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Vol. VI, 2012
379
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 1-28-2012 7:50:09 PM EST
J.VS: Voynich Manuscript vs Mayan
Codex Dresdensis : brief comparisons of graphics-elements
Dear Colleagues
As we know, the imageries of both the Voynich Manuscript and the
ancient Maya have been described, at least
informally, as "weird". Without any particularly rigorous thoughts
on this, I thought it might be interesting
to put the VMS side-by-side with an ancient Mayan document and see
what, if anything, in common I noticed
between them after just one brief pass.
Of course any "weird" imagery could be compared with the VMS, so why
Mayan? For me the answer was simply
that from what I was previously familiar with, I did not expect any
remarkably similar graphics elements at all
between Maya and the VMS, and the original intent of my exercise
could be satisfied by just reinforcing a
grasp of the broad spectrum of graphic arts possibilities in
general; however also I was curious to "take a
peek" and see if any plausible indications of post-Columbus genesis
of the VMS could be added to the existing
stock of such.
Of course the VMS in its "zodiac" pages contains many concentric
circles diagrams, and the famous Mayan
calendar is often analyzed with geared circles, and both can be
discussed astrologically, but I was here more
interested in elementary graphical elements - were there any
interesting similars between the two?
As the brief exercise turned out, I was surprised somewhat. Here
then further below follow some items I
noticed from the experiment, expressed in more or less plain
commentary language without the benefit of
thorough familiarization with Mayan iconographic technical
terminology. To compare with the VMS I chose the
Codex Dresdensis / Dresden Codex, now residing in the SLUB :
Saechsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und
Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden [1]. About this codex Andrew
Robinson wrote:
" .... key to the decipherment of Mayan glyphs. It was probably
painted by Maya scribes just before the
Spanish conquest of Mexico and then taken to Europe by Cortes. In
1739, it was apparently purchased by the
royal library of the court of Saxony in Dresden. " [2]
The decipherment of Mayan glyphs is not complete; about this problem
Robinson notes that individual glyphs are
often "soldered" together, requiring a highly trained eye to
discern. This soldering of glyphs is at least
superficially reminiscent of the Voyinch intruding gallows glyphs.
During World War II the Dresden Codex suffered damage, and today
Mayanists work with several reproductions
of it from both before and after the war damage [3]. For my exercise
I downloaded the pdf copy of it from the
SLUB website [1], (which plainly shows the condition issues), and
below I reference graphics elements via
this pdf's page numbers.
An additional resource I consulted so as to have some idea of how
Mayan glyphs are analysed is Vollemaere's
online "A GRAMMAR FOR MAYA CODICES (Introduction)" [4]. A lay
newcomer to Mayan texts can get the
impression that Mayan does not much "look like writing". One the
other hand, the Voynich "text" does "look like writing"
but has yet to be definitively demonstrated as such; and, aside the
simple conjecture that the VMS text could
be simply tables of data numbers, I've hypothesized at least one
alternative use of Voynich "text" glyphs on
f76r - mosaic tiles constructing a hidden / steganographic
self-portrait of the VMS author, akin to today's
ASCII text-art [5].
So then, comparing (one pass) the Dresdensis pdf with SID images of
the VMS, I found two basic types of
interesting graphic-element similars, which as already said somewhat
surprised me:
1.) nested quatrefoils connected to circles apparently bearing
writing, one example in each manuscript
2.) rectangular frames bearing quadratic patterns (box-cross)
associated with the sun or astronomical theme,
multiple examples in both manuscripts
I've put together a single image containing crops from the VMS and
the Dresdensis showing the above:
comparing material from the Voynich nine-rosettes foldout against
Dresdensis page-61, and VMS folios f71r and
f67v1 against Dresdensis p. 43. The image also includes a
miscellaneous comparison of markings resembling "F"
or "Y", VMS f4r against Dresdensis p. 77. The crops have been
de-colorized to gray, and their contrasts have
been strenghtened some to make discernments easier. The filename of
this image is
1_VMS_vs_Maya-CD_JVS-379.bmp and I am sending it to our J.VS
Librarian Greg for inclusion into the
J.VS Library as Deposit # 32-1-2012-01-28 [6].
I think with some more careful study some more interesting similars
can found here; just one potential
exercise would be to compare the configuration of hands between
those of the VMS human figures and the Mayan
anthropomorphic figures. Another thing one could look into is the
possibility that the VMS glyphs GC-x, y, s, t, have
similar graphic-element representations in the Mayan work.
