27-08-2026, 11:01 AM
The term "forgery" is applied too broadly. A forgery of what?
Merriam-Webster defines forge as "to make or imitate falsely especially with intent to defraud : counterfeit". Imitate what? Conterfeit what? The whole idea of a forgery is that similar documents exist, that there is an expectation which the forged object matches. For example, if someone made a bad version of a Ming vase, we could say it's an unconvincing forgery.
Take the Vinland Map; from the Wiki, first line: "The Vinland Map is a 20th-century forgery purporting to be a 15th-century mappa mundi with unique information about Norse exploration of North America." It falls within a very well-defined category (15th century mappae mundi), and it is very clear which expectations it answers to. There was a Vinland-Map-sized hole living in some people's imaginations that was begging to be filled.
When I ask what the VM is purporting to be, there isn't a clear answer, and you'll need to start speculating and making stuff up.
Cambridge Academic Dictionary defines forgery as "a copy of a document, signature, painting, etc. that has been made illegally in order to deceive someone".
Copy of what? Illegal by what law? Sure, if Voynich made the thing and passed it of as being from the 15th century (which he didn't!), then that's illegal, but the further we go back in time, the more problematic this part of the definition also becomes. And how on earth can we say that the intention was to deceive rather than making an idiosyncratic project?
Merriam-Webster defines forge as "to make or imitate falsely especially with intent to defraud : counterfeit". Imitate what? Conterfeit what? The whole idea of a forgery is that similar documents exist, that there is an expectation which the forged object matches. For example, if someone made a bad version of a Ming vase, we could say it's an unconvincing forgery.
Take the Vinland Map; from the Wiki, first line: "The Vinland Map is a 20th-century forgery purporting to be a 15th-century mappa mundi with unique information about Norse exploration of North America." It falls within a very well-defined category (15th century mappae mundi), and it is very clear which expectations it answers to. There was a Vinland-Map-sized hole living in some people's imaginations that was begging to be filled.
When I ask what the VM is purporting to be, there isn't a clear answer, and you'll need to start speculating and making stuff up.
Cambridge Academic Dictionary defines forgery as "a copy of a document, signature, painting, etc. that has been made illegally in order to deceive someone".
Copy of what? Illegal by what law? Sure, if Voynich made the thing and passed it of as being from the 15th century (which he didn't!), then that's illegal, but the further we go back in time, the more problematic this part of the definition also becomes. And how on earth can we say that the intention was to deceive rather than making an idiosyncratic project?