the Voynich MS solved
Adam Funk
(cf. http://xkcd.com/393/ )
--
Leila: "I don't think he knows."
Agent Rogersz: "Increase the voltage."
Leila: "What if he's innocent?"
Agent Rogersz: "No one is innocent. Proceed" (Cox 1984)
alien8er
> http://xkcd.com/593/
Hivemindey.
Wife and I were talking about it day before yesterday. She leans
toward the hoax idea, I think it might be an herbal from an alternate
timeline. It would be far more interesting if it had 137 pages...
> (cf.http://xkcd.com/393/)
Yabbut, whose dice are they using?
Dr. HotSalt
António Marques
> Wife and I were talking about it day before yesterday. She leans
> toward the hoax idea,
The text appears to be a genuine language, it isn't a hoax in the
'disguised gibberish' sense.
> I think it might be an herbal from an alternate
> timeline. It would be far more interesting if it had 137 pages...
Why do english speakers know that 'It' in 'It would be far more
interesting...' refers to 'the situation' rather than 'the manuscript'?
--
António Marques
Otto Bahn
--oTTo--
grammatim
Do we? I thought he was saying that the ms. would be more interesting.
Adam Funk
>> I think it might be an herbal from an alternate
>> timeline. It would be far more interesting if it had 137 pages...
>
> Why do english speakers know that 'It' in 'It would be far more
> interesting...' refers to 'the situation' rather than 'the manuscript'?
I think that's probably because the second "it" ("if it had") must
refer to "the manuscript", so the first "It" is left as the impersonal
kind (as in "It is interesting/possible/outrageous that [clause].").
--
"It is the role of librarians to keep government running in difficult
times," replied Dramoren. "Librarians are the last line of defence
against chaos." (McMullen 2001)
DKleinecke
They don't know that. Both "it"s refer to the manuscript.
Trond Engen
> On Jun 5, 11:39 am, Ant�nio Marques <m...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
>> alien8er wrote:
>>
>>> Wife and I were talking about it day before yesterday. She leans
>>> toward the hoax idea,
>>
>> The text appears to be a genuine language, it isn't a hoax in the
>> 'disguised gibberish' sense.
>>
>>> I think it might be an herbal from an alternate timeline. It would
>>> be far more interesting if it had 137 pages...
>>
>> Why do english speakers know that 'It' in 'It would be far more
>> interesting...' refers to 'the situation' rather than 'the
>> manuscript'?
>
> They don't know that. Both "it"s refer to the manuscript.
I read it like Antonio, but I'm as alien as anyone. Would 'it' refer to
the manuscript in any situation? What if we weren't discussing a
manuscript but a strange human being?
"I think it might be a woman from a distant planet. It/she would be far
more interesting if she had four breasts."
--
Trond Engen
alien8er
> On Jun 5, 11:39 am, António Marques <m...@sapo.pt> wrote:
>
> > alien8er wrote:
> > > Wife and I were talking about it day before yesterday. She leans
> > > toward the hoax idea,
>
> > The text appears to be a genuine language, it isn't a hoax in the
> > 'disguised gibberish' sense.
If I were going to generate such a hoax book I'd start with
character-frequency tables and such, possibly averaged over several
languages that might use a given set of invented characters.
Time yet again to demonstrate my ignorance; how far back in history
might we assume the existence of the knowledge (not necessarily common
knowledge) to use such techniques?
> > > I think it might be an herbal from an alternate
> > > timeline. It would be far more interesting if it had 137 pages...
>
> > Why do english speakers know that 'It' in 'It would be far more
> > interesting...' refers to 'the situation' rather than 'the manuscript'?
> > --
> > António Marques
>
> They don't know that. Both "it"s refer to the manuscript.
No, they don't; I wrote that sentence and I get to decide what each
"it" meant. You are at somewhat of a disadvantage since you didn't
know that the "137" bit is a reference to a separate thread. I didn't
think I needed to announce that because I didn't at first notice the
OP had crossposted to two groups. Dang you, Adam!
On the other hand, ambiguity is not necessarily equivalent to
sloppiness...
Mark L. Fergerson
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> If I were going to generate such a hoax book I'd start with
> character-frequency tables and such, possibly averaged over several
> languages that might use a given set of invented characters.
>
> Time yet again to demonstrate my ignorance; how far back in history
> might we assume the existence of the knowledge (not necessarily common
> knowledge) to use such techniques?
The Voynich problem has been solved a couple
of years ago (look up The American Scientist),
the author of the manuscript used a Renaissance
encoding technique, simple yet clever, the text is
mere gibberish, but the drawings of invented plants
are lovely. The author of the Vm was in dire need
of money and got a grand sum from the king of Prague.
Rachel
Is that what Jack the Ripper used?
Brian M. Scott
<m....@sapo.pt> wrote in
<news:h0booq$2pf$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in
alt.religion.kibology,sci.lang:
> alien8er wrote:
They don't: that 'it' is ambiguous, though my first reaction
is to read it as you did.
Brian
alien8er
> On Jun 6, 4:59 am, alien8er <Alien8...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > If I were going to generate such a hoax book I'd start with
> > character-frequency tables and such, possibly averaged over several
> > languages that might use a given set of invented characters.
>
> > Time yet again to demonstrate my ignorance; how far back in history
> > might we assume the existence of the knowledge (not necessarily common
> > knowledge) to use such techniques?
>
> The Voynich problem has been solved a couple
> of years ago (look up The American Scientist),
Specific cite, please? American Scientist's search engine gives no
hits for "Voynich Manuscript".
Mark L. Fergerson
PaulJK
>>
>>> alien8er wrote:
>>>> Wife and I were talking about it day before yesterday. She leans
>>>> toward the hoax idea,
>>
>>> The text appears to be a genuine language, it isn't a hoax in the
>>> 'disguised gibberish' sense.
>
> If I were going to generate such a hoax book I'd start with
> character-frequency tables and such, possibly averaged over several
> languages that might use a given set of invented characters.
In which case you would do a far far worse job than
the Voynich MS author(s).
> Time yet again to demonstrate my ignorance; how far back in history
> might we assume the existence of the knowledge (not necessarily common
> knowledge) to use such techniques?
Read "The Code Book" by Simon Singh and
"The Codebreakers, The Story of Secret Writing" by David Kahn.
pjk
>>>> I think it might be an herbal from an alternate
>>>> timeline. It would be far more interesting if it had 137 pages...
>>
>>> Why do english speakers know that 'It' in 'It would be far more
>>> interesting...' refers to 'the situation' rather than 'the manuscript'?
>>> --
>>> Ant�nio Marques
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> Specific cite, please? American Scientist's search engine gives no
> hits for "Voynich Manuscript".
>
> Mark L. Fergerson
Sorry, my memory fooled me, the article by Gordon Rugg,
The Mistery of the Voynich Manuscript, appeared in the
July 2004 issue of the Scientific American. I hope you
have access to the digital archive (I do, but only at the
university libraries). I found the article very convincing,
while I find that applications of DNA sequencing programs
to genuine ancient texts are more interesting than a hoax
or a piece of con artistery. For example the various
versions of the Chaucer tales have been analyzed
using a DNA program, and the result is that the juicy
versions are the late ones, the early versions are
rather dry. And two researchers at the Free University
of Mexico found that the Odyssey compiles texts
by at least a dozen bards (if memory serves).
Solving the Voynich riddle required only the
knowledge of the historical encoding method,
whereas answering those other questions regarding
genuine early texts demands real ingenuosity
and entirely new approaches involving biology
and evolution.
fr...@bluemail.ch
My killrater Panu Petteri Höglund phoglund
alias craoibhin66 alias he himself as his own
good friend and pupil Sean Connor soconn1
alias he himself as his own brother in arms
and stalking aide John Hobart Kyle jhobartkyle
johnk alias he himself as his own pretended
feminist foe and e-mail call bird Annina
Kaartinen alias a Romanian professor who
claims to have discovered the origin of
language - this multiple online personality
follows me around, into every thread.
He is obsessed with me. Having attended
three universities to no avail he panushes
me for his barren mind.
grammatim
> My killrater Panu Petteri Höglund phoglund
> alias craoibhin66 alias he himself as his own
> good friend and pupil Sean Connor soconn1
> alias he himself as his own brother in arms
> and stalking aide John Hobart Kyle jhobartkyle
> johnk alias he himself as his own pretended
> feminist foe and e-mail call bird Annina
> Kaartinen alias a Romanian professor who
> claims to have discovered the origin of
> language - this multiple online personality
> follows me around, into every thread.
> He is obsessed with me. Having attended
> three universities to no avail he panushes
> me for his barren mind.-
Your paranoid delusions grow tiresome.
alien8er
> On Jun 6, 9:39 am, alien8er <Alien8...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Specific cite, please? American Scientist's search engine gives no
> > hits for "Voynich Manuscript".
> Sorry, my memory fooled me, the article by Gordon Rugg,
> The Mistery of the Voynich Manuscript, appeared in the
> July 2004 issue of the Scientific American. I hope you
> have access to the digital archive (I do, but only at the
> university libraries).
No, I don't have access and my local library doesn't keep paper back
issues any more, worse luck.
I did notice that article in a Google search for "voynich +solved"
though I saw nothing that would have made it particularly stand out.
> I found the article very convincing,
Having Rugg's name allowed me to do more searching and I must say
that I'm less than convinced by his efforts. AIUI Rugg showed that
some of the MS "could have been" produced with the Cardan grille
method, but requiring substantial arbitrary fine-tuning of the
selection and arrangement of syllables and grille layout.
Also, the grille may or may not predate the MS. If it does it _may_
be the solution, if it does not it is irrelevant. The only solid proof
would be finding the tables and grillle(s) originally used. If it is
indeed a deliberate hoax such proof was probably carefully destroyed
long ago.
I also find suspicious Rugg's claim to have a "privileged position"
as an outsider in the field, someone not constrained by "traditional"
codebreaker limitations, who can look at the problem from a previously
ignored angle and see a solution nobody else can.
I find that ironic considering there is at least as much
disagreement as agreement among the various experts that have studied
it. There doesn't even seem to be general agreement on what to call
the material it is written on, "parchment" or "vellum".
I'd like to see other sorts of outsider experts get involved. What
sort of animal's hide is the MS made of? Where does that animal live?
Can we determine what it ate i.e. was it domesticated and if so by
whom, where, and when? If not, how about isotopic analysis to
determine age/place of origin, for that matter has anyone even
considered radiocarbon dating?
How was the hide cured/treated to produce the MS? When/where/by whom
were such techniques in use?
What are the various inks, paints, and dyes made of? When/where/by
whom were they made?
I can find no references to these points other than vague mentions
that the primary brownish ink apparently isn't either iron or gall-
based, and that the red "weirdos" are not ocher.
> while I find that applications of DNA sequencing programs
> to genuine ancient texts are more interesting than a hoax
> or a piece of con artistery. For example the various
> versions of the Chaucer tales have been analyzed
> using a DNA program, and the result is that the juicy
> versions are the late ones, the early versions are
> rather dry. And two researchers at the Free University
> of Mexico found that the Odyssey compiles texts
> by at least a dozen bards (if memory serves).
Sounds interesting. I can't find any online references; got any?
What's the main thrust of the "DNA" method?
> Solving the Voynich riddle required only the
> knowledge of the historical encoding method,
Maybe.