What, if any, further significance there is to these exercise
results I don't know. It's always possible it
can all be written off to just "pure coincidence", whatever that
means. It would be necessary to repeat the
exercise with many other "weird" and not-weird artifacts across a
great time-range to see, for example, if
the above results tended to fall in post-Columbian times. But
nevertheless I think it worthwhile to know
about the existence of these similars between the Voynich Manuscript
and the Codex Dresdensis, and therefore
presumably, other ancient Mayan or perhaps also Olmec works.
Berj / KI3U
[1]
http://www.slub-dresden.de/sammlungen/digitale-sammlungen/werkansicht/cache.off?tx_dlf[id]=2967&tx_dlf[page]=1&tx_dlf[pointer]=0
[2] The Story of Writing, by Andrew Robinson, London, Thames and
Hudson Ltd, 1995.
[3] http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/dresden.html
[4] Electronic Open University AMERICA ANTIQUA III; PALEOGRAPHY -
LINGUISTICS; A GRAMMAR FOR MAYA CODICES
(Introduction), by Antoon Leon VOLLEMAERE :
http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/grammar1.htm
[5] see end-note [1] in J.VS communication #326, Vol. IV, 4 JAN
2010.
[6] J.VS Library deposit # 32-1-2012-01-28 :
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/32-1-2012-01-28/
*********************************************************************
380
From: Berj N. Ensanian KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 2-1-2012 9:44:00 PM EST
J.VS: The Voynich Manuscript
Mystery : What is it?, and Who did it?
Dear Colleagues
As you know a couple of days ago off-J I pondered what we might come
up with if we each wrote a synopsis of
what we think the Voynich Manuscript is, and the kind of person its
author was. It was an interesting
exercise as I found out more about what Robert, Rich, and Greg think
about the mystery, interesting because
you can spend years talking with colleagues about the Voynich and
still have lots of questions of the type:
well what do you really think is going on here with this thing?
I thought I'd commit my synopsis to J.VS as a communication here -
it will be interesting to see how it looks
to me in say ten years from now. I imagine other advanced VMS
students also have a similar feeling about
their own Voynich overviews: It would be nice to finally find out
how close, if at all, I came to getting a
handle on this engaging elegant enigma. Here then follows what I
think about the VMS these days.
I began studying the Voynich Manuscript in 1999; my current (30 JAN
2012) views on its mystery remain
essentially the same as when they began to crystallize in 2006 and
as developed in my numerous online
postings since. The beginning of this crystallization, which had its
detours, was noting that prime numbers
and their relations seemed to be more than casually present in
various ways in the VMS, suggesting that the
author might have considerable mathematical skills. I was then
struck by the three primary colors, Red, Blue,
Green, diagram in f67v2, and this started me thinking that the VMS
author was also engaged in color physics
experimentation. And consistent with that, I had also begun to
notice that, at least to my eyes, there were
some curious optical trick effects with some of the wedges of stars
in the astro panels. Next I began to
suspect that the Voynich text was being used at least in some folios
to construct hidden images. And that
naturally suggested that the text might also be serving to record
music. By December, 2006, I was convinced
by Robert Teague that at least some of the Voynich's astro panels
held precision astronomical information and
I began to look for it. I was now convinced that the VMS author was
aside everything else a mathematician and
a polymathic scientist, but with his perceptions of these
disciplines intimately interwoven with esoteric
views. And so it went from there on to the present, along the same
essential track, with my views of the
Voynich mystery developing upon that crystallized foundation.
I think the Voynich Manuscript represents its 17th c. European
author's lifetime-developed scientific and
philosophical, including mythological-historical, experience and
perception of the unified micro- and macro-
cosmos. Cosmos is to be understood completely generally - time as
well as space in all "directions" is unified.
The VMS author intends the book primarily for himself as a private
comprehensive overview of his ideas and
discoveries in a written conversation, akin to automatic writing,
which he is having with a special muse or
spirit / extra-dimensional entity he believes himself to be
privately in contact with and inspired by, but also
intends his book as a record left to whatever posterity should come
into possession of it, as decreed by
fate, or decreed by the entity: the Voynich Manuscript, in its
author's view, is therefore a record of a long
ongoing trans-dimensional conversation between the author and other
entities, mainly one chief extra-
dimensional entity.
