I was going over the nymph objects again and I can't remember if anyone has ever found a parallel for this one:

   

It's not just the identification of the object itself which is problematic, but also the way it is held and the pose of its nymph. 

• At first sight, one would say that she is holding it in her mouth, but if the drawing's accuracy at this scale is to be trusted, this is not the case. the object appears to pass behind her face, against her cheek. 
  
• Her hair appears to have a knot in it where the object crosses it, which raises the strange possibility that it is in fact tied to her hair. Again, this is hard to tell given the size of the drawing.
  
• Her lips slightly part, as if she's blowing at the object. An important note here may be that in a first pass her face was drawn slim, but then a curved line has been added to her cheek to make it appear puffy. This lends credibility to a "blowing" interpretation. Or whistling? 
  
• Her arms are held in an unnatural, even impossible position. Challenge: find a large mirror, stand in front of it and hold your arms like this. It will only work if you're made of pudding. Their positioning is more appropriate for wings (bird's or angel's). 
  
• The base ends in a weird leg with three "toes".
  

Published May 8, 2017
Authored: Tom E. O'Neil
8.5" x 11" (21.59 x 27.94 cm) 
Full Color on White paper
52 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1546573272 (CreateSpace-Assigned) 
ISBN-10: 1546573275 
BISAC: History / Renaissance

Hi all,

I've been looking at different vords, trying to uncover an underlying structure that all or most VMS vords contain. 

I've been wrong in the past and could be wrong now, but I wonder if characters that look alike (all "circle" characters, all gallows characters, all "ch/e" things) have the same function because they seem to appear in the same places. Take a look at the following:

   

There seem to be four groups of characters, and they repeat in a predictable and uniform way:

"Circle" group: o a y ai
"Hook" group: r l n m 
"C" group: c h ch sh e ee eee che ech etc.
"Tall" group: k t p f d s

Can all (or most) vords be reduced to this 4-unit paradigm? Is that the underlying structure of the Voynichese cipher?

I've been looking at the characters known as 'bench gallows' for a little while (the characters ckh, cth, cfh, cph) and there is something I cannot settle.

What order are the characters stroke written in?

I did think this was the order: 1) e, 2) ek, 3) eke, 4) ckh. But now I'm not so sure. I think that the writer could have possible written c-h with a long crossbar first, then inserted k to make ckh.

There are ways to test this, but I wonder if anybody has an insight to share. I think it would be very useful to know and may make some interpretations of the character more likely than others.

Whenever I think in a broad philosophical way about what the Voynich text could actually be, one idea often lurks in the shadows, but I find it hard to explain, partially because I don't know yet if and how it could work. So -disclaimer- expect some vague, half-baked and unfounded hypothesizing in what follows.

1. People before the advent of the printing press had a lot more information in their memories than we do now. This difference has even gotten much bigger in the (mobile) internet age, where we have the answer to every question in a piece of glass we carry around in our pockets. But before, it was perfectly normal for an entertainer to perform, say, the Iliad, over several days, completely by heart. But even common farmers would have beaten the best of us in a contest of memory, just because they were required to develop their mnemonic techniques much more than we are.
   
2. Medieval books were generally written with a very specific audience in mind, sometimes even just one person.
   
3. If the scribe knew what his reader(s) knew by heart, this knowledge could be exploited to obscure the text (for whatever reason).
   

I just watched the short video on the VMS created by TED-ED and scripted by Stephen Bax.

The graphics are charming. I enjoyed them, and they'll probably reach a broader audience and generate increased interest in the VMS.


There is, however, a statement in the video that I find questionable, and since this section is for analysis of the text, I thought it might be interesting to discuss it.

Here is the statement:

"Cryptologists say the writing has all the characteristics of a real language."


Is that really true? Is that the general consensus among cryptologists? Is there a general consensus among cryptologists?


I'm not a cryptologist, but my personal feeling is that the text diverges quite significantly from natural language, particularly if the spaces are taken literally. I have never seen any natural language with such a high level of repetition combined with such a high degree of positional rigidity, not only in the word-tokens themselves, but also in the construction of individual lines.