> whereas answering those other questions regarding
> genuine early texts demands real ingenuosity
> and entirely new approaches involving biology
> and evolution.
Those "genuine early texts" are also cross-authenticated by
investigating the materials of which they were made. Nobody would put
any effort into "authenticating" a putative MS by say Shakespeare if
it were typed on modern bond paper.
Mark L. Fergerson
DKleinecke
In this case an English speaker might use either. The meanings only
differ trivially. Both readings are possible in the original sentence
too. But the reading where both "it"s are the manuscript would occur
first to an English speaker and, by well-known principles, an English
speaker would never contemplate the other meaning. On the other
hand, if the English speaker were uttering the sentence either form
might come out. We understand speech understanding a lot better than
we understand speech production.
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> Having Rugg's name allowed me to do more searching and I must say
> that I'm less than convinced by his efforts. AIUI Rugg showed that
> some of the MS "could have been" produced with the Cardan grille
> method, but requiring substantial arbitrary fine-tuning of the
> selection and arrangement of syllables and grille layout.
>
> Also, the grille may or may not predate the MS. If it does it _may_
> be the solution, if it does not it is irrelevant. The only solid proof
> would be finding the tables and grillle(s) originally used. If it is
> indeed a deliberate hoax such proof was probably carefully destroyed
> long ago.
>
> I also find suspicious Rugg's claim to have a "privileged position"
> as an outsider in the field, someone not constrained by "traditional"
> codebreaker limitations, who can look at the problem from a previously
> ignored angle and see a solution nobody else can.
I vaguely remember having seen the encoding method
demonstrated in a TV program, a scientific program,
and it looked very convincing to me. Also consider
that an arcitect by the name of Michael Ventris
decoded the Minoan script Linear B, and not an
authority in the field of early writing or Minoan culture.
> I find that ironic considering there is at least as much
> disagreement as agreement among the various experts that have studied
> it. There doesn't even seem to be general agreement on what to call
> the material it is written on, "parchment" or "vellum".
You'll hardly ever find general agreement among
the experts.
> I'd like to see other sorts of outsider experts get involved. What
> sort of animal's hide is the MS made of? Where does that animal live?
> Can we determine what it ate i.e. was it domesticated and if so by
> whom, where, and when? If not, how about isotopic analysis to
> determine age/place of origin, for that matter has anyone even
> considered radiocarbon dating?
>
> How was the hide cured/treated to produce the MS? When/where/by whom
> were such techniques in use?
>
> What are the various inks, paints, and dyes made of? When/where/by
> whom were they made?
>
> I can find no references to these points other than vague mentions
> that the primary brownish ink apparently isn't either iron or gall-
> based, and that the red "weirdos" are not ocher.
Alchemy used a lot of receipts we don't know anymore.
Who has the time and means to analyze each and
every substance they mixed together in their search
for gold? My feeling tells me that the riddle is solved,
although I have to concede that many authors of the
Renaissance encoded their work in order to avoid
the Inquisition. An example is the Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili, ascribed to Leon Battista Alberti by a German
professor. We worked together on a paper I published
on my website ( www.seshat.ch/home/alberti.htm )
Theoretically the VM could be, say, a treatise on
the possibility of extrasterrestrial life in the wake
of Giordano Bruno, encoded in order to avoid Bruno's
fate. If any other outsider would follow that line of
thinking and do more research he is welcome,
but I say it again, my feeling tells me the riddle is
solved, the VM is a hoax by a con named Kelley.
For more information on him look up the Voynich page
on wikipedia.
Also consider that falsifications were common
in those times and practised on every level of
power, one of the most famous fakes being
the Constantinian Donation.
> Sounds interesting. I can't find any online references; got any?
The Chaucer study has been done by a German
scholar in the middle of the 1990s, as I recall,
while the other study is own to Ricardo Mansilla
of the Free University of Mexico, I exchanged
a few e-mails with him, nice chap.
> What's the main thrust of the "DNA" method?
Mutations occur in the 'copies' of living beings
when they reproduce themselves, and mistakes
and changes also occur when manuscripts are
copied. Mathematically you can measure the
distance between two genomes or written texts,
the more differences there are, the farther away
in time there are.
> Those "genuine early texts" are also cross-authenticated by
> investigating the materials of which they were made. Nobody would put
> any effort into "authenticating" a putative MS by say Shakespeare if
> it were typed on modern bond paper.
>
> Mark L. Fergerson
Good point.
grammatim
> On Jun 7, 12:47 am, alien8er <Alien8...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I vaguely remember having seen the encoding method
> demonstrated in a TV program, a scientific program,
> and it looked very convincing to me. Also consider
> that an arcitect by the name of Michael Ventris
> decoded the Minoan script Linear B, and not an
> authority in the field of early writing or Minoan culture.
If you knew anything whatsoever about the life and work of Michael
Ventris, you would know what nonsense you proclaim when you imply that
he had no special training for the task of deciphering Linear B (which
is not "Minoan").
> > I find that ironic considering there is at least as much
> > disagreement as agreement among the various experts that have studied
> > it. There doesn't even seem to be general agreement on what to call
> > the material it is written on, "parchment" or "vellum".
>
> You'll hardly ever find general agreement among
> the experts.
The terms "parchment" and "vellum" are pretty much interchangeable.
Some say that because of its etymology, "vellum" should be used only
for 'calfskin'.
Others use "vellum" for a finer quality of parchment.
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> If you knew anything whatsoever about the life and work of Michael
> Ventris, you would know what nonsense you proclaim when you imply that
> he had no special training for the task of deciphering Linear B (which
> is not "Minoan").
He was an architect, and the script of Linear B
is Minoan, although the language is Greek.
For example Mi-Nu-The is the same in Hieroglyphic
Minoan, in Linear A, and in Liniear B, head of
a bull Mi, visual pun of a bull leaper on his or
her feet-hands-feet Nu, tree of life The, and
the original Mi-Nu-The was Ebla in Syria,
mentioned as minit or so in the Bible, where
the best wheat grew. Mi-nu-the is the origin
of Minos and Minoan. Mi comes from MUC
for bull, a word also present in Myc-ene
where it stands for the Zeus bull. Crete
was a laboratory of early writing where also
the script of the Tiryns disc and the Elaia
disc was invented, the first alphabet ever,
again a Minoan script while the text is Greek.
Can't you make a difference between the
script and the language?
grammatim
> On Jun 7, 2:06 pm, grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > If you knew anything whatsoever about the life and work of Michael
> > Ventris, you would know what nonsense you proclaim when you imply that
> > he had no special training for the task of deciphering Linear B (which
> > is not "Minoan").
>
> He was an architect, and the script of Linear B
He went into architecture as a profession because of family pressure.
In boyhood, when he heard the nonagenarian Sir Arthur Evans talk about
his Cretan discoveries and the undeciphered writing he had found, he
resolved to be the one who deciphered it, and pursued appropriate
univesity studies. Like everyone before him who had considered the
subject, he assumed that the language could not possibly be Greek.
Building on the systematizations of Alice Kober (who probably would
have found the answer if she had not died), he perfected charts of
inflections and of C and V correspondences, and then noticed that
certain sequences of signs appeared uniquely at the various sites
where tablets were found. Eventually he correlated these with their
ancient place-names and also plugged in some values from the Cypriote
syllabary (which "shouldn't" have had any connection, since it was
attested only a thousand years later), and found that Greek
inflections would fit the varying endings, and then that certain Greek
words fit the contexts provided by the ideograms.
See Andrew Robinson's biography. The new book *The Writing Revolution*
by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan (my largely favorable review will appear on
LINGUIST List in a few weeks) explains the decipherment more clearly
than John Chadwick ever did.
> is Minoan, although the language is Greek.
> For example Mi-Nu-The is the same in Hieroglyphic
> Minoan, in Linear A, and in Liniear B, head of
> a bull Mi, visual pun of a bull leaper on his or
> her feet-hands-feet Nu, tree of life The, and
> the original Mi-Nu-The was Ebla in Syria,
> mentioned as minit or so in the Bible, where
> the best wheat grew. Mi-nu-the is the origin
> of Minos and Minoan. Mi comes from MUC
> for bull, a word also present in Myc-ene
> where it stands for the Zeus bull. Crete
> was a laboratory of early writing where also
> the script of the Tiryns disc and the Elaia
> disc was invented, the first alphabet ever,
> again a Minoan script while the text is Greek.
> Can't you make a difference between the
> script and the language?
"Minoan" is a name invented by Evans for the culture he discovered at
Knossos, invented on the basis of the Greek myth of a King Minos.
There is no reason to suppose the Knossos people called themselves
"Minoans," or that anyone in the ancient world called any people
"Minoans." (Americans don't call themselves "Washingtonians," and
Swiss don't call themselves "Tellians," and the people of the
Macedonian Empire didn't call themselves "Alexandrians.")
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> He went into architecture as a profession because of family pressure.
> In boyhood, when he heard the nonagenarian Sir Arthur Evans talk about
> his Cretan discoveries and the undeciphered writing he had found, he
> resolved to be the one who deciphered it, and pursued appropriate
> univesity studies. Like everyone before him who had considered the
> subject, he assumed that the language could not possibly be Greek.
> Building on the systematizations of Alice Kober (who probably would
> have found the answer if she had not died), he perfected charts of
> inflections and of C and V correspondences, and then noticed that
> certain sequences of signs appeared uniquely at the various sites
> where tablets were found. Eventually he correlated these with their
> ancient place-names and also plugged in some values from the Cypriote
> syllabary (which "shouldn't" have had any connection, since it was
> attested only a thousand years later), and found that Greek
> inflections would fit the varying endings, and then that certain Greek
> words fit the contexts provided by the ideograms.
That's exactly how Derk Ohlenroth deciphered the
Tiryns disc and Elaia disc: having studied them
for decades he realized that the round shield
and the soldier could represent the male Greek
ending -os, and this was the key, all the rest was
easy, in fact he deciphered the Tiryns disc within
two hours one evening when coming home from
work.
> See Andrew Robinson's biography. The new book *The Writing Revolution*
> by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan (my largely favorable review will appear on
> LINGUIST List in a few weeks) explains the decipherment more clearly
> than John Chadwick ever did.
> "Minoan" is a name invented by Evans for the culture he discovered at
> Knossos, invented on the basis of the Greek myth of a King Minos.
> There is no reason to suppose the Knossos people called themselves
> "Minoans," or that anyone in the ancient world called any people
> "Minoans." (Americans don't call themselves "Washingtonians," and
> Swiss don't call themselves "Tellians," and the people of the
> Macedonian Empire didn't call themselves "Alexandrians.")
Minos keeps a memory of Mi-Nu-The, and this
name is present in many forms, minit or so in
the Bible, it is present in Ugaritic (I don't have
the paper at hand) and in other forms, and it
is present in Hieroglyphic Minoan, in Linear A
and in Linear B, the head of a bull Mi, the
visual pun of a bull leaper on the feet hands feet
Nu, and the tree of life The. This proves that the
myth of Minos also keeps a linguistic memory,
and, as I showed years ago, that myth is in
fact a calendar told as story, namely the
anticipation of the so-called Meton cycle
by two millennia. The tree of life keeps
a memory of the tree of life in the Asherah
sanctuary, ultimately from the Göbekli Tepe
calendar, even the Minoan butterfly symbol
goes back to that calendar. Mi-Nu-The people
was then the original name of the Minoans,
While we Swiss call ourselves Helvetians,
Hel- being the same as Hel- in Helen and
Hellenes, a derivative of KAL meaning
Underworld and the mines: the Helvetii
were miners, the Greeks were miners,
beautiful Helen was the symbol of tin,
the Gallii were miners, the keltoi Celts were
miners, those laboring in the underground
KAL kel- Cel- Gal- Hel- ...