The VMS author is well skilled in alchemy and the paranormal, is
quite a mathematical and scientific
polymathic genius, both experimentally and theoretically, is a
master artist, has access to the best
libraries and collections of artifacts in his immediate realm and is
well familiar with ancient Egypt and the
New World, has personal contact with many great minds of his day,
understands very well the vanity of
intellectuals, has special skills in astronomy, optics, languages,
legal protocols, music, ciphers and
methods of secret communications, and medicine including cranial
dissection and anatomy. He crafted his
manuscript with his own hand, but he also had occasional help from a
woman close to him. Religiously, he is
rooted in Christianity, and he takes all of Trithemius's
writings completely seriously. He is not an obscure
person, and eventually will be identified in the historical record
of the 17th century.
Living in the 17th century, the author lives in an age where
speculative and esoteric science is rapidly
transforming into demonstratable science. While completely embracing
the new, he does not discard the old at
all, instead his mind bridges the two as an inseparable whole.
Hence, should it be proven that the parchment
of his book is from an earlier time than his own, then that is
completely consistent with his comprehension
of the interchangability of time and space while essential
philosophical concepts remain eternally constant:
his book is crafted to reflect his philosophical perceptions even in
its materials.
To him the cosmos at all scales is alive - there is no essential
distinction between the organic and the
mechanistic, and the living essence of any particular incarnation
permeates across an unlimited spectrum of
dimensions. Thus to him plants are sentient entities, individuals he
converses with, and who show him their
aspects in dimensions beyond the mundane visible to all. The VMS
author would be completely in tune with
modern guises of such ancient ideas, as for example today's socalled
Gaia hypothesis.
That which seems to die in the mundane realm, carries on in
countless other dimensions. That which is crude,
is merely crude in an aspect seen in the mundane realm, and that
which is refined in the mundane, is crude in
other dimensional realms. In f37v the VMS author exhibits this idea
with phenomenal artistic skill, rendering
a miniature illumination master artwork, a portrait of a king,
steganographically concealing it in low-level
/ crude art : a hidden lion-dog within the mundanely visible,
seemingly hurriedly and sloppily painted root
of a plant. Here, as in many other places in the manuscript, he
provides the clue that he uses good quality
magnifying lenses to achieve his results on the parchment, lenses
historically appropriate to the 17th century.
Over and over on every page of his manuscript, it being his living
workbook-vehicle connecting him with
multiple cosmic realms, the VMS author transmits the message: there
is more here, much more, than just what
meets the mundane eye - there is no end to more. And on f82r he
shows us his belief that one way to see more,
and to meet more entities, is via OBE, astral travel / projection.
In the center of the book, in the upper half of f76r, the VMS author
produces his artistic masterpiece:
a self-portrait of him holding an optical filter plate up to his
eyes; this remarkable self-portrait is
steganographically hidden in the mysterious f76r text, the "words"
of which are employed like mosaic tiles to
compose the portrait. So once again here there is more than meets
the eye, there is more to the words than
just their functions as apparent vehicles of language. Moreover we
are provided the clue that optical filters
must be used to penetrate the manuscript's secrets - that it bears
optically hidden layers requiring specific
lighting and filters to resolve. Today print-ASCII text-art is in
high development among its devotees, but in
the VMS on f76r the author does it with script written by hand - it
is astounding to realize what he has
achieved on that folio.
There is more than meets the eye, the micro and macro are
inextricably and eternally interwoven, and all is
unified: writing is image, and image is writing. Curiously, during
the 1960's psychedelic era, it was
commonly reported that during LSD and other hallucinogenic "trips"
one striking type of experience was the
inter-transformation of written or spoken language, sounds, and
images.
Throughout his book, the VMS author uses the unique mysterious
script he has forged in every manner
conceivable so as to ever orbit about the central idea that there is
always more to be seen than only that
which meets the mundane eye. The script symbols are used to record
music, to calculate or otherwise express
mathematical concepts, to picture upon or without a "raster", to
write in various languages, to encipher, to
evoke feelings - they are universal tools serving not one, but all
manner of systems of transaction. When he
needs batches of "words", he mass-produces them from a mathematical
formula, or its equivalent: physical
concentric n-graph wheels. He hides, or depending on your
perspective boldly projects, the universal-tools
character of his script in its higher-order n-graph statistics,
managing to achieve what I've termed "anti-text"
from what appears to be, and has, many of the characteristics of
regular text.
