Hello everyone!
I have been working on a script that computes a similarity score for pairs of zodiacs.
Unfortunately, I don't have much time to work on this anymore, so I thought I would share everything I currently have with the community in case anyone is interested.

The tl;dr of what I am doing is:

• There are 11 components, one for each zodiac sign present in the VMS, plus one for generic characteristics (e.g. number of signs per page, type of frames around signs, etc.)
  
• For each component, I defined a list of characteristics to be compared (e.g. how many limbs does Scorpio have? Is Taurus eating something? etc.)
  
• For 100 zodiacs (thanks Marco for providing the list and for your feedback!) I looked at all the signs and recorded their characteristics.
  
• I defined a similarity function that is tuned for each characteristic but, for most of them, it returns 1 if the values are the same, 0 otherwise.
  
• I subjectively gave more weight to some characteristics and gave more weight to characteristics that are rare across the whole dataset (e.g. virgo being a woman is pretty common, so it's assigned less weight).
  
• For each couple of manuscripts in the dataset, I compute a similarity score for each sign and an overall similarity score (average of the 11 components).
  

1. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1450-1460, Freiburg, Germany)
   
2. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1430-1450, South Germany)
   
3. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1400-1450, Bavaria, Germany)
   
4. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1250, South Germany)
   
5. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1450-1499, Iran)
   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

• 'zodiac.csv': this is a database of all the zodiacs I found. For each of them, you will find the characteristics of each sign, some general characteristics (location, time period, etc.), and a link to the image of each sign. You can open it using Excel.
  
• 'similarities.csv': this is the output of my script and it contains the similarity scores for all couples of manuscripts.
  
• 'zodiacs_similarities.py': is my (Python) script.
  
• 'edges.csv' and 'nodes.csv' are also generated by my script and can be imported using the Gephi software to visualize the network of zodiacs.
  

• I did this analysis without any theories in mind
  
• There is a lot of subjectivity going on my script. Feel free to play around with things, change values, add new zodiacs to the database, etc.
  
• My code is pretty bad, I wrote it optimizing for speed, but I tried to add as many comments as possible.
  
• If you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer them
  

I know we already have a thread about the Thing, but I wondered specifically: what would we make of the Thing if we also have to take into account the Other Thing? Both Things are too similar to be a coincidence, but they also have differences. 

   

The two main differences are:

- the little "spike"
- the way it's held

Of course, the way items are held in the VM is always weird and apparently somehow symbolic - perhaps disconnected from the way the item is held in real life. But that does not mean the way items are held must be meaningless (au contraire), and the fact is that these two are held differently.

(In fact, the nymph with the Other Thing is one of the very few examples where an object other than pipes is held in the hand closest to the viewer).

Within the context of spinning, the change of position and hands can be explained: the distaff is held up, while the spindle is held down in the other hand. See for example Thenaud's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But there is also a problem here: if one of them has to end in a point, it must be the spindle, since it has to be spun like a top. Putting a spike on the distaff and not the spindle is asking for someone to be poked in the eye.

I was again reminded of the Things when I saw images of the parable of The Wise and Foolish Virgins, a popular motif in manuscript art. The wise virgins have enough oil to keep their lamp burning (up) while the foolish virgins' flames have gone out and their lamps are held down. 

   

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Granted, the shape of the Things is unlike that of oil lamps. But it struck me that the presence or absence of the spike coincides with flame on/off. Selecting the most suitable Virgins for comparison:

   

Is there anything else that may explain these objects in relation to one another?

Whilst not everyone believes the Voynich manuscript is European in origin my impression is that this is the dominant view.(Now is the moment when I am told how many people think it may not be European in origin.)

Assuming it is European in origin and assuming that the carbon dating dates are correct I thought it interesting to explore what a history of Europe from 1404-1438 might be depending on what events are thought to be important in the time and not incidental. (I am sure it can be debated what constitutes "important" events and what doesn't, but I hope not to get sidetracked into this discussion and away from real historical events.)

Now it could be argued that the major events of history probably had little bearing or relation to the Voynich, but who knows?

I’d like to present you a fairy tale about a nymph, based on the Quire 13 of the Voynich manuscript. I tried very hard to make the tale as close as possible to the drawings of Q13, in the same sequence. The only change I made was to rearrange the bifolio f78-f81. I sent it to the corresponding subsection Q13 with large pools. 
I also want to express my gratitude to Koen and Matthias for their enormous contribution to my inspiration.
You can read the tale in English You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and in Russian - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (PDF)
I put the tale in my blog and here, on the forum, as commenting on the forum seems to me more comfortable. I'd be glad to know your opinions, impressions and remarks, what you liked or disliked. 