Otto Bahn
> It's not a hoax. It's a ho ax.
<
<Is that what Jack the Ripper used?
As some say down here, you'll have to ax him.
--oTTo--
Harlan Messinger
BTW has there been any mention in sci.lang of a Spanish novel about the
Voynich Manuscript? The English translation (The Book of God and
Physics) was just reviewed in the Washington Post; I decided to order a
copy in the original (El castillo de las estrellas). (What would have
been wrong with "Castle of the Stars"?)
fr...@bluemail.ch
Back to the Voynich manuscript. If it is a hoax,
which I believe, one must explain why it is
so elaborated, a fact I underestimated, never
having been interested in that peculiar ms.
Making money is hardly a good enough
motivation for going to such pains. Let me
propose another motivation and imagine
a follower and admirer of Giordano Bruno
who promoted the idea of extra-terrestrian
life by faking a note-book written and drawn
by an alien who traveled in interstellar space
and visited a dozen civilizations including
the earth where he lost his notebook, and,
luckily, the faker found it owing to some
curious circumstances ... If so it would be
a similar story as the case of the Kensington
Ruin Stone (deliberately spelled so, because
massive propaganda for that fake nearly
ruined sci.archaeology) - a believer in the
discovery of America by the Vikings faked
that rune stone, hoping it may cause a
sensation and motivate people to look out
for more rune stones and eventually find
some real rune stones that would then justify
the fake stone in hind sight as a little trick
in favor of finding the actual truth about the
discovery of America, or, in the case of the
Voynich manuscript, the truth about life in
the dozen constellations of the ecliptic,
and a lot of naked women to leer for, and
plenty of strange plants to raise the interest
of botanists in the vegetation of other planets.
fr...@bluemail.ch
I must confess that I know nothing about the
Voynich manuscript and could get lost in the
various theories proposed. Let me mention
one link: www.santa-coloma.net , click on
Drebbel/Voynich theory. This page says
the ms could be an illustration of Bacon's
New Atlantis. Very fascinating, especially
the juxtaposition of some drawings and of
miscroscopic life forms. More convincing
than my lines above.
craoi...@gmail.com
> I must confess that I know nothing about the
> Voynich manuscript
I must confess that Pope is Catholic and water is wet.
fr...@bluemail.ch
be someone by putting others down. Panu Petteri
Höglund alias alias alias is an example of such
a sad case. He has nothing to say, nothing at all.
> one link: www.santa-coloma.net, click on
craoi...@gmail.com
> Barack Obama said there are people who can only
> be someone by putting others down. Panu Petteri
> Höglund alias alias alias is an example of such
> a sad case. He has nothing to say, nothing at all.
Would you please give us your snail-mail address? I would love to send
you a copy of An Gael, with my short story in Irish published in it.
For the book, you must wait a little longer.
Otto Bahn
<Barack Obama said
Both MLK and JFK have been quoted as saying,
"I would like another drink."
<there are people who can only
<be someone by putting others down.
Whether or not that's good or bad depends on
who the hell you're putting down.
--oTTo--
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> Whether or not that's good or bad depends on
> who the hell you're putting down.
What counts in a scientific forum are ideas and
knowledge and scientific arguements. If you have
nothing to offer yet try to get influence by always
putting down others, following what I call the
strategy of the weak dog, looking out for the weak
ones and biting them in order to climb the social
ladder, killrating messages using a multiple
online identity, various e-mail addresses and
accounts, and top rating your own messages,
again using your multiple accounts - if you do
so, if you try to become a scientist by playing
power games of the tristest sort, having
attended three universities to no avail -
if you do so you are a sad case. Not you,
of course, but my online stalker since many
years now. And it's not the first time I am
followed around by a long-time stalker.
The first one was a psychopath, and the
second one is
Otto Bahn
> Whether or not that's good or bad depends on
> who the hell you're putting down.
What counts in a scientific forum are ideas and
knowledge and scientific arguements. If you have
nothing to offer yet try to get influence by always
putting down others, following what I call the
strategy of the weak dog, looking out for the weak
ones and biting them in order to climb the social
ladder, killrating messages using a multiple
online identity, various e-mail addresses and
accounts, and top rating your own messages,
--
Sounds like a child is getting to you.
--
again using your multiple accounts - if you do
so, if you try to become a scientist by playing
power games of the tristest sort, having
attended three universities to no avail -
if you do so you are a sad case. Not you,
of course, but my online stalker since many
years now. And it's not the first time I am
followed around by a long-time stalker.
--
Don't take yourself and usenet too seriously, dude.
--
The first one was a psychopath, and the
second one is
--
I've run into a few psychopaths. Well, one only *acted*
like a psychopath, but I'm not sure there's any difference.
While you might be right, a psychopath would be well aware
of how powerless they are on the usenet, unless, that is,
you let them have some power over you.
--oTTo--
Dennis
I liked it too!
I've been involved in the study of the Voynich Manuscript for many
years. A few comments.
1) Here is my own site for retrieving and using the best images of the
VMs. AFAIK there's nothing else to compare with it on the Web.
http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/hiq/index.html
2) Few of those in the VMs research community take Gordon Rugg's hoax
hypothesis seriously. IMHO he'd have to show how many tables and grilles
it would take to *replicate* the VMs. He hasn't yet done that. If it
turned out to be a very large number, that's an indication that he's
overfitting the data.
3) Here are two good sites on the VMs:
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/
3) Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill, *The Voynich Manuscript* is a fairly
good book. *The Voynich Manuscript: an Elegant Enigma* by Mary D'Imperio
is a classic and still indispensible reference.
4) The current majority view for the time of composition is 1450-1500.
The foremost guess for place of composition is northern Italy.
5) There isn't any current consensus or majority view on the system
involved. There aren't even many clear hypotheses.
I'd welcome any further questions.
Dennis
fr...@bluemail.ch
What do you think of the page I mentioned,
www.santa-coloma.net / Drebbel/Voynich theory ?
I find the comparisons with microscopic life forms
amazing, as if they looked through a microscope
(what Drebbel et al. really did) and saw some
strange but fascinating structures and imagined
a world in the realm of the tiniest ... Without
knowing much about the manuscript I find
this theory the most convincing so far, and
it could still go along with the use of a Cardan
grille.
Adam Funk
> If I were going to generate such a hoax book I'd start with
> character-frequency tables and such, possibly averaged over several
> languages that might use a given set of invented characters.
>
> Time yet again to demonstrate my ignorance; how far back in history
> might we assume the existence of the knowledge (not necessarily common
> knowledge) to use such techniques?
One theory that I've heard of (I'm not sure if the reference for this
is the _Scientific American_ one that's been mentioned elsewhere in
this thread) involves a variation on Cardano grills, which are like
punch-cards originally developed for steganography. (You write the
real message through the holes in the card, turn it 90°, keep going,
through all four directions, then fill in the gaps with plausible
dummy text.) Apparently it's also possible to use them to generate
gibberish with statistical characterists (such as entropy) that you
would expect from natural language.
--
I spend almost as much time figuring out what's wrong with my computer
as I do actually using it. Networked software, especially, requires
frequent updates and maintenance, all of which gets in the way of
doing routine work. (Stoll 1995)
Dennis
> What do you think of the page I mentioned,
> www.santa-coloma.net / Drebbel/Voynich theory ?
> I find the comparisons with microscopic life forms
> amazing, as if they looked through a microscope
> (what Drebbel et al. really did) and saw some
> strange but fascinating structures and imagined
> a world in the realm of the tiniest ... Without
> knowing much about the manuscript I find
> this theory the most convincing so far, and
> it could still go along with the use of a Cardan
> grille.
I'm suspicious of it. His timing is off; I think that his timing
would have to be after 1607, when the VMs is already attested at Rudolf
II's court. Look around here for more discussion:
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/
Dennis
Otto Bahn
Has anyone bothered to check if it's a musical score?
--oTTo--
fr...@bluemail.ch
> frgnbluemailch wrote:
> > What do you think of the page I mentioned,
> > I find the comparisons with microscopic life forms
> > amazing, as if they looked through a microscope
> > (what Drebbel et al. really did) and saw some
> > strange but fascinating structures and imagined
> > a world in the realm of the tiniest ... Without
> > knowing much about the manuscript I find
> > this theory the most convincing so far, and
> > it could still go along with the use of a Cardan
> > grille.
>
> I'm suspicious of it. His timing is off; I think that his timing
> would have to be after 1607, when the VMs is already attested at Rudolf
> II's court. Look around here for more discussion:
>
> http://www.ciphermysteries.com/
>
> Dennis
But the website you mention gives the upper limit
as 1640. I still find the Drebbel / microscope and
Bacon / New Atlantis theory the best and the only
one that gets to me, in combination with a modified
Cardan grille (yes, Adam Funk, that's Gordon Rugg's
explanation). Let me come back to the Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili, a journey to the island of Venus that is, in my
opinion, a summary of Leon Battista Alberti's projects
for Rome. When Alberti, as a young man, came to Rome,
he was shocked by the derelict state of the Eternal City,
so he devised new buildings and a very simple method
of calculating them that may partly go back to Leonardo
Fibonacci. Alberti and the humanists had big hopes
for a new era to begin, perhaps comparable to the hopes
we had in the late 1960s, but then the Spanish cardinal
and his inquisition shattered them. Rodriguez is the
dragon that guards the entrance to the Venus island
in the HP, while the journey across this island simply
is an enumeration of the projects Alberti had for Rome,
reconstructed on the page I gave (numerous drawings
on the base of that simple method of combined measures).
Consider the shock Leuwenhoek caused when he revealed
the existence of microbes, and he lived in an enlighted
era. So there was good reason to hide the discovery
of microscopic life and encode it in a phantastic story
of a travel to a strange land where a better society
rules. I find the comparison of some Voynich drawings
and microscopic life stunning, perhaps the record of
an early discovery of microscopic life forms given as
the report or notebook of a fictive travel, either
directly illustrating Bacon's New Atlantis, or inspired
by it. If there is a whole new life in a waterdrop,
what may us await in space?
Dennis
> Has anyone bothered to check if it's a musical score?
I think so, though that was a fringe theory, of which there are
multitudes.
Dennis
PS: Were you the inspiration for this? :-)
Dennis
>> I'm suspicious of it. �His timing is off; I think that his timing
>> would have to be after 1607, when the VMs is already attested at
>> Rudolf II's court. �Look around here for more discussion:
>>
>> http://www.ciphermysteries.com/
>
> But the website you mention gives the upper limit
> as 1640.
No. There's a signature by Jacobus de Tepenecz on the first page,
f1r, of the VMs. That was Rudolf II's gardener, and he received the
patent of nobility for the 'de' in 1607. So it had to be composed before
then- most likely a while before.
I agree, that makes some sense. If microscopes had been invented a
while before, it would be possible, and that's an ongoing topic. Look
around some more at ciphermysteries.com.