In the astronomical-theme panels of his book the VMS author reveals
himself as a physicist dealing with the
advanced astronomical questions of his day with mathematical
precision. His ideas on the orbits of one or two
astronomical bodies, possibly comets, but in any case something
important up there in the sky, he encodes, in
f68r3, in a curve (PM-curve) which resembles the curve traced by the
path of the moon, but he plots this
curve, which appears just casually drawn to the mundane eye, so
precisely that it's analysis leaves no doubt
whatsoever that he is discussing heliocentric orbital mechanics
mathematically. The level of mathematical
physics involved in this Pleides-Moon curve of f68r3 fits,
science-historically, best into the 17th century,
even the second half of the 17th century.
The socalled nine-rosettes foldout panels are the "climax" of the
book - there he diagrams his cosmic and
mythological philosophy upon a framework which emphasizes its most
elementary unifying principle:
mathematics, specifically the prime numbers, and the base-10 number
system using Hindu-Arabic numerals zero,
and 1 - 9 for calculating mathematically, as well as "calculating"
philosophically.
It is not the Voynich Manuscript author's chief aim for his book to
serve as a teaching manual for his cosmic
philosopy, but in case it should be discovered by someone who will
take it as such, he makes it easy to see
the first steps he prescribes that the aspiring adept must take: he
or she must learn to talk with plants,
and perceive them beyond their mundane guises.
Berj / KI3U
*************************
381
From: Robert Teague
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 3-19-2012 11:33:00 PM EDT
J.VS: Animation and other graphics
techniques for the topics and events of VMS f68 & f67
Dear Colleagues:
I recently discovered a very useful function of the freeware art
program
Paint.NET; the ability to modify the transparency of a layer.
With this tool, as well as the very simple animated gif creator
Unfreez,
I have made three such files.
To me the figure in the upper circle of f68r1 appears to be Nicolas
Copernicus,
and the figure in the center of f67v1 to be Tycho Brahe.
Also, folio f68r3 was overlaid with a star chart from the
planetarium
program Starry Night Pro 4, and after some adjustments appears to
correlate the moon's position; one day before occluding the
Pleiades.
I recently found online a PDF of Apian's Astronomicum Caesarium
1540,
which includes studies and diagrams of comets appearing in the
previous
decade.
Thanks to this resource I have been able (for me, at least) to
confirm the
topic of folio 68r1; the comet of 1533.
A diagram of the comet's position and path was overlaid on the
folio, and
with some adjusting for angle and size, created a match with a
majority
of shared points.
If confirmed, the implications for Voynich research are wide-ranging
indeed.
Besides being the first folio dated precisely, it would also prove
there is
meaningful content, that some labels have been cracked and letter
values
found, and that the vellum was not used immediately after creation.
These files can be found in the J.VS Library:
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/10-5-2012-01-30/
Robert
************************
382
From: Berj N. Ensanian / KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 4-21-2012 12:46:00 PM EDT
J.VS: Repairs on the Voynich
Manuscript
Dear Colleagues:
It appears that in recent time repairs have been done to the Voynich
Manuscript. It would
be useful to have some sort of record about this.
Our colleague Rich SantaColoma placed online today some new images
of the VMS's N-E
rosette, the origin of these images tracing back about a year to Tim
Tattrie motivating
Graham Sherriff of Yale to do the new photography [1].
Very noticable when comparing the new pictures with the 2004-era SID
of the same area of
the manuscript, is what appears to be some major repair work on the
originally torn
parchment in its folded area. I've made an image combining the SID
and new image for
comparison, and have sent this comparison image,
Compare-VMS-NE-ros_2004-vs-2012.bmp,
to our Librarian Greg Stachowski for deposit in the J.VS Library;
Greg will perhaps place
this image into a 0- deposit, dealing specifically with the physical
condition of the
manuscript, we'll see, he'll let us know.
Berj / KI3U
[1] A Volcano in the Voynich?; 21 APR 2012 Blog article by Rich
SantaColoma:
http://proto57.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/a-volcano-in-the-voynich/
************************
383
From: Berj N. Ensanian / KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 5-22-2012 11:33:00 PM EDT
J.VS: A peculiar "star" in Voynich
f68v3
Dear Colleagues:
Our recent off-J discussions of unusually clear night skies had me
casually revisit some
of the Voynich astro-cosmo panels, just to have another look at them
with the current
mindset. On the f68v3 "spiral nebula" galaxy panel I noticed a
peculiarity about one of
the stars, the f68v3 "blue star", which previously I had not
noticed. Although not
exhaustive, my search of the VMS literature doesn't bring up
anything on this, other than
that someone at the 1998 Teddington meeting suggested that the f68v3
blue star was an
extra-star mistake that the VMS illustrator wanted to erase (by
covering it with blue
paint) [1].
