I have a mostly written blog on this, but I am falling farther and farther behind in my blogs (I don't know when I can finish it) and, despite the pandemic, work is busier than ever, so it's becoming difficult to fit in any Voynich research.

This topic came up on another thread, but I think it deserves a thread of its own.

I've written numerous blogs about shapes in the VMS that are similar to Latin scribal conventions.

I want to point out another analogy, and that is that EVERY GLYPH that could (by convention) have a terminal tail in Latin has a tail in the VMS. Look at this example that I snapped from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the big-plant section. There are no exceptions. Every terminal glyph that has a tail-appropriate shape has a tail:





This is pretty important because they do NOT put tails on everything in medieval scripts, but they do have a method for deciding which shapes CAN be given a terminal shape.

For example, in languages that use Latin characters (French, German, Italian, English, Czech, Spanish, etc.)

• It is NOT customary to add a tail to the letter "o" because it would be confused with g or y.
  
• It is NOT customary to add a tail to letters that already have a descender or ascender (thus "g" does not normally have an extra terminal tail, nor does "d").
  
• It is NOT customary to add a tail to an x-shape (EVA-d is similar to a looped x), and it almost has a descender the way it is usually written in the VMS.
  

I've posted many images here and on my blog that show the "four rivers" of paradise. But this 13th-century mappa munda (from the BL Map Psalter) is different. It has five rivers:



The four that are usual are phison, geon, tigris, and eufrates (which you can see on the right). There are numerous spellings for these rivers but the names are more-or-less the same on most maps.

But this map also one called "ganges" on the left. Now wait a minute... that's India. Do they mean a different Ganges in the Middle East?

Nope, I'm pretty sure they mean the Ganges River in India, which flows from northern to eastern India, because there are clues in other parts of the map.


If you look to the upper right of the rivers, you will see something that looks like buildings with smokestacks. These are oracle trees, or possibly a combination of oracle trees and temples (they look more like blobs than trees).

So what do these have to do with India? They probably trace back to the mythical adventures of Alexander, where he visited the oracle trees (talking trees) in India, one was male (called the sun tree), the other female (the moon tree).  This drawing is a bit unusual because the sun tree is frequently on the right in most European illustrations. Here it is labeled on the left.

The trees are described as being in a circle (this attracted my attention because sacred groves all over Europe, especially northern Europe, are frequently in a circle, and the container-like towers on the VMS central rosette are also arranged in a circle).

Two of the trees could talk (in Indian and Greek) and would do so at daybreak, noon, and nightfall. To enter the sacred place, you could not bring iron (weapons). So, this place in India was revered in a way similar to the western reverence for Eden or "Paradise". Eden was often placed at the top of maps. On this map, the oracle trees share a place next to Eve and Adam in the central circle from which the rivers are flowing.

The prognostications from the trees did not favor Alexander, they "predicted" his death, but the myth lived on for hundreds of years, tucked away in these little bits of drawings and labels that are found in some manuscripts and some maps that are not directly associated with the Alexander chronicle.


It's also interesting that this combination of the sun and moon and a tree was a part of hermetic tradition in the west, perhaps an adaptation of the oracle trees to which the other "planets" were added:



In Rosarium Philosophorum, we have sun and moon trees:

  

I thought this was interesting too because the way the suns and moons are arranged is more similar to the Assyrian tree of life:



Source: British Museum, Image © Barnaby Thieme

This tree of life was considered the center of the cosmos.


Here are the Hebrew sephirot arranged as limbs on a tree:



This reminds me of the arrangement of some of the more stylized VMS plants.


And here is a sacred lake and grove on an island in Estonia (courtesy Pt, Wikipedia). Nine craters were created by a meteor strike about 3,500 years ago:



Visitors view it from a platform partway up the hill (after all these millennia, it is still considered sacred).

When something is sacred, a cosmic boundary is often drawn around it in medieval illustrations. And note the little rocks that are more apparent when the water level is low. This reminded me of the middle-right rotum on the VMS rosettes folio. Could the VMS image refer to something like this? with a cloudband to indicate a holy place?