If you like Hypnerotomachia and Alberti, I think you'd like
ciphermysteries' author's book:
The Curse of the Voynich
by Nick Pelling
http://www.compellingpress.com/main/index.html
also available at Amazon. He thinks that Antonio Averlino (Filarete)
composed the VMs.
Dennis
fr...@bluemail.ch
>
> No. There's a signature by Jacobus de Tepenecz on the first page,
> f1r, of the VMs. That was Rudolf II's gardener, and he received the
> patent of nobility for the 'de' in 1607. So it had to be composed before
> then- most likely a while before.
Renaissance books are compilations of many pages,
the order is not certain, and there might be sheets
from different times as well. And the f80v armadillo
clearly indicates post 1526. Also, the name of the
gardener could have been written by a heir on the
manuscript in later times.
What if the modified Cardan grille was used for
generating the fictive language of another
civilization, in this case probably the language
of Bensalem, Bacon's New Atlantis? The author
of the Voynich manuscript may then have chosen
words from various languages and processed
them via the modified grille. Has the text ever
been read aloud by a profesional speaker and
the reading recorded? if so, how does the
language sound? And if the language of
Besalem was intended, one might find
somewhere the encoded name of Bensalem.
> I agree, that makes some sense. If microscopes had been invented a
> while before, it would be possible, and that's an ongoing topic. Look
> around some more at ciphermysteries.com.
>
> If you like Hypnerotomachia and Alberti, I think you'd like
> ciphermysteries' author's book:
I must confess that I don't really like the Hypnerotomachia
and cryptic texts in general, but I like the idea behind
and do my share bringing to light what couldn't have been
said in open form by then.
> The Curse of the Voynich
> by Nick Pellinghttp://www.compellingpress.com/main/index.html
>
> also available at Amazon. He thinks that Antonio Averlino (Filarete)
> composed the VMs.
For the time being I prefer www.santa-coloma.net
Drebbel/Voynich theory. But thanks for the information.
madge
--
__
/ /\
.---/ /\ |
/ /o 0\ \|
/ /\ ^ / - meow
/ / / \_
\ |/\\ //\}
\|\ v_v /
"" ""
Adam Funk
> "I think it might be a woman from a distant planet. It/she would be far
> more interesting if she had four breasts."
You could say either: "it" would refer to the situation, "she" to the
woman.
"It might be a dog from a distant planet. It[1] would be more
interesting if it[2] had two heads."
It[1] could refer to either the situation or the dog, but I don't
think it matters pragmatically. (It[2] has to refer to the dog.)
--
Do you know what they do to book thieves up at Santa Rita?
http://www.shigabooks.com/indeces/bookhunter.html
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> For the time being I preferwww.santa-coloma.net
> Drebbel/Voynich theory. But thanks for the information.
I looked up the last link on the web page by
H.R. SantaColoma, http://voynich.freie-literatur.de
The language sounds as if someone imitated an
Indian language, and on f86v6 the word qokaiin
occurs several times. Bensalem, the New Atlantis
of Francis Bacon, was an island west of Peru ...
madge
Dennis
> Spodace
WTF?
Dennis
> Renaissance books are compilations of many pages,
> the order is not certain, and there might be sheets
> from different times as well.
We agree that the order they're in isn't the right one. I don't see
what that has to do with dating, though.
> And the f80v armadillo
> clearly indicates post 1526. Also, the name of the
> gardener could have been written by a heir on the
> manuscript in later times.
I don't think that's an armadillo; more likely it's a catoblepas.
See the recent discussion on ciphermysteries.
> What if the modified Cardan grille was used for
> generating the fictive language of another
> civilization, in this case probably the language
> of Bensalem, Bacon's New Atlantis? The author
> of the Voynich manuscript may then have chosen
> words from various languages and processed
> them via the modified grille. Has the text ever
> been read aloud by a profesional speaker and
> the reading recorded? if so, how does the
> language sound? And if the language of
> Besalem was intended, one might find
> somewhere the encoded name of Bensalem.
It depends on how you assign sound values.
Dennis
madge
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> We agree that the order they're in isn't the right one. I don't see
> what that has to do with dating, though.
>
> See the recent discussion on ciphermysteries.
>
I read the discussions about catoplebas and the
armadillo. Being an expert on Renaissance art
I can tell you that the animal is drawn very finely,
without later additions and corrections, so I agree
on the arguments brought forth by H. Rich Santa
Coloma. Meanwhile I consulted a site with
transcriptions. The language looks to me as
if someone tried to emulate an Indian language.
A word that often occurs is qokaiin, also qokain,
and this makes me wonder. The mysterious
visitor from Bensalem, New Atlantis, says
they have drugs (among all the other things
they have). Bensalem was an island west of
Peru. Consider the gold of the Inka in the Andes.
An alchemist could have mused whether those
people could make gold by some magic process.
Also, the language seems very restricted to me,
ko- and -edy are very frequent. I wonder if some
lines and rows could be abbreviations of chemical
formulas, ingredients of alchemistic mixtures.
For example air and aiir are quite frequent. What
if air means that you have to blow into the fire,
and aiir that you have blow more air, namely aiir
into the flames? Rudolph II was a strange fellow,
he had a troop of dwarfs, and another troop of
giants. He could also have been interested
in having an Indian at his court. My question:
has the text been read aloud and recorded?
could such a record be given to a linguist
who knows about Indian languages?
Dennis
> I read the discussions about catoplebas and the
> armadillo. Being an expert on Renaissance art
> I can tell you that the animal is drawn very finely,
> without later additions and corrections, so I agree
> on the arguments brought forth by H. Rich Santa
> Coloma.
We could use an expert in Renaissance art! Might I ask about your
credentials?
I've seen armadillos myself, I'm in an area with a lot of them, and
I think the thing in the VMs is a catoblepas.
> Meanwhile I consulted a site with
> transcriptions. The language looks to me as
> if someone tried to emulate an Indian language.
> A word that often occurs is qokaiin, also qokain,
> and this makes me wonder. The mysterious
> visitor from Bensalem, New Atlantis, says
> they have drugs (among all the other things
> they have).
Are you thinking that qokaiin is the name of a drug? Quinine?
> Bensalem was an island west of
> Peru. Consider the gold of the Inka in the Andes.
> An alchemist could have mused whether those
> people could make gold by some magic process.
> Also, the language seems very restricted to me,
> ko- and -edy are very frequent. I wonder if some
> lines and rows could be abbreviations of chemical
> formulas, ingredients of alchemistic mixtures.
They may be repeated elements of a verbose cipher.
> For example air and aiir are quite frequent. What
> if air means that you have to blow into the fire,
> and aiir that you have blow more air, namely aiir
> into the flames?
That involves assuming the language is English or French, etc.
> Rudolph II was a strange fellow,
> he had a troop of dwarfs, and another troop of
> giants. He could also have been interested
> in having an Indian at his court. My question:
> has the text been read aloud and recorded?
> could such a record be given to a linguist
> who knows about Indian languages?
I don't agree that it looks like an Indian language. We think that
the script was derived from medieval Latin abbreviations and
embellishments and early Arabic numerals. Again, pronounciations depend
on how you assign sound values.
Dennis
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> We could use an expert in Renaissance art! Might I ask about your
> credentials?
I work outside academe, but may recommend
my page www.seshat.ch/home/gia.htm for
a starter.
> I've seen armadillos myself, I'm in an area with a lot of them, and
> I think the thing in the VMs is a catoblepas.
For a Renaissance drawing the likeliness
is excellent. The catoplebas was the mythical
animal that spouted the river Niger in Africa,
a bull with the head of a ram, certainly not
the animal in the VMs.
> Are you thinking that qokaiin is the name of a drug? Quinine?
Coca.
> They may be repeated elements of a verbose cipher.
Also possible.
> That involves assuming the language is English or French, etc.
French I'd say.
> I don't agree that it looks like an Indian language. We think that
> the script was derived from medieval Latin abbreviations and
> embellishments and early Arabic numerals. Again, pronounciations depend
> on how you assign sound values.
There are some variations from one to another
transcriber, but generally they agree. And spoken
texts differ much from just read ones. I would
really like to hear it pronounced by a professional
speaker.
I see a picture emerge: curiosity in new worlds,
a new civilization across the ocean, new forms
of life in a waterdrop, new life in space ...
And then also new possibilities for life on earth,
as developed in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis,
and in numerous other utopiae of the Renaissance.
I'd say that we enjoy what they could only dream of.
madge
alien8er
> Adam Funk wrote:
> >http://xkcd.com/593/
>
> I liked it too!
>
> I've been involved in the study of the Voynich Manuscript for many
> years. A few comments.
>
> 1) Here is my own site for retrieving and using the best images of the
> VMs. AFAIK there's nothing else to compare with it on the Web.
>
> http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/hiq/index.html
Not bad, but I'm getting pretty danmed tired of proprietary formats
and having to acquire software to read them. My computer's already
full of such stuff.
> 2) Few of those in the VMs research community take Gordon Rugg's hoax
> hypothesis seriously. IMHO he'd have to show how many tables and grilles
> it would take to *replicate* the VMs. He hasn't yet done that. If it
> turned out to be a very large number, that's an indication that he's
> overfitting the data.
What I got (not from the SA article, from other sources) was that
he'd shown it to be "possible", not even "likely". I agree that the
degree of confidence is rather low at this point.
> 3) Here are two good sites on the VMs:
>
> http://voynich.nu/
Full of broken links.
> http://www.ciphermysteries.com/
Now you're talking!
> 3) Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill, *The Voynich Manuscript* is a fairly
> good book. *The Voynich Manuscript: an Elegant Enigma* by Mary D'Imperio
> is a classic and still indispensible reference.
I'm running out of bookshelf space!
> 4) The current majority view for the time of composition is 1450-1500.
This places it 50 yrs before Cardan described his grilles. How solid
is this view?
BTW (not that it matters) I don't think the "sunflower" is one, nor
the "armadillo", hence any New World-relevant dating scheme is IMO
unlikely.
> The foremost guess for place of composition is northern Italy.
Supported by the Rubenesque proportios of the female figures, the
text itself, and the style of buildings in the illustrations.
> 5) There isn't any current consensus or majority view on the system
> involved. There aren't even many clear hypotheses.
>
> I'd welcome any further questions.
Do you know of any serious analyses of the materials of the MS? The
parchment itself, the inks and paints and so on? The Codicology page
at the ciphermysteries site says basically "no", but that was as of
Nov of 2008.
77r has one of those "Rubenesque chicks with pipes" diagrams which
according to some possibly show the classical four elements, earth,
air, fire and water flowing from vents in a common pipe, along with a
fifth central vent apparently empty (beware wrap):
I'm thinking the fifth one associates with the "classical aether"
since it wouldn't be expected to be visible. There are text labels
near each of the vents which might be the names of the elements, and
could serve as a Rosetta Stone for the whole MS. Unfortunately the
labels appear to be associated with the interconnects between the
vents, not the vents themselves. Has anyone tried to make sense of
that? I couldn't find any mention of it at the ciphermysteries site.
I'm sure I can come up with more, given time...
Dr. HotSalt
Dennis
>> http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/hiq/index.html
>
> Not bad, but I'm getting pretty danmed tired of proprietary formats
> and having to acquire software to read them. My computer's already
> full of such stuff.
Well, you can download the JPEGs. Not as high quality but easy to
browse. I've got stuff to do that too.