So, I'll bring this star and its peculiarity to your attention here
- as we will see, I
lean very much opposite to the idea that this star was a mistake,
but whatever may be
gleaned from noting this peculiarity remains to be seen.
As we know, in the f68v3 illustration there is placed around the
4-spiral-arms-projecting
central "upside-down" T-O map-symbol four sets of stars, these stars
being
sections-bracketed by the four inner-origin spiral arms. Lets assign
identifying numbers
to the sections, and also to the altogether 21 stars.
In the normal view of the f68v3 panel these four sections lie
approxmately: bottom, top,
left, and right. Let:
right section = section-1
top section = section-2
left section = section-3
bottom section = section-4
so that starting at the right section we are proceeding
counter-clockwise with the section
number identifications.
Similarly lets number the stars proceeding c.c.w. - let the star in
section-1, which in
the normal view is at the bottom of the section, be denoted: star
#1. Then we have:
Section-1 : stars #1 - #5, or star 1-1 to 1-5
Section-2 : stars #6 - #10, or star 2-1 to 2-5
Section-3 : stars #11 - #16, or star 3-1 to 3-6
Section-4 : stars #17 - #21, or star 4-1 to 4-5
The number of rays these stars exhibit, varies, for example, the 6
stars in Section-3
appear to be all 7-rayed, whereas in Section-2 we find both 6- and
7-rayed stars.
The peculiar star is star #4, or star 1-4. Of the 21 stars, this
star #4 is the most
heavily covered with the blue paint which is liberally seen across
the f68v3 illustration.
It is the blue blotch covering this star which hides the star's
peculiarity in casual
observation of the panel.
Zooming in on this star in the high-resolution SID image of f68v3,
the peculiarity is
this: what in casual observation seemed to be rays-construction
merely obscured by the
blue blotch, instead hints at a more complex construction which is
noticably removed from
the normal VMS-stars geometries.
The SID maximum-resolution zoom gives this hint, and albeit a strong
one, it remains only
a hint, as the SID image even though highly detailed compared with
other available
pictures of f68v3, is still a good order of magnitude in resolution
less than we would
desire for detailed VMS image work.
Nevertheless, we can crop and extract a tif image from the SID
around this peculiar star
and do some image processing experiments. Rather than here publish
some such processed
images, I'll just comment on what I saw, and you can experiment
similarly easily enough
yourself.
My first image processing priority was to try determine if the blue
paint, apparently
added after the drawn outlines of the "star", was responsible for
the peculiar apparent
geometry. In other words: did the application of fresh blue paint on
the ink-drawn
outlines of the star distort its geometry? Toward this, for
comparisons I similarly
processed the several other stars which were partially affected by
the blue paint,
especially star #19. From what there was available for data, my
tendency is to conclude
that the peculiar geometry of star #4 is not an accidental result of
the blue paint, and
its stands on its own mainly from the ink drawing.
To me what seems most compelling toward peculiar geometry is that
this "star" appears to
have been drawn as two major separate components: a 5-rayed-star,
and the second
construction is a crescent lying on top of the first construction
but a bit off-center to
the right; and this crescent is more or less vertical and facing to
the right.
It is as if there is a suggestion of a star being partly obscured by
a crescent-shaped
object, as if the sun were being transited by a crescent moon.
Could this peculiar effect have arisen because the blue paint did
distort an
originally-normal drawn star, and the VMS illustrator then decided
to "repair" it with
more ink drawing, and made things "worse and just decided to leave
it so? I don't see why
not, but I very much tend to think the composite geometries
construction is not accidental
- the cresent is intended to be implied by the VMS
author/illustrator.
Many different things suggest themselves to the imagination when the
SID of this star #4
is variously processed and magnified, including interesting shapes
which remain intact
throughout. But my strongest impression remains of a crescent
superimposed upon a 5-rayed
star.
So, to this point my tendency is to think of all this that in the
astro-cosmological f68v3
Voynich panel we seem to have 20 normal stars of 6 and 7 rays, plus
one 5-rayed star
partly blocked by the lunar-symbol crescent - suggesting our sun and
moon. Hipparchus, the
greatest astronomer of antiquity, took 20 stars in the sky as the
set of the brightest
stars. As I recall, Hipparchus in one of his major-accomplishment
moon calculations
critically employed the number 17, a prime number of considerable
relevance in the VMS as
we know. Perhaps the name of Hipparchus is encoded somewhere in the
f68v3 text.
