the use of its author(s)).
  
  Many today argue, reasonably, that scribes (however many they were in earlier 1400s) could not have just started writing and drawing the manuscript from nothing. The calf vellum was too expensive to be an initial experimental draft.
  
  So, reasonably, some of you have argued, that the scribes must have been working on the vellum working from separate drafts.
  
  But how do we know if the draft used was just a page by page rough sketch prepared just for the final work on the vellum, rather than more? Was the “author” living then and just handing each sheet to them on a rough draft to be transferred onto the vellum? Was the vellum completed based on drafts left by a deceased author? Was the “draft” actually a completed manuscript, perhaps on a cheaper paper or other parchment that had faded or needed preservation (perhaps even by the wishes of the author as stated on a will) on the calf vellum for preservation, the drafts destroyed after completion of the original manuscript?
  
  If that was the case, was the draft original in the same form and style as the existing (incomplete) manuscript? Were the texts and the illustrations on separate sheets, and the vellum scribes joined an illustration and its corresponding text together on the same page to save vellum space? Was the text of the existing (incomplete) manuscript devised by the scribes to save space in the vellum production, which was an important consideration those days, or is the text we see today as it had appeared on the author’s original? Were the illustrations exactly as it had been on the draft, or did the scribes add their own additions or styling to the vellum production?
  
  How old could have been such a “complete” manuscript DRAFT that the vellum scribes used for their final vellum production purpose, if that was the case? Based on textual and illustration evidence of the existing (incomplete) manuscript, it seems plausible to argue that such an original draft could not have been too distant in time and place from the likely production place and time of the existing (incomplete) manuscript.
  
  If so, could that original draft have been produced sometime in 1300s in Europe, not going too far back in time from early 1400s?
  
  The carbon dating of the existing (incomplete) manuscript has certainly narrowed down when and generally where it had been produced, but that has little to do with the drafts that could have been used for its production. Did it narrow it too much?
  
  The period 1400-1450, broadly speaking, is for the vellum production, but is the incomplete manuscript we have today the proper unit of analysis of the research being undertaken about the origins of the manuscript?
  
  Should not those “drafts” (perhaps an original manuscript preexisting the vellum version) be included in the unit of analysis of this manuscript, since it will push back its possible date of authorship to an earlier century than what we assume today?
  
  Has the carbon dating inadvertently narrowed down the “solutions space” for studying the origins of the complete manuscript?

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  Jorge_Stolfi > 03-01-2026, 05:00 AM

  (03-01-2026, 03:15 AM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is commonly agreed today that 

  • it is lacking many bifolia and two cut-out bifolia halves
    
  • it may not have been bound originally
    
  • quire and bifolia/page numbers were added later
    
  • the current order of the quires and bifolia is not correct.
    
  • there could have been more quires or bifolia, including title page
    

  Yes, I believe those points and I believe most people here also believe them.
  
  

  Quote:if it was meant to be a private handbook for the use of its author(s)

  
  I don't think so.  A private handbook would not need nymphs, figurative Zodiac signs, and hundreds of "tombstones" on the cosmo and rosette diagrams, and would not use a separate page for each plant.  Maybe the Starred Parags pages were created with that purpose, but the rest was put on vellum to be shown, given, or sold to someone else.
  
  

  Quote:The scribes must have been writing on the vellum by copying from drafts.

  
  That is my belief, based on common sense arguments (fixing mistakes on vellum would be a pain, writing small letters on vellum was a skill that not everyone had, etc.) and on internal evidence that the Scribe(s) knew the alphabet but could not read the contents.
  
  

  Quote:Was the author living when the draft was copied to vellum?

  
  I think so, because the Scribes apparently knew the alphabet, so they probably were taught it by the Author.
  
  

  Quote:were the drafts destroyed after completion of the original manuscript?

  
  If they were not discarded by the Author himself, they almost surely were after his death.  There are records of many valuable paper manuscripts being lost because they were used as tinder on fireplaces and stoves.
  
  

  Quote:Was the text abbreviated by the scribes?

  
  We don't know for sure, but I believe that the Author may have told the scribes rules like "you can abbreviate aiin as am if you need to".  Because am is common at the end of lines, and I believe that the line breaks were chosen by the Scribe, not by the Author. 
  
  

  Quote:Were the complete illustrations on the draft, or did the scribes add to them?

  
  I believe that 80% of more of the illustrations, including all the nymphs and most parts of each plant, were provided by the Scribe.  At best, the author may have left notes "Put 30 nymphs and 30 stars on this page, with the following labels" or "copy the leaves and flowers of this plant from random pages of those books I gave you".
  
  But few people here seem to share this belief.
  
  

  Quote:Did the carbon dating narrow the “solutions space” for the manuscript?

