Voynich manuscript discussion: 2005 January 22

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Guest

Post by Guest » Sun Jan 23, 2005 9:56 pm

H. N. Stone wrote:After extensive research into this area of inquiry, and after reading all of the posts by interested parties, I have but one question: Why?

The most popular conclusion I have observed, by the posters of this topic, is that this is a hoax. I understand other manuscripts and such have been determined to be a hoax of some kind, however I do not see the reason in this particular case. Granted the "suggestive" drawings of females in the nude imply some sort of unusual behavior for such a manuscript but this is a rather old book. Is it possible those particular additions could have been made posterior?
I personally feel a botanical calendar of yearly planting, proper harvesting and moon phases would be the most logical explanation for this text, however, and I am not a botanist mind you, some of those plant illustrations look, to me, to be hypothetical or even extra-terrestrial. I realize the idea, to some, borders on nonsense yet, to others, may not appear far from the beaten path.
Just an observation.
Regards,
H. N. Stone
Relacio'n de las Cosas de yucation :idea: :?: :!: :twisted: :shock: 8) :arrow: :wink:

Guest

Post by Guest » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:06 pm

Motul
de la lengua maya de yucatan' ciudad realis calepino
relacio'n de las cosas de yucatia'n
gran dicionario calepino
john cartier brown l . providence rhode :idea: island
:arrow: :!: :wink: :o :D :shock: :? :idea: :?: :!: :?: :!: :?:

orona

Voynich Manuscript

Post by orona » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:37 pm

The Voynich MS first enters known history in the early 15th Century. If it is a hoax as many of you say in order to fool Emperor Rudolph II into buying it for a large sum of money, then dont you think it is a little overkill? 240+ pages of absolute gibberish? There is a definate alphabet, cryptologists know this. So why would somebody go through the intense trouble of forming their own written script and hand-write over 200 pages of it accompanied by fantasical plant and astronomical images? Somebody wrote it, perhaps it was never meant to be read by anyone except for a few who knew about it, such a group of alchemists of the time. Perhaps it was the work of a Secret Society such as the Rosicrucians? Or, maybe it is simply a huge hoax. Whatever the case may be, my best advice is to research it as best you can and make your own judgement as to the meaning of the Voynich Manuscript, because it seems nobody will be solving this mystery of history anytime soon.

Ron

voynich alphabet

Post by Ron » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:47 pm

I have written a program to decode cryptograms and have tried to aply it to the Voynich text. The best result so far is to match 39% of the words in the first two paragraphs of the first page of the manuscript to an old english word dictionary taken from Beowolf. The result is not readable as yet, or it would be better to say not meaningful in any way. I haven't done other pages, and there needs to be a lot of improvements in the program to take into account the different possibilities in transcription errors.

In doing this excercise, it becomes apparent that there are many difficulties that will make solving this mystery very difficult.

In order to solve it in this way it will require actual transcriptions of different documents in differnt languages and time periods with out any corrections to build dictionaries of possible words. Using modern words won't work. It would also need to try different variations of the Voynich alphabet because it is not clear where some letters begin an some end or weather or not a single letter is in fact two or three letters. And to take in account that a single voynich character or stroke could represent multiple characters.

If any one tried to solve the text with only one transcription using one possible alphabet version, they would not get vary far.

Here are some things that make this difficult:

1. There was no consistant spelling rules during the time the Voynich document was written. Scribes matched the sound of words to the letters as they needed and so spelling varied from scribe to scribe and aslo the same scribe may spell a single word differently in the same document. (I tend to do this myself unintentionally.)

2. The letters of the Voynich alphabet is not known, so it becomes very difficult to determine where one letter stops and another begins. The use of shorthand symbols was aslo common during that time and so some symbols could represent multiple characters.

3. There were many various spoken dialects at the time period, and so a phonetic representation may not be easily recognizable.


Many people have suggested some of the following.

A. Mirror writing by Leonardo...

The text has a strong left slanting diagonal strokes leading to that impression. We are used to text which has right slanting strokes, thus it causes us to think it is backwords somehow.

After copying parts of the text with a calligraphy pen to get the feel of the letters better, I feel very strongly that the Voynich document was written by, (in my oppinion), a right handed scribe in left to right forward order. Leonardo was left handed. Did he also write with his right hand?

B. It was written as an excercise by a child or young aprentice in a non sense alphabet...

I think they would not use high quality vellium for that. The crudeness of the illistrations is consistant in quality of the 13th centrury or earlier. We have become quite use to very high quality printing and so we tend to think of anything less as being done by a child or by an amature.