Proceeding a bit further with this musing, we might take the f68v3
illustration as
suggestive of earth-centered (i.e. non-heliocentric) astronomy,
therefore pre-Copernican,
and that would fit with pre-Columbian beliefs for the origin of the
the VMS. However, if
indeed VMS f68v3 is depicting 21 stars as a group, one of which is
our sun, then our sun
and the stars are apparently being suggested to be similar
astronomical objects. And
whereas this idea seems to have occurred to the ancient Greek
astronomers, this idea most
dramatically enters history with the Dominican friar Giordano Bruno,
who was executed for
his heresies in 1600, more than a century after 1492.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Minutes of the 21 JUN 1998 Teddington Meeting on the VMS:
http://voynich.nu/extra/teddington.html
************************
384
From: Berj N. Ensanian / KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 8-5-2012 2:54:09 PM EDT
J.VS: VMS f1r: does it point to a
Russian origin of the Voynich Manuscript?
Dear Colleagues:
As you know, in the VMS community I am in the minority regarding the
notion that any
legitimate form of "Jacobus de Tepenecz" is apparent at the bottom
of the Voynich folio
f1r - I believe those markings at the bottom of f1r, which are
conventionally accepted to
be indicating Tepenecz, are really a by-now well-rooted result of
the power of suggestion,
started by Wilfrid Voynich. The last time I went on about this in
detail was back in 2009
in J.VS communication # 280 [1].
Since then there was released in late 2009 the ORF (Austrian)
Universum film which
introduced the dating-interpretation of C-14 test results [2]. In
this film we see,
briefly, an ultraviolet light being shined on the actual VMS at the
Beinecke Library, and
the corresponding dialog asserts that the Tepenecz is clearly seen.
I looked at this
section of the film frame by frame, and came away even more
convinced that there is no
legitimate Tepenecz there. However this was based on my viewing the
film frames, and not
investigating the actual VMS f1r with ultraviolet myself. And, a bit
over a week ago, our
colleague Greg Stachowski made this comment on vms-list:
" On the other hand the Tepenec signature is increasingly
convincing, as anyone who was at
Mondragone earlier this year can say having seen all the details
presented there. " [3]
I did not attend the Voynich 100 conference at Mondragone, and
whatever Greg saw,
objective demonstration of a "signature" or autograph in any form,
has not, so far as I
know, been published yet. Therefore for me at the present time my
views on the existence
of "Tepenecz" at the bottom of f1r, as I precisely detailed them in
comm. #280, still hold.
But the Tepenecz problem is not my main focus here. Rather, I wish
to consider some other
VMS f1r issues which launch from a couple of my observations in the
same comm. #280 :
' Wilfrid's Plate 2 picture is seriously problematic though: it
differs radically in some
places from the modern (2004) high-resolution SID image provided by
the Yale Beinecke
Library, and the differences are not easily explained as merely
resulting from the ravages
of time, but unfortunately compel at least the consideration that
the bottom area of f1r
was actively altered AFTER the Plate 2 was made [6]. Since it was
certainly altered before
by Wilfrid, i.e. with chemical treatment, the overall status of what
the bottom area of
VMS f1r had on it originally, is quite in doubt. '
' Even just some random elementary image processing experiments on
the bottom of the f1r
SID indicate that there are several possibilities for what was
originally marked there:
Latin script letters as per the alleged Tepenecz autograph, but also
Voynich text letters,
and: drawings. Wilfrid himself in his 1921 College of Physicians of
Philadelphia lecture
hints at this, when he states: "Chemicals were applied to the
margins and the autograph,
Jacobus de Tepenecz, became visible, with some illegible figures
below it." '
So, Wilfrid admits responsibility for applying chemicals to the
MARGINS of VMS f1r.
My focus here in this communication is:
What was visible on the margins of VMS f1r, in particular the right
margin, before Wilfrid
Voynich applied his chemicals to it?
Of course it is old hat that in the f1r right margin area there are
indications of columns
or rows of letters, both Latin and VMS, and that these possibly
represent a decoding table
of sorts. But in comm. #280 I had opined (see above) on the
possibility of drawings on the
bottom of f1r. And so then likewise:
Were there originally drawings on the right margin of VMS f1r before
they became obscured
by the ravages of time, and Wilfrid's chemical treatments?