>> 4) �The current majority view for the time of composition is
>> 1450-1500.
>
> This places it 50 yrs before Cardan described his grilles. How solid
> is this view?
I hold that view, and it's the majority view. Look on
ciphermysteries.com or contact its author for fuller discussion.
> Do you know of any serious analyses of the materials of the MS? The
> parchment itself, the inks and paints and so on? The Codicology page
> at the ciphermysteries site says basically "no", but that was as of
> Nov of 2008.
No, there haven't been any, but some are in the works. Stay tuned.
> 77r has one of those "Rubenesque chicks with pipes" diagrams which
> according to some possibly show the classical four elements, earth,
> air, fire and water flowing from vents in a common pipe, along with a
> fifth central vent apparently empty (beware wrap):
>
> http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl/oneITEM.asp?pid=
> 2002046&iid=1006212&srchtype=ITEM
>
> I'm thinking the fifth one associates with the "classical aether"
> since it wouldn't be expected to be visible. There are text labels
> near each of the vents which might be the names of the elements, and
> could serve as a Rosetta Stone for the whole MS. Unfortunately the
> labels appear to be associated with the interconnects between the
> vents, not the vents themselves. Has anyone tried to make sense of
> that? I couldn't find any mention of it at the ciphermysteries site.
Not that idea, I don't think. There have been attempts to match
the plant labels with plant names, and star labels with star names, but
those haven't gone anywhere.
Dennis
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> 77r has one of those "Rubenesque chicks with pipes" diagrams which
> according to some possibly show the classical four elements, earth,
> air, fire and water flowing from vents in a common pipe, along with a
> fifth central vent apparently empty (beware wrap):
>
>
> I'm thinking the fifth one associates with the "classical aether"
> since it wouldn't be expected to be visible. There are text labels
> near each of the vents which might be the names of the elements, and
> could serve as a Rosetta Stone for the whole MS. Unfortunately the
> labels appear to be associated with the interconnects between the
> vents, not the vents themselves. Has anyone tried to make sense of
> that? I couldn't find any mention of it at the ciphermysteries site.
Looks to me like an anticipation of evolutionary theory.
The woman at the bottom of the left side stands next
to a tree trunk that grows out of a leonardesque river
bank; the woman above her stands next to an armadillo-
like animal seen from the underside. These two women
are connected, their realms have the same source.
They represent vegetation (below) and animal life (above)
in their primeval forms, emerging from nature, not yet
a real tree but already recognizeable as one, not yet
a real animal but already recognizeable as an armadillo-
like primeval animal. Then comes the human world on top,
rooted in the animal kingdom on the female left side,
and double-rooted in some spiritual ether on the male
right side. The four vents may actually represent the four
classical elements, plus the divine spirit in the center.
I admit that this page looks medieval, but the river
bank is clearly in the style of Leonardo da Vinci,
who wrote in one of his many notes that humans
are animals who use all kinds of artificial objects,
and who, by the way, also invented a submarine
that recently has been tested in the Adria, and
it worked pretty well. The tube above could then
represent the human made objects in general.
Tubes serve as vessels, especially dear to an
alchemist, combined with lenses as telescopes
and microscopes, and on one page of the VMs
as a swimming or diving tube. All the artificial
objects we make are again consisting of the
four classical elements, plus ideas, mind, spirit.
H. Rich SantaColoma says the style of the VMs
is deliberately old-fashioned. I agree on his view.
The medieval look of this particular page, and
perhaps of the entire manuscript, may indicate
a former period of time: thoughts about the
origin of the world. And the armadillo-like
proto-animal that emerges on the second level,
composed of the four elements (vents that
serve as 'legs') could again indicate New World
contact - an armadillo brought over the ocean
and regarded as the primeval form of animal life.
This interpretation in my Renaissance-trained
manner shows that the Voynich manuscript
offers real thinking, and is much more than
a hoax. Within a couple of days I changed
my former opinion, had a first real look into
the VMs and am fascinated.
Franz Gnaedinger
I wrote my interpretation quickly before breakfast;
now that I had a coffee, a muesli, and an egg
I can anticipate Madge: spodace meow, and go on.
The drawing style of the Voynich manuscript
reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci, and the
medieval elements of Sandro Botticelli's
pseudo-medieval Dante illustrations. Rudolph II
surely had drawings by both Botticelli and Leonardo.
A famous drawing by Leonardo shows a cloud
raining all kinds of artificial, human-made objects,
and the words: Adam here, Eve there / O miserable
humans, for how many things do you turn yourself
into slaves of money (quoted from memory).
77r of the VMs is in the same mind: if the tube
above represents the human made objects
(as explained in my previous message) the
woman (women) on the left side may be Eve,
and the man on the right side Adam. Eve is
rooted in the phisical world, Adam in the spiritual
world, his two roots may be practical and theoretical
reasoning. Leonardo's daring ideas including human
evolution (humans are animals that use all kinds
of self-created objects) could have been discussed
at Rudolph's court and given rise to the VMs.
Franz Gnaedinger
The flowings remind me of Heraclitus: panta rhei
'everything flows'. Evolution is a shifting of shapes
and functions over time, also kind of a flowing.
Dr. HotSalt may be right in assuming that the
names of the five vents may offer a key to the
reading of the text. I'd say we have from left
to right: (Eve) water earth mind fire air (Adam).
Panu
>
> This interpretation in my Renaissance-trained
> manner shows that the Voynich manuscript
> offers real thinking, and is much more than
> a hoax. Within a couple of days I changed
> my former opinion, had a first real look into
> the VMs and am fascinated.
Well, this is definitely progress. The Voynich manuscript is at least
something much more tangible than Franz's psychotic Magdalenian
speculations. If he focuses on the Voynich entirely, joins a
discussion forum for Voynichists and quietly leaves this place, I
think I for one will be eternally grateful to whoever wrote the
manuscript.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Sounds like a child is getting to you.
He is 42 years old but has the mentality of an
over-ambitious highschool boy coming to age.
He behaves like a teenager in puberty, provoking
people but wishing to be loved by them. He
attacks me on end, but always wants to impress
me, always trying to manage himself into the
focus of my attention. The only thing he can't
provide is what is needed in a scientific forum:
scientific arguments. You won't get that from him.
He is always assuming the role of a judge who
stands above other people. Nothing that could
legitimate his assumed position. He thinks by
attacking people he can become a scientist
and be recognized for a scientist. Needless
to say that he has nothing to say about the
VMs either, but he must show up wherever I go.
He is obsessed with me, both admiring me
and hating me for my wealth in ideas that
heavily contrasts with his lack of ideas, which,
however, goes along with his hatred of women.
> I've run into a few psychopaths. Well, one only *acted*
> like a psychopath, but I'm not sure there's any difference.
>
> While you might be right, a psychopath would be well aware
> of how powerless they are on the usenet, unless, that is,
> you let them have some power over you.
Experts on stalking say one should ignore
a narcissistic stalker while fighting back
an aggressive stalker, and fight him back
in a decided manner. What am I supposed
to do about a both narcissistic and aggressive
stalker?
Panu
> On Jun 10, 8:58 am, f...@bluemail.ch wrote:
>
>
>
> > For the time being I preferwww.santa-coloma.net
> > Drebbel/Voynich theory. But thanks for the information.
>
> I looked up the last link on the web page by
> The language sounds as if someone imitated an
> Indian language, and on f86v6 the word qokaiin
> occurs several times. Bensalem, the New Atlantis
> of Francis Bacon, was an island west of Peru ...
What do you actually know about Indian languages? How would you go
about imitating an Indian language?
grammatim
> On Jun 10, 8:58 am, f...@bluemail.ch wrote:
Franz, how did you get google groups to fix the way your name appears?
Franz Gnaedinger
It just happened. My name disappeared a couple
of months ago, and now it is back all of a sudden.
Perhaps Google tried to solve the problem of
the abused names? You may remember the flood
of computer generated spam that was posted
under our names. I guess Google fixed that problem
and now can give us back our names. You will get
yours back shortly, I guess.
Dear Google company, thanks for giving me back
my name, and for having fixed the problem of
the computer generated spam. You do a great
job maintaining the archive of the Usenet. Can
you please give back also grammatim's name?
It is Peter T. Daniels (nobody knows what T.
stands for but anyway). Thank you.
Panu
>
> Dear Google company, thanks for giving me back
> my name, and for having fixed the problem of
> the computer generated spam. You do a great
> job maintaining the archive of the Usenet. Can
> you please give back also grammatim's name?
> It is Peter T. Daniels (nobody knows what T.
> stands for but anyway). Thank you.
I am not surprised to see that Franz is a religious man, but I somehow
didn't expect him to worship Google as a god. Well, I was wrong about
one thing. I had this inclination to think that Franz was an
inflexible personality, but if a man of his age is able to embrace
Google as a divinity to be prayed to, the least one can say that his
spiritual life is very flexible and adaptive.
Otto Bahn
<Experts on stalking say one should ignore
<a narcissistic stalker while fighting back
<an aggressive stalker, and fight him back
<in a decided manner. What am I supposed
<to do about a both narcissistic and aggressive
<stalker?
Experts on chatrooms like these say that words cannot
hurt you unless you let them. Don't feed the trolls.
I should know, and I do.
--oTTo--
Franz Gnaedinger
> > > >http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl/oneITEM.asp?pi...
>
> The flowings remind me of Heraclitus: panta rhei
> 'everything flows'. Evolution is a shifting of shapes
> and functions over time, also kind of a flowing.
> Dr. HotSalt may be right in assuming that the
> names of the five vents may offer a key to the
> reading of the text. I'd say we have from left
> to right: (Eve) water earth mind fire air (Adam).
The long tube on top of 77r shows five vertical vents.
If we add the left and right end of the long tube as
horizontal vents we have seven vents of these possible
meanings:
Eve - water - earth - mind - fire - air - Adam
The middle vent is empty, while Eve places her left
hand in the left end of the long tube, and Adam his
right hand in the right end of the long tube, so the
six words written under the long tube might refer
to the ends and the two left and the two right vertical
vents, leaving out the empty vent in the middle.
These words have been transcribed as
olks otedy otork otol dchdy soral
a transcription based on a rough similarity of the
signs in the VMs text and the Roman letters.
Now if we compare
otedy -- water
otork -- earth
otol -- fire
we notice ot- and oto- at the begin, so we may
look out for words meaning water and earth and
fire beginning with the same letters. Latin for
water is aqua. German Acker has an old form
in achar. And there is Latin accendo 'to kindle,
set on fire, light'. The script of the VMs may
then rely on words from different languages
and a deliberately sloppy pronounciation
and notation, in order to keep the meaning
of the text a secret.
Franz Gnaedinger
If my new interpretations hold the Cardan grille
is no longer necessary, and the transcriptions
on the base of similarities of the Voynich
letters to the Roman alphabet are misleading,
o is a, and the double vertical line with the
double loop on top a k-sound, etc.
As for the medieval appeal of the VMs:
you may have noticed that science fiction
films often have a medieval look about them,
marking the difference to our time, and as
the future is very difficult to anticipate,
authors and filmers often go back to early
times and medieval clothes etc. A similar
reason may have made the author of the
VMs choose a medieval appeal denoting
the past and perhaps the future too.
The plants in the herbal part of the VMs are
no real plants but invented ones, or composed
of parts from different plants. Also this could
have been a part of pre-evolutionary thinking.