  
  Definitely. It excluded any origin theory that involves the Americas (no sunflowers or armadillos!) , and made it very unlikely that it could be a forgery created between the 1600s and early 1900s to look like a "Bacon Original" or whatever.
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) > 03-01-2026, 06:56 PM

  @ moderators, I like the “slop bucket” name too. This is a forum that is moderated well to the best of your ability.
  
  @ Jorge_Stolfi, I am glad you agree with some things I shared, and why not, since actually I was referring to the helpful ideas you have yourself shared, as often preceded by AFAIK, which is a good point for all studying the manuscript.
  
  I had noted previously my inclination to agree with you regarding the value of a “theory of origins” approach as part of the overall effort, and I do think your continued emphasis on a draft having preceded the vellum production makes good sense. If somehow we can learn who was behind this manuscript, we can significantly narrow down what language(s) may have been used in its production. The question is how to frame both contributions in a way that can help even more. I can say the same thing about many of other contributions being made on this form, both those longer standing, and some new ones coming in.
  
  I will not comment below on the points you agreed with, but those you thought differently.
  
  Regarding the book having been a handbook, of course you are entitled to your opinion, but I think how you are framing things sometimes closes the “solutions space” unnecessarily. Things do not have to be framed in either/or ways all the time. I can, and will, provide justifications that indeed one can expect those elements you mentioned (“nymphs, figurative Zodiac signs, and hundreds of "tombstones" on the cosmo and rosette diagrams, … separate page for each plant and … Starred Parags”) can be accommodated in a handbook, and even more so, as one of the possibilities, provided that we look at the book differently.
  
  What the Voynich manuscript is has a lot to do also with the lenses we ourselves wear. In one lens we see things as 4x17, in another 4x18, and in another 4x16 separated by a marker), in one lens it is “Taurus” in another “Botrus,” in one lens it is a paragraph starting capital, in another a plant or fertility under rays. In one lens something does not make sense, in another it can.
  
  The notion that “the rest was put on vellum to be shown, given, or sold to someone else” is a huge jump in interpretation that I am surprised even you would make. After all, you or no one else claim to have discovered the meaning behind the text. I would say in fact the reason we have some features in the manuscript is because, to use your expression AFAIK, it was not originally meant to be a public destined manuscript, but it became so for other reasons not having to do with its original authorship.
  
  On your other point, “on internal evidence that the Scribe(s) knew the alphabet but could not read the contents” I am also wondering how you can make such a judgment so confidently, not knowing what the text is saying. It is possible for that to be true, but the opposite can be true as well. The original they were working on must have INCLUDED many pages now missing, we can never know what they contained with confidence, and the scribes may have understood what they were writing on vellum. They may have known exactly what the author was writing about. Yes, I respect your belief. But of course it is a belief, like mine, or others.
  
  I can understand your belief that the author was living when the draft was being copied to the vellum, but how do you know for sure? Any evidence? One possibility in your view is the drafts were written sketch at a time and were copied to the vellum was supervised by a living author. But that just an assumption.
  
  I think it can be equally true that they were working on a complete “draft” they had been instructed (and even paid for as part of an agreement by a deceased author, let us say) to produce in a vellum for durability, and in the process they may have had some freedom in how to organize the text and illustrations across the pages.
  
  Regarding your other point about the 80% done by scribes, that’s an opinion, of course, but we really don’t know if it is true or not, do we? They may have been following the style they were seeing in the draft original, and introduced their own styles to them, since the author may not have been around to oversee things.
  
  I agree more or less with other points you agreed with also, but mainly my purpose in the last post was to suggest, and in this I believe strongly, that the proper unit of analysis of the Voynich manuscript must be not the existing incomplete vellum, but the broader complete vellum, with any missing pages we know existed and others that may have also existed, and it should include the drafts used to produce it finally on the vellum.
  
  Let’s say one finds a book that has been written in an unknown “language” with chapters and parts of chapters removed, page numberings mistaken, mis-re/bound, no title page, no author name, etc. One cannot assume one can really understand this remaining part without having in mind always that the book had been complete, some parts not even known to have existed, and draft notes used for writing not having been important. What is missing may in fact provide lots of clues about why it has is in its current incomplete, mysterious state. It may not have been even mysterious in the first place as it is understood today.
  
  Antonio García Jiménez – whose long thread I tried to read backwards in time, given its length, and could do only a hundred, but I think it was enough – said something nice when trying to say for the people of its time the VM may not have been mysterious. I think he said, now he things his dog's eyes are more mysterious! That can be true, even though one may not agree with aspects of what he suggests regarding the text being all technical matters. I am not convinced of it, but a both/and logic can go a long way in helping even his own argument. 
  