Recently, I investigated this question. I subjected the extracted
tif of the
high-resolution SID image of a crop of a portion of the f1r right
margin to some mild
image processing with IrfanView (convert to gray-scale, and set
contrast = 99), and then
printed this image. Going over the print with magnifying lenses I
traced with fine-point
black ink over the lines which I thought might be original drawing
lines. I was not
surprised that I concluded there is indeed a drawing on the right
margin of f1r (I had
long suspected it), but I was very surprised at what the drawing
appears to show:
a complex scene suggestive of military Christianity in opposition to
some hideous hooded
being mounted on an animal, possibly a horned animal. In the
foreground of the scene is a
man, without a beard but possibly with a mustache, in a caped
uniform suggestive of a
military commander - he is the dominant feature of the entire scene.
He is wearing a
massive hat which seems to have a cross of the St. Andrew's design
(saltire) on its front,
and is topped with a bun. The hat is so relatively massive that my
first thought of it was
a Boyar's gorlatnaya, but it's geometry is more helmet-like than a
gorlatnaya. This man is
facing toward the left, that is toward the f1r Voynich text between
the second and third
paragraphs. In his left hand he is grasping something, suggestive of
a scroll. Behind him
is a shield, or breastplate, or a big jar, bearing an unusual cross
- the closest thing to
the design of this cross I've come upon is some of the crosses of
Russian Orthodox
Christianity. To the man's right (behind him in the scene), is a
younger man. The hideous
hooded mounted figure is above and behind. Many other additional
figures and devices are
plausible in the scene.
This complex and evocative scene so surprised me as it unfolded with
my tracings, that the
usual cautions and doubts in this kind of work which nag at you,
were greatly intensified:
are these just random image artifacts I am imposing patterns upon,
and will the scene
disappear or be replaced by a completely different one if the
scaling is changed?
Well, I don't know - after all I was working on pictures of VMS f1r
without the benefit of
the real thing before me. But certainly the integration of tracings
forming the scene is
to me very compelling, and I'm quite sufficiently intrigued by it to
bring it to your
attention and invite you to investigate yourself the possibility of
an original
illustration on the margin of VMS f1r. I've sent to our J.VS
Librarian Greg, for J.VS
Library deposit # 33-1-2012-08-05, the following images:
a) 3_RM_C_VMSf1r.jpg : full-size f1r color image to aid locating the
crop of b) & c)
b) 1_RM_C_VMSf1r.tif : the cropped area in gray-scale without any
tracing
c) 2_RM_C_VMSf1r.tif : the cropped area in gray-scale with my
tracings
The registration between b) and c) is adequate for blinking them.
This scene's overall impression on me is of a Russian influence, and
in particular the
Russian nobility and the Russian Orthodox Church. And of course I
immediately thought of
the six onion domes in the center of the Voynich's nine-rosettes
foldout, and decided to
have another look at those. Doing that, the first thing which struck
me was, I saw the
familiar blue colored cross-pattern in the foldout's lower-right
panel (f86r5) as quite
suggestive of a St. Andrew's Cross. And interestingly, when in 1698
Peter the Great
established the Order of St. Andrew, the design's coloring was
dominated by blue - and
blue is the dominant coloring of the Voynich nine rosettes foldout.
Just in case any of
this leads to further Voynich Manuscript surprises in alignment with
my long-held belief
that the VMS dates to the latter part of the 17th century [4], we
might note that the
first recipient of the Order of St. Andrew was Fyodor Golovin (1650
- 1706), the last
Russian Boyar and the first Russian Field Marshall. As we know, the
latter part of the
17th century saw the acceleration of Russia's westernization /
Europeanization, and
perhaps some Russian manuscripts from that transition period may
appear "older" beside
contemporary European manuscripts, than they actually are.
Now then, to the onion domes in the central panel of the Voynich
Manuscript's
organizational climax, i.e. the nine rosettes foldout illustration:
what we see in the
central rosette of the foldout, drawn in perspective, are six
columnar structures arranged
in a circle, topped with onion domes culminating in crude crosses,
and at top these onion
domes appear to support between them a "canopy" filled with stars,
this canopy, or the sky
it seems to symbolize, having quite a bit of blue coloring applied
to it. These columnar
structures are mostly uncolored except for a couple of them which
have some of the
elsewhere-seen-in-the-VMS light-yellow-brown, or "gold", coloring
partially applied.