And such thought experiments must have
been concealed in a time when the Church
held so much power.
There are always people around waiting
to trample on new ideas, and when they
have the power, as they did four hundred
years ago, they do trample on new ideas
and finish with their authors.
Franz Gnaedinger
The long tube on top of 77r has five short vertical
vents. If four of them symbolize the four classical
elements, the fifth one in the middle is of course
the mysterious quinta essentia of alchemy, empty
because the aqua permanens or lapis philosophorum
has not yet been distilled.
The word transcribed as otedy may read akuva
combining Latin aqua 'water' with Italian uva 'grape'.
The three rays of the water beam may then be
water, vine, and blood, water belonging to nature,
wine being the symbol of juice in plants, and blood
the juice in animals and humans. The word transcribed
as otork may read akard, combining German Acker
'field', an old form of which is achar, Latin ager,
English acre as measure of a field, with German
Erde 'earth, soil', thus indicating the fertile aspect
of the earth. The alchemists could have used
a semi-artificial lingua franca among them.
Franz Gnaedinger
> > > > > > >http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl/oneITEM.asp?pi...
>
> The long tube on top of 77r has five short vertical
> vents. If four of them symbolize the four classical
> elements, the fifth one in the middle is of course
> the mysterious quinta essentia of alchemy, empty
> because the aqua permanens or lapis philosophorum
> has not yet been distilled.
>
> The word transcribed as otedy may read akuva
> combining Latin aqua 'water' with Italian uva 'grape'.
> The three rays of the water beam may then be
> water, vine, and blood, water belonging to nature,
> wine being the symbol of juice in plants, and blood
> the juice in animals and humans. The word transcribed
> as otork may read akard, combining German Acker
> 'field', an old form of which is achar, Latin ager,
> English acre as measure of a field, with German
> Erde 'earth, soil', thus indicating the fertile aspect
> of the earth. The alchemists could have used
> a semi-artificial lingua franca among them.
The Egyptians believed in the primeval water
Nun out of which rose the primeval mound.
This mound opened up and released the sun
in the form of Ra, and the sky in the form of Nut.
The early Greek philosophers believed in four
elements: earth and water and air and fire.
Thales placed water at the begin, as the Egyptians
did. Aristotle introduced the aether as fifth element,
Latin quinta essentia. The idea of the aether
persisted until the end of the nineteenth century.
Then it was overcome by Einstein and his idea
of a space-time continuum. Ironically, space-
time seems to be represented by particles,
one particle per about one cubic meter, a very
thin gas, in another word: kind of an aether ...
Is the Voynich Ms about alchemy? or perhaps
about physics and biology and chemistry and
biology, anticipating the theory of evolution
as explained in previous messages, or rather
preparing the ground for evolution theory?
A special feature of the Voynich manuscript
seems to be a very high degree of complexity,
all is mixed together and blending over, making
one feel as helpless as when one could visit
the laboratory of an alchemist ...
If the order of elements on top of 77r is
water earth (aether) fire air
this would correspond to the Egyptian order
of primeval water, primeval mound, sun
and sky (the sky goddess Nut was uplifted
by her husband Shu who symbolized air).
You may know that alchemists had strong
links to ancient Egypt via Hermes Trimegistos.
It seems to me that the world was explored
in all directions: a new world across the ocean,
new forms of life in a drop of water seen through
microscopes, musings about life in space,
a social and scientific utopy in Bacon's New
Atlantis, back in time toward the ancient Greeks
and the Egyptians and their philosophies.
alien8er
> > > > > > >http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl/oneITEM.asp?pi...
>
> > > > The flowings remind me of Heraclitus: panta rhei
> > > > 'everything flows'. Evolution is a shifting of shapes
> > > > and functions over time, also kind of a flowing.
> > > > Dr. HotSalt may be right in assuming that the
> > > > names of the five vents may offer a key to the
> > > > reading of the text. I'd say we have from left
> > > > to right: (Eve) water earth mind fire air (Adam).
A good start. I'd forgotten that to an alchemist the people would
have to be seen as "elements" of a sort as well, active agents in the
operation of the Universe.
Also, it is not often noted that the figure to the right does not
have breasts; there are very few identifiable male figures in the
book.
Also consider that in the Greek (and descendant Mediterranean)
tradition the elements have "paired properties"; water and earth have
in common "coldness", earth and fire have "dryness", and so on. The
words associated with the tubes may refer to such properties.
> > If my new interpretations hold the Cardan grille
> > is no longer necessary, and the transcriptions
> > on the base of similarities of the Voynich
> > letters to the Roman alphabet are misleading,
> > o is a, and the double vertical line with the
> > double loop on top a k-sound, etc.
>
> > As for the medieval appeal of the VMs:
> > you may have noticed that science fiction
> > films often have a medieval look about them,
> > marking the difference to our time, and as
> > the future is very difficult to anticipate,
> > authors and filmers often go back to early
> > times and medieval clothes etc. A similar
> > reason may have made the author of the
> > VMs choose a medieval appeal denoting
> > the past and perhaps the future too.
In the case of SF films (and particularly certain SF TV shows) the
medieval milieu is cheap and easy to recreate; no machinery required
to speak of, a couple animals maybe and some raggedy costuming except
for the speaking parts and 'royalty'.
Franz, we're both old enough to remember some fairly ancient filmic
attempts to model "the future", and I can't think of any that
resembled very closely the world today. ;>)
As for the VMs I tend to agree with the current age estimates; it
almost certainly has to be four, five hundred or so years old.
I'd still like some forensic confirmation. I don't know what the
curator's problem with that may be, destructive testing is no longer
necessary.
> > The plants in the herbal part of the VMs are
> > no real plants but invented ones, or composed
> > of parts from different plants. Also this could
> > have been a part of pre-evolutionary thinking.
> > And such thought experiments must have
> > been concealed in a time when the Church
> > held so much power.
I was musing that they might not represent actual plants at all, but
be encodings of a sort, intended to represent something else entirely
to those who knew the relevant code. The resemblance to known plant
parts, including the colorings, would then be misdirection.
Same for the "jars", they just don't look all that much like jars or
optical instruments to me. There does seem to be some meaning in their
individual and mutual proportions and sequences of diameters and
coloration.
However I haven't noticed any obvious "keys" to either like the
(possible) elements we've been discussing.
> > There are always people around waiting
> > to trample on new ideas, and when they
> > have the power, as they did four hundred
> > years ago, they do trample on new ideas
> > and finish with their authors.
>
> The long tube on top of 77r has five short vertical
> vents. If four of them symbolize the four classical
> elements, the fifth one in the middle is of course
> the mysterious quinta essentia of alchemy, empty
> because the aqua permanens or lapis philosophorum
> has not yet been distilled.
Or does not have properties representable in a drawing.
> The word transcribed as otedy may read akuva
> combining Latin aqua 'water' with Italian uva 'grape'.
> The three rays of the water beam may then be
> water, vine, and blood, water belonging to nature,
> wine being the symbol of juice in plants, and blood
> the juice in animals and humans. The word transcribed
> as otork may read akard, combining German Acker
> 'field', an old form of which is achar, Latin ager,
> English acre as measure of a field, with German
> Erde 'earth, soil', thus indicating the fertile aspect
> of the earth. The alchemists could have used
> a semi-artificial lingua franca among them.
They most certainly did, mixtures of common words and invented
words, often used to describe physical characteristics of materials
they worked with as well as philosophical concepts they could not
discuss in "clear" because of the risk of friction with authorities.
What do you make of such terms as these:
Green Lion
Hartshorn
Bile of the serpent
Virgin's milk
Dove's blood
Some Googling for "alchemical terminology" might surprise you.
From the book Velator by Mark Hedsel:
"Almost all esoteric systems have developed one form or other of
what is called 'The Language of the Birds', or the 'Green Language',
as a means of communication.' This is an arcane tongue which permits
initiates, and those on the Path, to communicate secrets to one
another in a form which is incomprehensible to those not versed in the
language... There are no words for the higher experiences - only
symbols. There is a limit to what one can say with words. Once you
step beyond the boundary of the ordinary, and wish to communicate what
you have seen, then you have to speak in poetry or symbols. 'Yet even
the poetic frenzy will only take you so far. As you continue on the
visionary Path, even the rules of art begin to break down. You might,
like Dante, make flights of poetic symbolism so sublime that they have
the power to carry even the most obtuse reader beyond the familiar,
into the Spiritual." Or you might, like Rabelais, throw yourself into
a buffoon's burlesque, fooling your way with an arcane language which
few even recognize as arcane. You might even, like Mozart, break into
music so exquisite that its beams of sunlight touch levels where few
men have ever been ... Yet, in spite of this, there is a point beyond
which art cannot go."
I would say that the last sentence is an admission that what we
today call science has to take over at some point, nailing down
terminology in unambiguous form to make study easier and more
fruitful, though historically it could not happen until religion had
lost its stranglehold on society and culture in general.
Anyway, that the VMs is written in such a language probably is not a
new idea, but proving it will be somewhat difficult unless there is a
body of works in this particular language and other similar examples
can be found and translated. Or, if this is a stand-alone, perhaps a
given alchemist's "book of secrets", correlating "keys" like the
elemental illustrations and accompanying text pans out.
Dr. HotSalt
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> > > > > > > >http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/brbldl/oneITEM.asp?pi...
>
> A good start. I'd forgotten that to an alchemist the people would
> have to be seen as "elements" of a sort as well, active agents in the
> operation of the Universe.
>
> Also, it is not often noted that the figure to the right does not
> have breasts; there are very few identifiable male figures in the
> book.
>
> tradition the elements have "paired properties"; water and earth have
> in common "coldness", earth and fire have "dryness", and so on. The
> words associated with the tubes may refer to such properties.
Very fine point, so water and earth on the left side
are one pair, and fire and air on the right side are the
complementary pair.
> In the case of SF films (and particularly certain SF TV shows) the
> medieval milieu is cheap and easy to recreate; no machinery required
> to speak of, a couple animals maybe and some raggedy costuming except
> for the speaking parts and 'royalty'.
>
> Franz, we're both old enough to remember some fairly ancient filmic
> attempts to model "the future", and I can't think of any that
> resembled very closely the world today. ;>)
Yes.
> As for the VMs I tend to agree with the current age estimates; it
> almost certainly has to be four, five hundred or so years old.
>
> I'd still like some forensic confirmation. I don't know what the
> curator's problem with that may be, destructive testing is no longer
> necessary.
The curators may fear that a part of the mistery
might dissolve. I follow H. Rich SantaColoma
and assume a date between 1610 and 1620,
while you may go on assuming an earlier date.
> I was musing that they might not represent actual plants at all, but
> be encodings of a sort, intended to represent something else entirely
> to those who knew the relevant code. The resemblance to known plant
> parts, including the colorings, would then be misdirection.
I favor the idea of a possible proto-evolutionary theory.
> Same for the "jars", they just don't look all that much like jars or
> optical instruments to me. There does seem to be some meaning in their
> individual and mutual proportions and sequences of diameters and
> coloration.
The man on the right side holds a jar, reminds me
of Celtic religion, where also the supreme god
was holding a jar or a barrel, and the triple woman
on the left side reminds me of the triple Celtic
goddess. All is mixed up in the VMs.
> However I haven't noticed any obvious "keys" to either like the
> (possible) elements we've been discussing.