The only way I can see this being natural language (and I still haven't discounted the possibility) is IF the spaces are contrived AND there are nulls AND some of the letter forms that appear similar are possibly intended to be differentiated by details (e.g., the length or direction of tails) OR if it is another kind of system entirely (musical notes, numbers, semaphore, etc., which is then converted back into natural language).


Your thoughts?

Mod edit: The link to the video is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Stephen Bax just updated his website, announcing that he scripted a Voynich video for TED-ED (not to be confused with TED-talks).
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Direct link to the video on TED-ED's YouTube channel:

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


It is basically the standard introduction to the manuscript, and experienced researchers won't learn anything new. I like the TED-ED animators' style though, and the animations they did of some of the pages are really beautiful.

There are only three illustration of animals in the herbal and pharmaceutical section: a pair of snakes, a dragon and a frog.
The snakes and dragon are very common in medieval illustrated herbals, but the frog isn't.
In fact, beside snakes and dragons, one would commonly see scorpions and dogs, and in almost all cases the animal has something to do with the medicinal properties of the herb.

What would the frog mean?
It is on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the upper right corner:

   

This is clearly the same herb as on f32v:

   

The "artist" has taken the trouble to bring in one leaf and one flower to show that it's the same.

Which herb would have something to do with frogs?
One option is given by the Tractatus de Herbis tradition. There is usually a frog ('rana') drawn closely to a herb called 'ranaria'. This is because the books show herbs and animals mixed, and they are organised alphabetically. Here's an example from Munich CLM 28531, which I have rotated for layout purposes:

   

The herb does not look at all like the herb in the Voynich MS.

Another incidental example I found is in a Latin illustrated copy of Dioscurides, also in Munich:  CLM 337:

   

Now this one is a bit more interesting as the herb does bear a passing resemblance to the VMS herb.
This one is Cyminon Agrestis, which in the more common Greek versions is Κύμινον άγριον
(hope that comes out).

After this, it gets more difficult. In Greek copies of Dioscurides (I only checked the online ones in Naples and in New York), the herb looks very different, and there is no frog. The reason of the frog seems to be a standard venom-related issue, but I haven't seen any specific reason why a frog and not a dragon/snake/scorpion.

Unfortunately, the scan of CLM 337 is not of the best quality, and the Beneventan script takes quite a while to get used to.

So, no great answers yet, but perhaps someone else knows a bit more.

This illustrated herbal was written in Veneto in 1450 ca. Digital images can be seen You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. The ms was stolen in 1992 and recovered in 1995, but the thieves removed 6 folios that are now lost (documented in older black-and-white photographs).

A facsimile edition was published in 2007 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Editors: Caterina Barbon and Roberto Benedetti, Publisher Vattori).

The essays in the 2007 book only briefly discuss the relationship between this herbal and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. A paper and a thesis by Micol Duca are mentioned: her hypothesis is that the Vermont and Udine herbals are both copies of a lost original written in Tuscany. Roberto Benedetti also points out some errors in the text of the Udine herbal that do not appear in the text of the Vermont herbal.
Comparing the illustrations, it is clear that those in the Udine herbal are more detailed and more accurately painted than those in the Vermont herbal. For instance, in Vermont img.22 “Herba Imorio Chiarissima” has two large green leaves; these leaves were color-annotated “rossa” (red). The corresponding illustration in the Udine herbal (img.56) has two large blossoms or fruits, painted red and with a “scaly” pattern that was also lost in the Vermont ms.

When comparing this herbal with the Voynich ms, a feature that seems common to both is the use of roots with only a few large “branches” which are arranged in such a way that they suggest a vaguely anthropomorphic shape. The same roots can also be observed in the Vermont herbal (sometimes obfuscated by the heavier painting).

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
       

I have read accounts where medieval scribes transcribing a manuscript have added their personal thoughts as marginalia, not only that, but substituted more familiar words for those they could not understand.
Is this old news?