Is it possible that the VMS rosettes folio is not really a strip map (which has always been my favorite interpretation) but perhaps a record of 9 different sacred places collected together on one folio?

Maybe the oracle of Delphi (Corycian cave) is represented by the top-left rosette: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

This is the program written by Dave Oranchak collaborator, Jarl Van Eycke, a Belgian computer scientist that helped with the recent cracking of Zodiac's 340 code.


See thread:

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Here are links to the downloadable version and a web version.

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and a web version:

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It seems this program assumes that the code is a homophonic cipher -- so are we back to the same issue with the Voynich that this seems unlikely?

I'm interested in any comments anyone has about how this tool could be used to crack our mystery, too.

I just got this paper in my Academia.edu recommendations, I think it's new:

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Another test to add to the Voynich Manuscript wish list.  This time the genomes of the organisms inhabiting its pages.

Although a full DNA analysis of the vellum itself would seem to be a logical first step.

I couldn't find a thread on this, so I thought I would add it to the marginalia section:

Top-left corner of f103r... the top left is hard to decipher. It almost looks like a rune shape or like a monogram of letters E and F, but I don't know what it might be. After it there's something the resembles plaintext that has been partly scraped:

[I'll add the clip when the forum attachment button is working again.]

I have been in touch with Beata Megyesi in Stockholm who runs the DECODE database. This is a database of ciphers that they are collecting there.

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Michelle referred me to them, although in truth I had come across them before. Nevertheless, Michelle mentioning them encouraged me to get in touch with them. I am searching for Milanese ciphers keys from between the years 1425 to 1445 and these are very rare, though I have managed to collect other early 15th Milanese cipher keys. So I thought martialing all forces I can find in this search would be advisable.

The problem of course can be that when these ciphers are not already digitised obtaining permission to share photoreproductions is difficult. Beata has been in contact with archives and will do her best to request permission.

In contrast to the opinion of one user of this website obtaining permission to share photoreproductions requires effort.

[personal stuff redacted - Anton]

I have amassed a very large collection of early 15th ciphers, despite their scarcity. Yet, until permission is obtained I cannot share them. Obtaining permission is slightly arduous as it requires contacting archives individually, however I am happy to leave that to Beata. I have informed Beata of all the knowledge that I have as to the location of early 15th century ciphers amongst others, which I know she has really appreciated as I have amassed quite a bit of knowledge on the subject.

Whilst my interest in general is really only in ciphers before 1447 and after 1350, I know that some researchers have expressed interest in much later ciphers, which I am sure Beata would be keen to add to her database. So it might be an idea for people to share their cipher discoveries with DECODE and similarly benefit from what they have to share.

DECODE have 120 members in 24 countries and they go on cipher hunting trips to various archives to expand their database. Also members on the ground help by investigating their local archives. I have offered to help with their hunt in British Archives, where possible, and I am sure they will do their best to assist me in finding what I seek.

Now I appreciate that most researchers do not have the focus on ciphers that I have, especially when it comes to early 15th century ciphers, nevertheless some might know of cipher records unknown to Beata and her team. I would be happy to share those or others can share them directly. They have collected a large number, so I imagine that they are aware of the most obvious sources, but smaller or less well known archives are more likely to have eluded them.

This is something that has worried me for years: why do people seem to assume that Voynichese glyphs can be mapped to common European alphabets and any extraneous glyphs that don't fit can be dropped?
Here's an example from An Application of Data Mining And Frequency Analyses to Determine Source Languages of the Voynich Manuscript (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.):

Quote:Frequencies of letters in the manuscript and for a test language were imported to an Excel spreadsheet in descending order. The length of the second language’s alphabet determined the amount of most-frequent Voychinese characters used for this test.

