New Blog post: "Mysterious Steganography"- a Damning Observation

[proto57]

Very interesting Rich.
I would, personally, suggest that although your argument is logical, these scholars will still have had an understanding of many of these scripts, even if they couldn't personally read them.
Ie the galgolthic comment, it was perfectly recognizable and the implication was that they could quickly find someone who read it.
In some ways they would over compensate - Kirchner, and I'm sure many of his contemporaries, would happily claim knowledge that they didn't actually possess.
They were over confident. So show them a strange looking manuscript and they'd wave a hand and say ah! Western coptic in the third province or whatever, without really having a clue.
So for them to confess they were baffled would be a major confession.

Hi David: Those are all true, and yes I think it was a major confession on their part, that what they were looking at... whatever it was... baffled them. Luckily they were inquisitive, as all good scientists and scholars are... and they were part of the solution to many such mysteries over the ensuing centuries.

A rough guess of mine... not a significant part of my theory, but what I consider an interesting aside... is that the manuscript these men saw might have been either an Aramaic or Syriac herbal. The Syriac works, in particular, seem to have what might have seemed "chemical symbolism" to them. And there are several loose sheets in the Kircher Carteggio, unattributed to any letter, and at least one of which has Syriac writing and symbols... and some stars. I speculate that the manuscript they were looking at... which I call the Baresch Manuscript... may have have been a Syriac work. I've looked at hundreds of herbals and such online, with some candidates.

Of course it would have to fit the description of the letters, and also have a provenance which fit with the possibility that the men of the letters could have seen it. But as I said, that is an aside to my overall hypothesis.

Thanks again for your thoughts and feedback...
Rich.