It is possible that the scribe was an apprentice or simply a less skilled scribe copying an older document. Much of the detail could have been lost during that process and distortions of the plants could have been introduced making them difficult to recognize. It may be that the older document was in bad shape leading to introduced errors. What if the scribe didn't know the language he was copying? Would he simplify the text without realizing it? What if this is a copy of a copy of a copy? There are 10th century documents with plant illistrations in the same style as the ones in the voynich document.

C. It was a hoax in order gain money from a wealthy individual...

This should only be considered a theory until there is stronger evidense for it. As of now, it may be the best theory but it has not in anyway been proven.

So far the closest writing style to the voynich text I've been able to find is an inscription on the last page of a bible produced in England during the 13th century that has some roman letters written with the same form as the Voynich text. The same double looping LL (as a capital H) and a few other letters are simular. The overall text does not look like the same scribe, but is it possible there is a connection in either geography or culture?

http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/Scriptoriu ... 26061.html

This example is probably not connected, but I believe the scribe or author who did the voynich document probably did other documents and there is a chance he used some of the symbols or writing style.

Guest

Post by Guest » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:48 pm

I'm only 16 and not very educated.....but to me it looks like mirror language, like the mirror image would be a little more legible. This is probably an absurd idea, but I thought I would contribute.

scooby4everfreak

APOD idea

Post by scooby4everfreak » Sun Jan 23, 2005 10:58 pm

i think for that this picture might be displaying the moon instead of the sun. all of the phases of the moon are somehow showed in this picture. also, it shows stars around the "moon", in ancient times the people/culture only displayed picuters on what could be seen; thus being so, you can only stars when the moon is its phases (more so when it is in it's cresent ones than the others) anyways, that's my 2 cents for that subject...

alter-ego

Re: Voynich Manuscript

Post by alter-ego » Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:34 pm

orona wrote:The Voynich MS first enters known history in the early 15th Century. If it is a hoax as many of you say in order to fool Emperor Rudolph II into buying it for a large sum of money, then dont you think it is a little overkill? 240+ pages of absolute gibberish? There is a definate alphabet, cryptologists know this. So why would somebody go through the intense trouble of forming their own written script and hand-write over 200 pages of it accompanied by fantasical plant and astronomical images? Somebody wrote it, perhaps it was never meant to be read by anyone except for a few who knew about it, such a group of alchemists of the time. Perhaps it was the work of a Secret Society such as the Rosicrucians? Or, maybe it is simply a huge hoax. Whatever the case may be, my best advice is to research it as best you can and make your own judgement as to the meaning of the Voynich Manuscript, because it seems nobody will be solving this mystery of history anytime soon.
Bingo.

Guest

Post by Guest » Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:35 pm

the solution to Voynich manuscript it was written to extract 600 ducats from Emperor Rudolph II

Regards

ealdric
Asternaut
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 10:44 pm
Location: Fla

is there a moderator in the house ?

Post by ealdric » Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:50 pm

Is anyone moderating this discussion ? The long Yucatan history / Bible ad message on pg 13 seems like it should be removed. I see no relavance.

I notice that there seems to be no way to bring a message to the attention of a moderator, or indeed to contact one at all. Help?

For anyone who might read this: To report bad post CLICK HERE /makc.
"If the stars should appear but one night in a thousand years . . ."

wombat

word-length distributions

Post by wombat » Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:53 pm

Helen:
Re your letter distribution statistics. Think of a modern star chart. It might have full contellation names, in which case it would conform with "typical" distributions. But maybe it only has the 3-letter abbreviations, so your letter counts would look very strange indeed. You could apply similar types of arguments to plant charts; in fact to almost any kind of "technical" charts. The "words" on them are not typical, thus they won't generate typical word-length counts.

Finally, if it is in a code (as distinct from an encryption or a cipher, for those who know the difference; aned it seems you do), then it stands to reason that the coded words would be of a limited range of word lengths.

BJ

Post by BJ » Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:00 am

This looks like a promising posibility as, if we asume Roger Bacon wrote this work, a work of this nature could easely be written with the use of mirrors. But this is by the looks just first level of hiding the real text, a good place to start the real decoding.
Anonymous wrote:Hello APOD,

well, you asked for it and so, if you would like, please visit my website that contains my insight into the posible solution of the Voynich manuscrpit:

http://www.voynich.co.sr

My work has allready been published in a shorter form in "Planeta", Serbian Popular Science monthly magazine, on October 28th 2004, page 42.

Please note that there are many attempts to dechiperement of this manuscript and mine is perhaps the latest and the newest in a series of attempts.

Sincerely yours,
Adrian Nedelkovic,
Beograd (Belgrade) Serbia

the Living Zarxonic

Bush

Post by the Living Zarxonic » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:47 am

I am the Living Zarxonic

I am from the 4 planet in the system Elepitar, located in the 4th disc of Meshimal. I preside over this, your planet, Kelipa, Gaia or Earth as you call it..