Given my theory that the folios in the manuscript are demonstrative of multiple events, subjects and languages on each folio rather than a 1:1 translatable text/subject, I am looking at the missing Aquarius (presumed Aquarius) folio to show January 2022. Data suggests this month being specifically relevant in a historical manner. This is the point where the current world situation is expected to reach a specific stage where the current issues will either be contained/resolved or conversely hit a (new) worsening scenario. I have suggested the folio moths in the VM are out of synch with actual months being in advance by 1 month. VM Aquarius folio following the others should be labeled February but refer to January. The Age of Aquarius is said to be the start of a New Age in human history. So aside from whatever relevance January 2022 has to our current circumstances, Aquarius has perceived historical big picture relevance.

There is nothing special astronomically about that date apart from a massing of planets between Scorpio and Aquarius at that time, but not in a tight bundle, by no means a one off event, and the full-ish Moon in Taurus near to SN 1054 mid month. But if it showed an event like a supernova the mundane surrounding astronomy is of no consequence, the event is the star of the show. I would expect the folio to show nymphs male and female as drawn in other folios and within patterned barrels, no nymph with outstretched arms. Aquarius apart from depicting New year (European) shown holding a star, or more likely the star being poured in the water from the water bearers jug. The Aquarius water bearer may have facial features like the top image on f68r1 (Sun?/star over Earth, as opposed to f68r2 Moon over Sun), the solar Sun being shown differently to "New stars" and such, they being displayed more like Greek gods. Query whether January 2022 astronomically is when the Tawny Horse starts making its journey here from its origin and starts behaving like the white ball in snooker/pool/billiards and deflects matter from its usual orbit along the way leading up to first note of increasing meteorite/asteroid reports here. Whether there will be a concurrent visible astronomical event like a supernova shown on the missing folio, only time or seeing the actual folio would say. A supernova type event occurring atm best guess in one of the bird constellations near the full Moon mid month as this draws attention to it being observed more widely as the general population rarely takes note of the sky beyond the Moon looking bright, big, haze ring, red etc.

So in conclusion f68r1 may among other events show the Tawny horse as the classical god sun (also f68r1) and an astronomical one off event like a new star. December is also coming up as an important event from data, VM Capricorn possibly showing SN5 BC may also show another astronomical event for 2021.

I suggest the date of concern is specifically the 18th January 2022 in the constellation Cygnus, and the time 6.30 PM or earlier in the morning at around 5 AM when it is level with SN 1054 location. Note that this will be described from a London location. In the Northern hemisphere Cygnus circles low on the horizon not fully setting, in the Southern hemisphere it is below the horizon at night and low on the horizon in daylight, but some supernovae and great comets are daylight visible. Suggest phenomenon occurs on the edge of the Northern Cross asterism near Delta Cygni, between Deneb and Vega in the NW, and on a similar level with the full Moon and Jupiter in Aquarius, there is also a weak comet in Aquarius above Jupiter. The 5 AM scenario with Cygnus in the NE low on the horizon, Aquarius is below the horizon but the suggested position is level with the location of SN 1054, also suggested to be relevant to the VM folios.

Cygnus dives between Lyra and Aquila, constellations suggested to be shown on f86v3 (Aquila and Lyra), separation is thematic. Astronomical landscape in comparison to f86v3 to follow.
Images now available, let me know here if interested or on Voynich list mail or PM here or there.

thank you,
Bunny

Hi All,
Has anyone thought the VM to be a diary? And whomever was writing in it scribbled and drew (like we normally do) as a combination of art journal and writing?
They could have invented their own code to write in, possibly to protect themselves, similarly to what Anne Lister did in the early 1800's, who wrote diaries in her own language, this being done to protect herself and her partner as lesbians. When she died, if anyone found her diaries (even though they were well hidden) it would have been hard to decode, and especially hard for her family to do, so her secret could be safe. 
The writer could have been a scientific drawer (i.e: creating plant diagrams) and used this book as a place for their sketches, as well as writing (perhaps they were overly protective of their work and wrote drafts in code? If the VM were a draft of a later diagram book)
Some drawings are similar to botanical art of the time, but there are some parts that strike me as stylistic choices, meaning they were either rough sketches/drafts, drawing for pleasure in a style, or both. 
Please let me know if this has already been discussed and disproved, apologies if so!