The inquisition came after many people publishing versions of the bible in greek and languages other than latin.
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Latin was the language of the rich priestly class, the chosen ones connected directly to the devine.
They held other works censored too:
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This culminating with episodes such as the Galileo affair in 1600:
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And yet it moves..

Vulgar Latin and romance languages and studying old greek helped break down this separation so that regular people can interpret the bible and other works.
For the ancient greeks valued the spread of knowledge for its own sake and not monopolising it.

This accompanied the renaissance and a flourishing of art by people like Da Vinci and new principles of humanity which also lead to great steps in scientific understanding and discoveries of technology such as the printing press, rediscovery of knowledge such as heliocentrism and discovery of new lands such as new spain and americas

But the same small minds have come after Julian Assange today and locked him in a tower too for publishing journalistic information about war crimes.

Please help to free him by raising the issue or signing a petition:
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Should we be afraid that if we write anything about the VMS in a public forum that we too would be locked away by these same people that are against the sharing of information?

No. The same people do not want DaVinci to draw anything or Copernicus to write anything down because knowledge threatens their authority.

On a positive note, today is Wikipedia's 20th birthday anniversary.


Liber de Sapientia
Vive la liberté. Vive la sabiduria. Viva la Vida!

is this a common way to draw faces in the 15th-18thC period?

these are by Antonio de Leon y Gama (1792), Mexico.

and look very similar to voynich faces.

which could mean that they used the Voynich MS to copy the face design (possibly in Mexico or Spain).

maybe Antonio de Leon had seen it through Tepenec.

i shouldn't jump to any brash conclusions though, espcially on little sleep.

According to this newspaper article from January the 3rd, a research team in Malta (Dr. Colin Layfield and Dr. John Abela ) is busy with research on the VMS. Concrete results are not announced yet. Maybe it is worth to keep an eye on this project.

Dr Colin Layfield and Dr John Abela are both senior lecturers in the Department of Computer Information Systems in the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology ( University of Malta ). Their research areas include Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.

To the article:
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edit: I found this older paper (May 2020):
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How could I have overlooked it?

Today (4 January 2021) is National Trivia Day in the US (no joke).
So let's have some Voynich trivia here.

Voynich Manuscript: Numeric Enigma?
by Vladimír Matlach, Barbora Anna Janečková and Daniel Dostál

Link to preprint: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Abstract: 

Quote:In this article, we employ simple descriptive methods in order to explore the peculiar behavior of the symbols in the Voynich Manuscript. Such analysis reveals a group of symbols which are further analyzed for the possibility of being compounds (or ligatures), using a specifically developed method. The results suggest the possibility that the alphabet of the manuscript is a lot smaller, and steganographic type of encoding is proposed to explain many of the already known and newly revealed properties.

Speaking of rings as we have previously, perhaps the nymphs with rings are a modified representation of the sort of "bride of Christ" ideology. Modified in the sense that one would *not* expect her to be seen with no clothes on, but then it is the VMs and so many other nymphs are in the buff.

Historically this occurs with Colette of Corbie and the Colettine Poor Clares.

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Historical data:
1) Occurs c. 1400-1450
2) Occurs (in part) in the Duchy of Burgundy
3) Supported by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy and his wife, Isabella
4) Two versions of Colette's biography have survived in Duke Philip's library and are in KBR.

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Also:

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Quoted from above:

"St Colette had a special devotion to St John the Apostle, who appeared to her on one occasion to place a miraculous ring on her finger. As he did so, he said: "by my own right and on behalf of the sovereign King and Prince of virginity and chastity." This ring was visible to all, and was a beautiful and very precious ring of gold."

[The 1313 text of The Apocalypse of S Jean, (BNF Fr. 13086 f 18), later in the library of Philip the Good, has an Agnus Dei illustration with the best structural similarity to the VMs 'critter' representation on f80v.]

Currently, as part of her confirmation, the Colettine sister "receives a silver ring".

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The ring identifies the bride. Once again the VMs artist is being tricky. Picture everyone naked, unless clothing or some other item is necessary to affirm their identity. Unfortunately, as investigators, we are operating on a sort of event horizon, a place where the apparently insignificant, historical details are on the verge of being lost in current references. Some details (papelonny) already have been omitted in some sources. The artistic obfuscation, when combined with the loss of historical details, presents a significant difficulty for VMs interpretation.