> Or does not have properties representable in a drawing.
Especially if the quinta essentia is the aether in
the original form as introduced into physics by
Aristotle.
Thanks for all this information. I was never interested
in alchemy but now I am hooked by the possibility
that the Voynich manuscript may perhaps record an
early attempt at something like evolutionary theory.
Now that you justified my intuition about a semi-artificial
lingua franca in alchemy I'd like to return to 'otedy'
which I read a akuva
o-sign -- a
double stroke and loop -- k or similar sounds
c-sign -- u
d-sign -- v
y- or g-sign -- final a
Akuva combines Latin aqua 'water' with Italian
uva 'grape'. The left vent shows a triple beam
that I interpret as water, wine (juice in plants)
and blood (juice in animals and humans).
Blood is not present in the hypothetical composite
akuva, and yet it is there if we consider the
transsubtantiation of Mass wine into the blood
of Christ.
I read 'otork' as akard combining German Acker
in an old form achar 'field' with German Erde
'earth, soil', thus indicating the fertility of the
element earth. Adam was made of earth.
Am I wrong in seeing some faint male figure
in the material that comes out of the second
vertical vent on the left side?
Franz Gnaedinger
so you have to scroll to it's first appearance
in a previous message where it works fine.
Also I have seen that the middle vertical vent was
already identified with the aether as quinta essentia
by Dr. HotSalt.
Looking up 77r again and closely inspecting
the material that comes out of the second
vertical vent from the left side I can't help
seeing Adam, his face just given by three dots,
looking to the left side, above the face a crown
of locks, under the head a few streaming lines
indicating a garment.
Franz Gnaedinger
of the Voynich manuscript, namely the words
right of the first and second vertical vents and
left of the fourth vertical vent:
First vent from the left, water (in three beams)
similarity transcription otedy
proposed new reading akuva
combining Latin aqua 'water' with Italian uva
'grape, vine' (the three beams of the drawing
representing water, wine, and blood; water
and vine/wine being present in the word,
for the component of blood consider the
transsubstantiation of Mass wine into the
blood of Christ)
Second vent from the left side, earth
similarity transcription otork
proposed new reading akard
combining German Acker 'field', an old form
of which being achar, and German Erde
'earth, soil' (the combination indicating
the fertility of this element)
(Third vent from the left side, aether)
Fourth vent from the left side, fire
similarity transcription otol
proposed new reading akan
combining Latin accendo 'I kindle,
set on fire, light' and German Vulkan
'volcano' (the combination indicating
the power of fire)
These three words offer the letters
A and D and N and R and U and V and
a second A and might allow someone
to go on deciphering the manuscript,
however, as the language of the VMs
seems to be a secret language involving
compounds, the task of translating the
VMs might be almost impossible, even
if we could read the text in plain form.
Franz Gnaedinger
The next word, left of the fifth vertical vent,
air, is transcribed as dchdy but seems
to me rather a dccdy and then yields the
new reading vuuva that may be understood
as imitation of blowing (an onomatopoeic word).
Franz Gnaedinger
The hypothetical reading vuuva of the word
next to the vent of air may be more than just
onomatopoeic. Google for
grimm wörterbuch
and look up
wehen
You'll find interesting versions of this word in many
languages. German wehen means to blow, akin are
Latin ventus and English wind. A few of the many
variations in Grimm's Wörterbuch:
Old English wawan, Middle English wawen
Old High German wahan, Middle High German wewen
Gothic waian, praeteritum waiwo
uentosi uuahente 'blowing winds'
uuaio uuaiet 'the winds blew' (from 11th century onward)
wiwint 'Wirbelwind'
Seen in the light of wiwint and wewan and waiwo,
the hypothetical vuuva in the Vonych Ms
denoting the element of air is not so uncommon
anymore, and is more than just air, it is air in
motion, blowing air, wind, matching the fire in
akan that combines Latin accendo 'I kindle,
set on fire, light' and German Vulkan 'volcano'
that means fire in all it's power. And akard is
not just Erde 'earth', it is the earth or soil of an
Acker 'field' that makes plants grow. And akuva
is not just aqua 'water', it is combined with uva
'grape' or vine or wine, and the Mass wine is
transformed into the blood of Christ. All four
elements are then appearing in a heightened
and energetic form - the only form that could
possibly bring forth the quinta essentia in
the opinion of an alchemist.
Now the meaning of the strange compounds
has become clear: it is a heightening and
energizing of the four classical elements.
Dennis
> Anyway, that the VMs is written in such a language probably is not a
> new idea, but proving it will be somewhat difficult unless there is a
> body of works in this particular language and other similar examples
> can be found and translated. Or, if this is a stand-alone, perhaps a
> given alchemist's "book of secrets", correlating "keys" like the
> elemental illustrations and accompanying text pans out.
Adam Maclean, who I consider the greatest living expert on Western
alchemy, has spent a lot of time with the VMs. He does not think the VMs
is an alchemical Ms. He thinks parallels are to be found in early herbals
and medical texts.
Dennis
Dennis
> The curators may fear that a part of the mistery
> might dissolve. I follow H. Rich SantaColoma
> and assume a date between 1610 and 1620,
> while you may go on assuming an earlier date.
Jacobus de Tepenecz' signature is on f1r of the VMs. He received the
patent of nobility in 1607, so that's the latest date for the VMs.
Dennis
Panu
He prayed, obviously. He seems to have fixed my name, too.
Panu
>
> BTW has there been any mention in sci.lang of a Spanish novel about the
> Voynich Manuscript? The English translation (The Book of God and
> Physics) was just reviewed in the Washington Post; I decided to order a
> copy in the original (El castillo de las estrellas). (What would have
> been wrong with "Castle of the Stars"?)
Who wrote it? Pérez-Reverte?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Experts on chatrooms like these say that words cannot
> hurt you unless you let them. Don't feed the trolls.
You may consider alt.religion.kibology a chatroom,
sci.lang is a scientific forum.
I don't know what makes my stalker and killrater tick,
but I guess Panu Petteri Höglund alias alias alias
must fill a hole in his life, an emptiness within.
The discussions in the Usenet are used for all kinds
of studies, and so I assume Google records not only
the rating but also who rated whom and how often.
Sooner or later the manic killrating campaign led
by my second online stalker will come to light.
Franz Gnaedinger
Dennis tells me 1607 is the latest date for the
VMs. Fine with me.
My approach stood a first test. I noticed
a similarity of words and then deciphered
the first two as akuva and akard. These
two words provide the letters for the fourth
word, which, assuming the first two are
correctly deciphered, must be vuuva.
A strange word, and how can it denote
air? Then I was reminded of German wehen,
looked up Grimm's Wörterbuch, and found
the many and greatly varying versions
that reveal vuuva as blowing air, air in
an energetic form. This approach is all
but trivial. The four elements must occur
in a higher form, in their aspect of organic
life on the female side, and in the aspect
of energy on the male side, in order to
generate the aether or aqua perennis
or lapis philosophorum that may one day
emerge from the middle vent, and as
the long tube is slightly curved upward,
this vent is the highest. And then there
is double encoding in form of a secret
language of meaningful compounds
rendered in a secret script, nearly
impossible to tackle. Obviously there
was reason for going to such pains.
Franz Gnaedinger
f86v3 shows the four hightened and energetic
elements in a diagonal arrangement, the female
water and earth on one diagonal, the male air
and fire on the other diagonal, in the middle
the empty space of aether or the quinta
essentia or the aqua perennis or the lapis
philosophorum.
Water was the first element in ancient Egypt
and according to Thales. The quinta essentia
in form of a tincture is the aqua perennis.
So water in the form of aqua must play an
important role. The fat roots and leaves of
the plant on f87r may indicate a water plant.
Using the letters I identified before, plus
a new one, I found several aqua-words
in the first paragraph of 86r. First the signs:
o-sign -- a (alpha)
g-sign -- alternative a (alpha)
'lambda' -- d (delta)
a-sign -- e (epsilon), new letter
double stroke + loop -- k (kappa, guttural sound)
ascending loop -- n (ny)
8-sign -- v (as in Italian uva)
The words I read in the first paragraph of 86r:
akuaven akuaven akuuva akuuava
akuuavan uuakuava akuava
The root aqua- is obvious, occuring so many
times in a relatively short paragraph, while
-uva occurs once and may again have the
meaning of uva 'grape, vine' implying wine
and metaphorical blood as organic fluids
that highten the basic element of water.
The endings -ven -va -van may also play
a role in a specific grammar of hightening
and energizing.
Franz Gnaedinger
Sorry, I forgot a sign in my short list:
c-sign -- u (as in uva)
o -- a
g -- a
'lamda' -- d
a -- e
double stroke plus loop -- k/q
ascending loop -- e
c -- u
8 -- v
Some signs are quite close to the lower case
Roman letters, for example turn the c by ninety
degrees and you get an u. Or add a stroke to
the right side of the o and you get an a.
alien8er
It may well not be an _exclusively_ alchemical text, but I agree
with those that see direct alchemical references in the illustrations.
Looking at McLean's site (you did mean:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/
right?) I see he focuses strongly on representing the "babes in
tubes" drawings as "imperfect copies and elaborations" of drawings by
Peter of Eboli of the communal Baths of Pozzuoli near Naples ca. 1220.
He also compares the plant drawings to those in a Kreuterbuch of
Basel dated 1543, yet to me those in the VMS look much more
amateurish; they look more like mnemonic devices than something a
student would be expected to recognize the next day during a walk in
the woods or herbarium.
AFAICT McLean is not even aware of the apparent alchemical content
of the top drawing on 77r. I'm going to rectify that by email and see
what happens.
ISTM the VMS was made as a notebook and reference for one person,
presumably its author. If it were a text intended for instruction I'd
think the drawings would be of better quality for the presumed age.
And of course it'd be written in something less opaque.
Compare this:
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/ashmole/1431.htm
The layout is very similar, drawings evidently made first then text
filled in around the drawings. The drawing style is somewhat similar
in that there is no attempt at what we'd call photorealism, but in the
VMS much sloppier.
Yet the shown book is several hundred years older than the VMS- why
is the VMS done in what would be, for its presumed day, an "archaic"
style, when its presumable contemporary documents look much less
artificial:
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/jpegs/imagecat/500/imac0963.jpg
from here:
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/misc/15th-germ.htm
And yes, I picked that page deliberately; consider the tree branches
the children are climbing. Also, yes, I could be accused of cherry-
picking, but first do a quick Google-image search for "early herbal
manuscript" (without the quotes) and compare the various drawing
styles you see.
Do I have an ultimate point, is there an interpretation I prefer and
am ready to defend? Well, no, not yet. However I am convinced, perhaps
unreasonably and prematurely that the MS might be decoded with the
help of the very few clear references to known subjects frinst the
alchemical elements.
Mark L. Fergerson
Franz Gnaedinger
Having provisionally identified some more letters
I can read pretty much of the text, and it seems
to me a melodic glossolaly imitating an Indian
language, so H.R. SantaColoma's New Atlantis
theory is back in the center of my focus. Instead
of prolonging my list of signs, I render the two
first lines on top of 79v:
?anv?uva anlasa dakanan akenva akuvanas anasan
daluuva dalauua daka n?ua dalero ?ua das?uva
Now imagine Drebbel declamating these lines
at the court of Rudolph II, explaining the ms
to be a text written and drawn by a native
from Bensalem, New Atlantis, an island west
of Peru. And interspersed are some serious
thoughts about the organization of nature
and life, and social utopies, and scientific
insights, a wild mixture known under the name
of alchemy ...
proto57
> of the top drawing on 77r. I'm going to rectify that by email and see
> what happens.