I speak to guide you. This Voynich manuscript is garbage, a meaningless hoax of an age past. Do not waste your time.
However, what I tell you now is true. A great error you Americans have made re-electing this man you call Bush - an error from which you will not recover. Join me as I speed back to my planet Elepitar. We will travel 1/2 the speed of light (I feel a bit weighty when I go full speed) My system lies 40 million light-years out and you will make wonderful frozen snacks along the way.

Waiting to eat you

The Living Zarxonic

mintaka900

manuscript

Post by mintaka900 » Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:27 am

What type of material is this manuscript printed on, and with what type of ink? The reason I question is that it seems to me that one could test the chemicals or minerals found in the ink or paper to see if there are any that would be unique to a particular country or area. This way, one could study the place of origin as well as the inhabitants. When I first noted the image in the center, I thought it was an image of a solar eclipse due to the bright rays that extend outward as well as the cresent shapes on either side of the drawn face. I am very interested in this artifact!
Thank you!
~Min

MrTim

Post by MrTim » Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:50 am

Hi all!
Ron wrote:
In order to solve it in this way it will require actual transcriptions of different documents in differnt languages and time periods with out any corrections to build dictionaries of possible words. Using modern words won't work. It would also need to try different variations of the Voynich alphabet because it is not clear where some letters begin an some end or weather or not a single letter is in fact two or three letters. And to take in account that a single voynich character or stroke could represent multiple characters.

If any one tried to solve the text with only one transcription using one possible alphabet version, they would not get vary far.

Here are some things that make this difficult:

1. There was no consistant spelling rules during the time the Voynich document was written. Scribes matched the sound of words to the letters as they needed and so spelling varied from scribe to scribe and aslo the same scribe may spell a single word differently in the same document. (I tend to do this myself unintentionally.)

2. The letters of the Voynich alphabet is not known, so it becomes very difficult to determine where one letter stops and another begins. The use of shorthand symbols was aslo common during that time and so some symbols could represent multiple characters.

3. There were many various spoken dialects at the time period, and so a phonetic representation may not be easily recognizable.
Well, I obviously beg to differ... ;) (Though you come close on some things.)

Since everybody is tossing their theories into the ring, I might as well add mine:

http://hometown.aol.com/arqy0plex/index.html

Is it a code/cipher? No.
A hoax? Too early to tell.
Is there a language underneath all the "gibberish"? Yes. Several of them.

....

fantabulous

Post by fantabulous » Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:51 am

Using doodle analyst tools the meaning of the manuscript was able to be deciphered. Doodle 'reprazentology' would suggest the manuscript be enjoyed for what it is. Even if it contained the purpose of life or the absolute truth of the universe one would politely decline the offer to know because that would be the easier way. :D

Guest

Post by Guest » Mon Jan 24, 2005 6:01 am

At first look this appears to me to resemble the rough appearance of the moon's face at full moon (if you wanted it to look human).

Then, there are 12 "pairs" of dark colored/light colored sections radiating from the center. These may repreent the full moon of each month.

Notice the face has a shawl or scarf that is shaped like an ellipse with its major avis in the vertical orientation. As if an explanation of how the "man of the moon" covers his face during the moon phases. As if he is rotating back and forth and we can only see the full face when he is looking directly at us. This would be a cool explanation of the moon phases, the "man on the moon' is watching out for young children and about one a month he is looking at your town.

Maybe that is why it is written around the the outside of the circles circumference. Marking time of the year based on the moon cycles. As a contrast we mark time per the sun, how boring, same ole sun, up in the morn & down at night. But the moon, hey it has personality, and follows the fertility schedule of most females. Now that is cool, and makes for a good fireside story.

Good luck guys, it may turn out to be the early verison of roulette. or an early dart board.

Erik
Asternaut
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:30 am
Location: Las Cruces, NM

Re: is there a moderator in the house ?

Post by Erik » Mon Jan 24, 2005 7:03 am

ealdric wrote:Is anyone moderating this discussion ? The long Yucatan history / Bible ad message on pg 13 seems like it should be removed. I see no relavance.

I notice that there seems to be no way to bring a message to the attention of a moderator, or indeed to contact one at all. Help?
:shock: :? :shock:

What relevance does this post have in the discussion of the manuscript?

You know, it's funny the way people think :lol: .

You know what's also funny? People get so nervous or offended when references are made to Jesus Christ, or the Bible. Not to point fingers, but I've seen Muslims or Buddhists publicly portray religious traditions in as public places as airports or hotel lobbies! And they have the right to do so, but when you see someone preaching the Word of God in public, people yell obceneties and frown on the act. Even aithiests are bothered...........what does an athiest believe? That there is no God.....therefore, if there is no God, then the Bible must be a hoax/false, and praying must mean nothing, yet they're so intent on getting rid of Christian material and the like. :? Do they feel threatened by something they don't even believe to be real?

