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[split] Commissioned or not?
- [split] Commissioned or not?
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[split] Commissioned or not?
Anton > 30-07-2018, 09:47 PM
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RE: Erased lines?
VViews > 30-07-2018, 09:52 PM
I agree Anton, I don't think this was commissioned to outside contractors by a patron. It was made by its owner... although that discussion has little to do with the topic of this post. -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
Koen Gh. > 30-07-2018, 10:08 PM
I split this thread because it's an interesting topic. I've always intuitively thought of the manuscript as commissioned, since well, most manuscripts were.
Apart from the rather individual nature of the work, which arguments are there against commission? -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
Anton > 30-07-2018, 10:09 PM
I think Koen kindly split this into a separate thread.
To me that's not 100% certain but definitely would be the first guess. If the VMS was prepared to someone else, this automatically implies one of two things:
a) either the purchaser understood Voynichese
b) or the manuscript is a hoax (to fool the purchaser)
None of these two look to me as simple as just creating the VMS for one's own self (or for collective use of a closed group maybe). -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
Anton > 30-07-2018, 10:12 PM
(30-07-2018, 10:08 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've always intuitively thought of the manuscript as commissioned, since well, most manuscripts were.
Interestingly, I never thought of it in that way.
The arguments against commission are, fist, the enigmatic script, and, second, the circumstance that the MS never got bound until much time elapsed since its creation (if I remember correctly, that was the conclusion of the respective discussion, was it not?
)
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RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
VViews > 30-07-2018, 10:26 PM
I agree with Anton, I never thought of it this way either.
I'm not sure how the process would be supposed to go.
Patron has a secret code to encipher secret knowledge, and reveals all to a scriptorium so they can write the book for him? I doubt that.
Or patron has secret knowledge, which he reveals to scriptorium so they can come up with a code to hide it?
Nah that doesn't make sense either.
Better: Owner is a literate and cultured group of people with enough money to purchase (or the opportunity to "borrow") some materials, they come up with secret code to hide knowledge, and DIY it. -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
Koen Gh. > 30-07-2018, 10:38 PM
When I was reading up on VM research a couple of years ago, I read some proposal (Nick's?) that the text may have been copied from prepared examples. This made me think of a scriptorium where the "proper" MS was made by professionals at a relatively quick pace. Such a scenario also comes to mind in Currier's mental image of two scribes (Hand A and B) sitting at a table and taking a sheet off the pile in turn.
Anyway, the impression I got was that an example existed (either a rough draft or something that existed earlier) and professional services were hired to fashion the current MS. -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
VViews > 30-07-2018, 10:49 PM
I don't know. Currier languages A & B also work if those two scribes are not commissioned pros but two owners.
If the Voynich is a "good copy" of a draft, it seems like this would be pretty risky, in terms of the scribes leaving out essential stuff. For instance, in the hypothesis being discussed in the other thread where the tail coverage in aiin groups is significant, this would be at risk of being altered if the text were given to scribes to copy.
It's a possibility but I personally find it unlikely. -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
Koen Gh. > 30-07-2018, 10:58 PM
Conversely though, consider the following scenario:
- Person A obtains a stack of confiscated MSS. One of them is really strange.
- He has a copy made (with hurry) to be sent to his friend B who knows more about such things.
- Scribes C and D are hired to make this copy.
- They unknowingly even out a bunch of details.
- We find this copy and make a forum to discuss it online.
- We have to deal with low entropy because of C and D's ignorance of the script. -
RE: [split] Commissioned or not?
VViews > 30-07-2018, 11:19 PM
If you're in a hurry (why exactly would they be?) , I'm pretty sure it would be faster and cheaper to send a page, or to have whoever your expert is come over from wherever they are, than to make an illustrated copy hundreds of pages long.
The scenario piles one hypothesis over another. We need four hypotheticals to come together to make it happen.
Isn't the DIY hypothesis much, much simpler?
Also, if we take it as a given that the only reason we can't read it is that it's so full of errors that the original content is lost, then it's a pretty pointless task to try to even try and solve it.
But the truth is, we probably won't know. We can discuss probabilities, and compare observations, but that's about it.