If you do, don't forget the alchemical representations from f86r:
http://www.santa-coloma.net/voynich_drebbel/elements.jpg
> Yet the shown book is several hundred years older than the VMS- why
> is the VMS done in what would be, for its presumed day, an "archaic"
> style, when its presumable contemporary documents look much less
> artificial:
>
> http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/jpegs/imagecat/5...
>
> from here:
>
> http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/misc/15th-ge...
Mark:
There is certainly a similarity to these, and many older herbals. You
may know I feel the book is from the early 17th century, and
intentionally uses imagery from many earlier sources. If you are not
familiar with my theories:
http://www.santa-coloma.net/voynich_drebbel/voynich.html
And:
If you think about it, and any objection to it being "as new as" 17th
century, first think of your noting that it looks like a book "several
hundred years older than the VMS", presuming it is a 15th century work
(I'm guessing that's what you mean, 15th century?). My point being, if
it can be 15th century and borrow, why can't it be 17th century and
borrow? Rich SantaColoma
grammatim
> On Jun 12, 4:43 pm, "Otto Bahn" <e...@eio.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Experts on chatrooms like these say that words cannot
> > hurt you unless you let them. Don't feed the trolls.
>
> You may consider alt.religion.kibology a chatroom,
> sci.lang is a scientific forum.
>
> I don't know what makes my stalker and killrater tick,
> but I guess Panu Petteri Höglund alias alias alias
> must fill a hole in his life, an emptiness within.
>
> The discussions in the Usenet are used for all kinds
> of studies, and so I assume Google records not only
> the rating but also who rated whom and how often.
False assumption. I don't know about Switzerland, but in the US (and
google is a US corporation), regulations on privacy are extremely
stringent. Such information on individuals is not collected.
proto57
> Franz Gnaedinger wrote:
> > The curators may fear that a part of the mistery
> > might dissolve. I follow H. Rich SantaColoma
> > and assume a date between 1610 and 1620,
> > while you may go on assuming an earlier date.
>
> Jacobus de Tepenecz' signature is on f1r of the VMs. He received the
> patent of nobility in 1607, so that's the latest date for the VMs.
>
> Dennis
Hi Dennis: Since de Tepenecz held that title to his death in 1622, it
means the latest date for the VMs would be 1622, not 1607. Of course
that is assuming it is a signature at all. It does not actually match
de Tepencz' signature very well. You remember Jan Huyrch's work in
this area?: http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/b12.htm
and:
http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/a9.htm
Which are from: http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/
So if it is his signature, we have a latest date of creation of the
Voynich as 1622, and if it is not his signature, and accept the first
Marci letter is referring to the Voynich, then the latest known date
is 1639. The book does not appear to history before then, except
anecdotally in that letter. Rich SantaColoma
Franz Gnaedinger
My second reading is not consistent with the first
reading of the word I gave as AKARD, combining
German Acker and Erde. Now it is AKASL, more
Indian sounding, and the fine meaning I gave
to the four words is lost, on the other hand
I can read nearly everything. The text is very
melodic and appropriate for 'evidence' that
Francis Bacon's New Atlantis 'really' exists.
I will trancribe all of 77r in my new reading
and post it perhaps by the middle of this week.
The sound of the new reading seems based
on Italian more than German. At present it's
all gibberish, while my interpretation of the
_drawing_ of 77r still holds. The ideas of the
VMs may then be conveyed visually and not
verbally at all. Let me again recommend
the great page by H.R. SantaColoma and
his visual understanding of the VMs.
grammatim
Not that I have any interest at all in the VMs itself, but isn't the
point that if the fellow had some sort of title from 1607, he wouldn't
have signed his name without it?
Franz Gnaedinger
> My second reading is not consistent with the first
> reading of the word I gave as AKARD, combining
> German Acker and Erde. Now it is AKASL, more
> Indian sounding, and the fine meaning I gave
> to the four words is lost, on the other hand
> I can read nearly everything. The text is very
> melodic and appropriate for 'evidence' that
> Francis Bacon's New Atlantis 'really' exists.
> I will trancribe all of 77r in my new reading
> and post it perhaps by the middle of this week.
> The sound of the new reading seems based
> on Italian more than German. At present it's
> all gibberish, while my interpretation of the
> _drawing_ of 77r still holds. The ideas of the
> VMs may then be conveyed visually and not
> verbally at all. Let me again recommend
> the great page by H.R. SantaColoma and
> his visual understanding of the VMs.
I can save my interpretations of the four elements
water earth fire air and their peculiar names at the
top of 77r. Also AKASL as name of the earth fits
into the pattern of heightened and energized forms.
AKA- is given by German Acker 'field', an old form
being achar, while akka was the name of the
Indo-European earth goddess (Julius Pokorny).
What about -SL ? We can read these letters as
Italian sole 'sun' and luna 'moon', so we have the
earth or soil of the fertile fields under sun and moon,
but also the earth that is rich in gold and silver,
the sun being the symbol of gold, and the moon
being the symbol of silver in alchemy.
The four names
akuva akasl akan vuuva
make sense in the concept of alchemy and
are the key for the reading of the text, most
of it being gibberish but melodic and evoking
an Indian or perhaps Polynesian language
(our own Jacques Guy, not forgotten, favored
an exotic language as base of the Voynich,
perhaps he recognized some speaking
pattern in the sequences of signs).
An island west of Peru (fictive Bensalem,
Francis Bacon's New Atlantis) would belong
to the Peloponnesian archipelago.
Franz Gnaedinger
Names of the three women and of the man
on 77r, in clockwise direction:
akaneroa akauva vas?ves vacuva
The six words under the long tube, left to right:
a?l?s akuva akasl akan vuuva sasen
The two first lines and the begin of the third
line of the text on 77r:
?aneveseran dalan ?ua da??uva da??uva
ven?ua anluva nena
kanevas ?ua dakero dakuva dakan ?va
dalero ?ukua sen
dakuuva dalero ...
These lines can very well be declamated and
would have made an impression on Rudolph II
if claimed to be the native language of the
dwellers of Bensalem.
proto57
> Not that I have any interest at all in the VMs itself, but isn't the
> point that if the fellow had some sort of title from 1607, he wouldn't
> have signed his name without it?
Yes it is the point, you got that right... but his real name is
Jacobus Horczicky, and de Tepenc, or Tepencz, is the title...which he
held from 1607 (I think 1608 actually) to his death in 1622. So his
name appearing on the VMs means that it was written on there from
1607/08 onwards, and if it were written on there during his life, then
it was put there between 1607/08 and 1622. The original point Dennis
made was that it gave a "latest date" for the Voynich of 1607, which
is incorrect.And if not a signature, the name itself does not give an
earliest or latest date of any kind... it could have been added in
1910 to a 1420 book, for instance, for all we know.
The only thing certain is that it was not added before 1607. Rich.
Franz Gnaedinger
I think the samples of my reading I gave
yesterday suffice for the moment, no need
to go for the entire page (f77r).
Rich SantaColoma interpreted some of the tubes
in the Voynich as microscopes. When I was a boy
I had a small and very simple microscope and
used to watch paramecia move in a drop of water
between two small and thin plates of glass. They
are the biggest cilia, up to one third of a millimeter
long. Now if you look at the blotch on the left
margin of 77r, out of which come the long tubes
that lead to the lower women, by name Akaneroa
and Akauva (note the presence of the IE earth
goddess akka in the stem of both names),
I am reminded of a paramecium, or rather a couple
of paramecia above each other. If the author
of the VMs looked through a microscope,
as H.R. SantaColoma convincingly demonstrates,
then he must first have seen paramecia, and
voilà, there is one, or a whole sequence of them
placed on each other, in their typical slipper-like
shape.
Bryce Utting
> I think the samples of my reading I gave
> yesterday suffice for the moment, no need
> to go for the entire page (f77r).
wow. I think he just fnorded a fnarr.
WELL DONE WTF!
butting
--
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~butting
VADE FLERE, EMO-CAPRICULE
Franz Gnaedinger
The graphic style of 77r is anachronistic. While
the face of the man is medieval, the river bank
is leonardesque, a difference of several centuries.
I agree on Rich SantaColoma's view that the VMs
dates from the early 17th century and was deliberately
drawn in a mix of older styles in order to mark a
difference, the gap in time translating to a different
place, not Middle Europe but Bensalem, New Atlantis,
an island west of Peru, belonging to the Peloponnesian
Archipelago whose language(s) the VMs-language
imitates.
I still believe that an utopic fiction was used for
hiding a revolutionary scientific discovery, namely
evolution. Look again at folio 77 recto, f77r, for
example via http://www.freie-literatur.de
The stack of paramecia on the left margin
(explained in my previous message) marks early
life. Tubes lead from them to the lower emanations
of the triple goddess, Akaneroa below, next to
a tree trunk on a river bank, and Akauva next
to a strange animal in the making that resembles
an armadillo - tubes or vents that evoke four
legs and the head of a being whose back is
covered in scales. I still assume that an armadillo
was brought to the court of Rudolph II at Prague
and regarded as sort of a primeval animal.
The pattern of scales is also present around
the stack of paramecia, and in the river bank,
and may symbolize nature in her life giving
aspect, even the more so as this pattern
occurs also on other pages of the Voynich.
And the river bank is a persistent motif in
Leonardo, highly symbolical, the river being
the river of life (in several paintings and
drawings and cartons). Flora and Fauna
evolved from microbes, while the woman or
goddess on top, representing the human world
together with the man on the other side of the
long tube, is rooted in the animal world.
Summary: life originated with microbes,
evolved into flora and fauna, and we humans
are rooted in the animal kingdom. Most daring
for the time.
Franz Gnaedinger
Can you see the strange armadillo made of
tubes or vents on 77r ? It is an irregular and
asymmetric animal, yet if we understand
the tubes as symbols of metamorphosis
and evolution it would make sense: animals
evolved from primeval animals, evolving
all sizes, body lengths, short and long legs,
short and long heads. The very strange
but still easily recognizeable armadillo on
77r is then an attempt at drawing all animals
in one, emerging from a primeval animal,
as the tubes lead from the stack of paramecia
to the tree trunk and the armadillo, indicating
all the biological processes that led from
microbes to plants on the one hand, animals
on the other hand. Representing change via
tubes would make sense for people who
were experimenting with all kinds of
substances they mixed in tubes and looked
what happened. In the belief of the ancient
ones, the four classical elements were also
able to change from one into the other,
and this is then indicated by the long tube
on top of 77r. Astronomy was anticipated
by astrology, chemistry by alchemy, and
perhaps it was also alchemy and their
ideas of metamorphosis that allowed
a first pondering of evolution in biology?
How far was Francis Bacon engaged
in biology?
Otto Bahn
> Experts on chatrooms like these say that words cannot
> hurt you unless you let them. Don't feed the trolls.
<
<You may consider alt.religion.kibology a chatroom,
<sci.lang is a scientific forum.
A funny thing happened on the way there.
--oTTo--
Harlan Messinger
No, someone named Enrique Joven.