Regarding a recent conversation on the missing zodiac folio elsewhere, I wondered if may be of interest here too.  I have previously estimated what it may contain and wonder if anyone else has also, or even drawn what they expect to see?

Copied in so if the formatting doesn't work I'll try again:

Bunny

I anticipate that the missing folio f74r+v depicts Capricorn and Aquarius to complete the year.  The Capricorn folio is assigned to the month of December and the events for this month are shown below.

December  13th   Saturn at quadrature
                13th   Earth at Perihelion
                16th   Winter Solstice
                21st   Venus greatest elongation west
                27th   Mercury greatest elongation east

The Aquarius folio is assigned to the month of January and the events for this month are shown below.

I've just seen an announcement on twitter that Prof Bill Sherman will be giving a talk on The History of the Book and The History of Cryptography online on 04 June 2020 at 13:00 BST (GMT+1). If you wish to attend the online talk then you need to book in advance, presumably so you can be sent a link to the web-stream.

The talk is being organised by The Book and Print Initiative which is a project within the Warburg Institute/School of Advanced Study/University of London.

The only thing I have right now (1st June 2020 at 12:30 BST) is a link to the tweet annoucing the event You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as the Warburg Institute's website is currently broken which means that the booking link and any additional information is inaccessible. So far, I have not been able to sign-up for the talk.

Disclaimer: I don't know Bill Sherman and have no links to any of the groups organising this event, I just saw it on Twitter and thought it looked interesting!

An interesting pen test in a Hebrew manuscript that has a mixture of Hebrew and Latin on the flyleaves (this is from the rear fly-leaf, which is actually the front fly-leaf since Hebrew is written right-to-left):

   

Cod.Hebr.287

I often wonder if this is a separate character OR if it reveals what was in the scribe's mind when it was written and is perhaps a mistake (a blunder):

   

The character on the right is not in the Basic EVA set, which means it is not in any of the transcripts created with Basic EVA.


It is, nevertheless, more frequent than people might expect (occurs more often than the VMS "rare" characters).

In Latin-character languages, this would be interpreted as the "cl" ligature (which is quite common). What it means in Voynichese, I don't know.


It is, of course, not possible to do statistical comparisons between the 8 shape and the cl shape by using transcripts that don't record the distinction.

Also posted on another discussion list.

Considering almost all folios start with 1 of 4 gallows with the occasional
o thrown in front how is that explainable in terms of natural language?  Do
any manuscripts or books start with only a choice of 4 letters?  If not
alphabet letters could they show which "code subset" to refer to. Could it
be a 4  subset rotating code or even 4 completely different codes used? 


Bunny

I have been told this is probably the best sub-forum to present hypotheses which don't fit the traditional academic paper approach.

Watch this space.  Coming soon.   A hypothesis that covers everything.

Bunny

"They roll us like we roll dice and count the numbers"

Hi everyone, afew years ago i ran the smaller images made available from the university of yale through image enhancement software. To get a better view of whats going on. Some of the pages are not in order in large view. But hope it helps ?.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Some time ago I mentioned Cary's art in another thread. It looks like she is going to keep working on Voynich-themed pieces and updating her website, so here's a proper thread.

"Cary Rapaport is a Boston, MA based artist currently working in porcelain sculpture, glass and a range of other media."

On her You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., you can see the five VM pieces she finished so far, based on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . 



I'm a big fan of her work, because on the one hand she is working with materials that require a lot of skill and practice to master, and she is constantly aiming to improve her techniques. And on the other hand, I like the way she translates her selected VM images into a 3D medium, taking enough liberties to create something new, but still keeping the spirit of the original.

Currently she is posting updates about her work inspired by f48r: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Even though it is not finished yet, you can already see the shape of the plant emerging.

For this piece, she will also start experimenting with plasma art, which sounds pretty awesome:

Quote:Beyond the process of “simply” flameworking the shape, I plan that these pieces are going to be filled with inert gases and connected to a high voltage power supply to give them a gas discharge glow, a process that comes with its own set of technical challenges.

This text is also in the Duke of Burgundy library

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


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

Listed as KBR MS 9404-5

Maps: I 346 - I 353

Swallow-tailed merlons on I 113, I 223 and four examples on I 281.

Certainly appears to associate these merlons with Muslim 'fortifications'.

The VMS has a very limited palette. The pigments are:

• green (this has been mixed with varying amounts of amber or blue to create different shades of green, it's the one VMS color that is frequently mixed)
  
• brown (this appears to be the same mix as the gall ink but in some places looks like it might have been watered slightly to create a paler color)
  
• blue (one that appears difficult to work with and in places looks like it wasn't ground long enough to make it smooth).
  
• amber (this is a pale, washed-out color that was sometimes mixed with green)
  
• true red (this is used sparingly and was generally a more expensive and difficult pigment to obtain)
  
• white (a few places look like there might be white, perhaps white lead, and a few places where it might have been mixed with other colors, but it is very sparse and hard to see)