I am not trying to point fingers, be cruel/racial, or offend anyone who is an athiest, Muslim, or Buddhist......each person has the right to believe how they choose. It just seems like one side of the story is being presented here, and I'm giving the other.

P.S. I'm not claiming that this post is relevant to the manuscript discussion.

Interesting fact: The Bible is the most printed book in the world.....the printing press was invented to print it. It is a classic (it has withstood the test of time) or centuries.

Tell me that doesn't say something about it.
Regards,
Erik

Guest

Post by Guest » Mon Jan 24, 2005 7:37 am

A quick onceover shows me it's separated into twelve sections. Going on them being months, the large stars could be venus and mars, and the number of smaller stars in the different vanes could depict an aspect between them depending on their positions in the night sky. When one large star is present, perhaps one of the two planets is not in view.

Just a thought.

-William

boots

Post by boots » Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:20 am

Asides from all these wonderful theories, it could actually be something mundane. A guy's diary or notes, a farmhands notes or an almanac. The language difficulty could be a result of dyslexia or similar. I am sure spelling mistakes or bad grammar is not a modern problem. Additionally latin was used by the church to keep those who didnt understand it, in their place. Is this a similar example? Is it an ancient copy of the Beano? Who knows? It should keep some bearded bloke in work for years. Good luck to them, I'd be interested if I had the time and the intelligence to study it myself. :wink:

Guest

Post by Guest » Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:14 pm

Hi. Since I've never been to this site before, and I probably won't stick around very long, I'm not going to create an account, and I'll just post anonymously. My first thought echoed a lot of other people "wow, that looks like it's reversed" or something. I fired up my copy of TheGimp and reversed it, and it didn't look like a lot,. I then flipped it upside down (while reversed) and it still doesn't look like a lot, but I thoght I'd share. It definately reminds me of Arabic, but I have next to no familiarity with that. Please enjoy this image (that I gof from the Wikipedia, then modified in the way explained) and drop me a line if I'm A) a look, or B) found something. You can get a hold of me at bandman[at]gmail.com. Thanks!

--Matt Simmons
Image

Guest

Post by Guest » Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:15 pm

of course I mean, A) a loon

;-)

Colorado Guest

Yup, a hoax

Post by Colorado Guest » Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:52 pm

The most recent news about this manuscript has shown how it was created. It was an article that appeared in Wired magazine. Go here for details http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/rugg.html

The gist of the article is this: There is no way to translate it because it is gibberish. The creator used a very simple method that created a very complicated looking pattern of characters that most have taken to be writing. There are no mysterious secrects to be deciphered from the text, only the mystery of how it was created which Gordon Rugg has found the answer two.

Knowing how it was made leaves us with a beautiful piece of artwork that shows the genious of a hoaxer. I my mind it in no way diminishes the Voynich Manuscript. Instead of wondering what it is, now I wonder why it was made and by who.

nitewalker
Asternaut
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:44 pm

Re: is there a moderator in the house ?

Post by nitewalker » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:13 pm

ealdric wrote:Is anyone moderating this discussion ? The long Yucatan history / Bible ad message on pg 13 seems like it should be removed. I see no relavance.

I notice that there seems to be no way to bring a message to the attention of a moderator, or indeed to contact one at all. Help?
My question for this remark and insult is, what scared you so bad abut a reference to biblical times? A forum is for open discussion about any subject, and a sharing of personal thoughts and ideas, post I don't agree with, I simply skip over to the next one, but, never would I try to tell someone how or what to think and/or post. or try to get them censored, If myself and Erik post to your dislike or disagreement, skip to the next, but, do you know how the giants came to be on earth? bet you don't, but, I've wasted enough space on this reply to your attempt to censor a thought or idea that doesn't agree with yours.

ninja0088
Asternaut
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:36 pm

Post by ninja0088 » Mon Jan 24, 2005 3:41 pm

Are there any reproductions of the Voynich Manuscript available? I have seen photo copies on the internet, but are there any hard copies available or sold by anyone? I am interested in having a copy.

WoodyNaDobhar

Post by WoodyNaDobhar » Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:13 pm

boots wrote:Asides from all these wonderful theories, it could actually be something mundane. A guy's diary or notes, a farmhands notes or an almanac.
Unless it's a hoax (a definate possibility), it would almost have to be something particularly NOT mundane, as the plants have no counterparts in reality. The star charts could have some mundane purpose, but the map of the nine worlds is wholely antithetical to the concept of the work being primarilly related to the physical world..