  If there is a temporal distance between the draft writing and the vellum production, with the author not necessarily present and living in the latter stage, researchers may have been looking into the wrong century in which it was originally created in the “draft”. I would not extend it more than a century earlier and wider in geographical area than Europe; I think Koen G. did a good job in one of his videos (as they all are) in defining what region the VM may have originated from. I realize you may think of a wider area, Jorge (if I may). I am not sure if it wider than Europe based on what I am seeing in the remaining manuscript. No one can deny that even the existing manuscript shows influence of many cultures.
  
  In hermeneutics, dealing with the study of the intentions and meanings in the mind of the author of an artifact based on its features, it is often as important to keep in mind what is missing and absent as what is present and existing. Choosing a proper unit of analysis will always remind us not to jump into conclusions simply based on what we see existing, but also consider what we don’t find or see in the artifact. The latter can have even more significant interpretive value at times.
  
  That is all I was trying to share in my last post. Some of your statements give me the impression that you think the vellum produced in early 1400s is as mysterious as the incomplete manuscript seems to be today. I strongly doubt it, one that I will try to elaborate on in my next post, hopefully.

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  Jorge_Stolfi > 04-01-2026, 12:25 AM

  (03-01-2026, 06:56 PM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.“on internal evidence that the Scribe(s) knew the alphabet but could not read the contents” how you can make such a judgment not knowing what the text is saying.

  
  One bit of evidence is page f34r, where the parts of lines 4-9 on the right side of the plant are not aligned with the parts on the left side. 
  
  It looks like the Scribe copied all the left sides first, then all the right sides, as if that part of the text was in two-column layout.  But everywhere else the text clearly runs across plants from margin to margin, in a single column.  
  
  It is possible that on that page, in particular, the text was indeed to be written in two-column layout. Or, it is possible that the Scribe did write whole line by whole line, but was so sloppy that, after line 4  got out of alignment, he doubled on the mistake and made it worse on each line, instead of trying to correct it.
  
  But it seems that the most likely explanation is that the Scribe could not understand the text, and thus mistakenly assumed that the left half and the right half were a case of two-column layout.
  
  There are also many words that occur only once and have a different structure from the vast majority of words.  Like q not followed by o, or words with two gallows that look like two words run together.  It is possible that those words are indeed what the Author wanted to write.  But an explanation that seems more likely is that the Scribe did not know the language, and thus did not notice when he skipped a letter, switched letters, inserted or omitted bogus spaces... 
  
  I know the Greek alphabet, but I don't know a word of Greek, not even the basics like 'to be" and prepositions.  Thus I could copy a Greek text about as easily as I would copy an English one.  But I would make mistakes like the ones above, and would not notice...
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) > 04-01-2026, 01:36 AM

  @ Jorge_Stolfi, thanks for providing your possible evidence. I am not inclined to see it as a strong evidence until we know what the writing is about, since the sloppiness does not necessarily mean he could not read the text, just that he was sloppy about spacing things.
  
  Suppose you are correct, so he must have been writing from a draft. If the draft was lined properly, he would have known at least how lines follow each other, even if he did not know what they meant. But he still was sloppy with it. So, this really does not provide evidence that he could not read (understand) the original.
  
  He may have even considered it a two columned set up, hard to tell, and still being sloppy at it. On page f40r, there are 11 lines on the left, and 10 lines on the right, and they seem aligned, though they must not be following page-wide lines. A two-column possibility could work there as well.
  
  So, perhaps he had columns in mind on your proposed page too, and did a sloppy job at it, even though he could likely see in the original how lines follow each other, even if he did know know what they meant. We really don’t know what his draft looked like, do we?
  
  On the bottom of your proposed page (f34r), it would be difficult to consider the first lines of the two sides follow each other, given their distance. So, perhaps even there he had two columns in mind.
  
  Overall, I think the assumption that the manuscript was “mysterious” even during it production in early 1400s is what is leading to the notion that these scribes did not know what they were copying. I think that broader proposition itself is problematic, as I will try to explain in a post later.

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  Jorge_Stolfi > 04-01-2026, 08:30 AM

  (04-01-2026, 01:36 AM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the draft was lined properly, he would have known at least how lines follow each other, even if he did not know what they meant.

  
  A few months ago I posted a detailed scenario of how that accident may have happened, including what the draft may have looked like.  Unfortunately I cannot find it ...
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations

  Jorge_Stolfi > 04-01-2026, 09:53 AM

  (04-01-2026, 08:30 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A few months ago I posted a detailed scenario of how that accident [on f34r] may have happened, including what the draft may have looked like.  Unfortunately I cannot find it ...

  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
  
  All the best, --stolfi
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