Russian Orthodox churches around the world exhibit variously
decorated onion domes,
commonly featuring gold, especially in the culminating crosses. With
respect to all
the foregoing, it is compelling to note that some number of Russian
Orthodox churches
have, aside the usual gold, the body of the onion domes in blue and
they are covered with
stars. I don't know how far back this motif began, but here are
web-links to some examples:
Church of the Nativity in Moscow (1649-1652) :
http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/PrinterFriendlyBuildingDetail.php?BuildingName=Church%20
of%20the%20Nativity%20%28Moscow%29&LocationCity=Moscow&LocationState=Gorod%20Moskva&Locati
onNation=Russia
Cathedral of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God and Holy
Royal Martyrs, in
Gunnersbury (London) :
http://mizhenka.blogspot.com/2011/05/russian-orthodox-church-london.html
Tobolsk Kremlin (fortress / castle) Church in Siberia (we note that
in the VMS nine
rosettes foldout we have elevated castles sharing the foldout with
the onion domes) :
http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/tobolsk/Interesting
http://www.akf.sk/Fotoinfo/Fotobeznik/Dvanast-najdrahsich-fotografii-sveta
Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southerncalifornian/3706536757/in/pool-orthodoxchurcharchitecture
And with this one, the Church of St. George in Moscow, compare also
the construction of
the columns supporting its domes, especially at the column-foot,
with the onion-domed
columns in the VMS nine rosettes foldout :
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Church-of-St-George-Moscow-Russia-Posters_i4026265_.htm?aid=
1023772566&LinkTypeID=1&PosterTypeID=1&DestType=7&Referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.posters.co.uk%
2FRussian-Architecture%2F58164
http://www.masterfile.com/stock-photography/image/841-03029080/Domes-of-The-Church-of-St.-George,-Moscow,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelwyse/6801506709/
At this point a couple of comments on the question of Christianity
symbolism in the
Voynich Manuscript are in order. I've long been of the opinion that
the VMS has plenty of
Christian symbolism. For example, I've opined that the root of the
plant illustrated in
f52r represents an anchor cross, that f68r3 (the PM-curve astro
panel) strongly projects a
cross, and that you couldn't ask for a more powerful Christianity
theme in the VMS than
the celestial nymph "blessing" the text with a cross in her hand
which we see in f79v. So
then the above described complex scene in f1r suggesting
Christianity militarily against
evil is in my view consistent with the VMS being strongly of
Christian character.
Well then, suppose that with careful investigation of the actual VMS
f1r it is found that
these tracings are more or less accurately depicting the scene as I
have it - what are
some speculative implications?
One conceivable possibility is of course that Wilfrid did not see
any drawing on the f1r
right margin, and that over the past hundred years his chemical
treatment of the margin
re-developed and brought back the long ago faded drawing.
Conceivable, but I think not
likely - if the above described scene, even approximately, was
originally present on f1r,
then I think it very likely that Wilfrid Voynich would have seen it.
From what we know of
Wilfrid, he didn't miss much of potential importance anytime
anywhere. The front of the
military commander's profile face is pretty much unmistakable in the
unprocessed f1r
images from the Beinecke.
If the drawn scene is real, and Wilfrid saw it, and applied
chemicals to obscure it, then
the simplest suggestion is that he intentionally altered ( forged )
f1r so as to remove
obstacles to his proposed Roger Bacon authorship theory. We remind
ourselves once more
that the left-behind edges from the missing folios in the VMS give
the appearance of
having been cut yesterday - the missing folios, having been cut out
of the manuscript,
must be missing for serious reasons.
As we know, Wilfrid Voynich was of Polish-Lithuanian origin, and so
as to just recall it:
some Lithuanian and Polish nobility have Kievan Rus' Boyar
ancestors. Wilfrid met his wife
Ethel Lilian after he escaped from a Siberian prison during their
early Russian
revolutionary period, said period ending around 1895 when Wilfrid
transformed himself into
a manuscript antiquarian, and Ethel became a novelist eventually
gaining a wide and
admiring audience especially in Russia (which late in her life
allegedly surprised her).
In the present context it seems we can speculatively ask: did the
VMS come into Wilfrid
Voynich's possession via Polish and / or Russian connections? Is the
Voynich manuscript of
Polish and / or Russian nobility origin? Could Wilfrid have come
upon the VMS in the
vicinity of Tobolsk, Siberia? Is it plausible that coming into
possessian of the VMS
during his revolutionary period, is precisely that which motivated
Wilfrid, alias "Ivan
Kelchevsky" [5], to transform himself into a noted manuscripts
antiquarian? - it has long
been noted that he achieved this transition rather dramatically
quickly. Could therefore
the Voynich Manuscript more tellingly be described as the
"Kelchevsky Manuscript" ?
And might this Kelchevsky MS have served Ivan / Wilfrid, however
briefly so, in some
revolutionary activity, say perhaps allowing him to travel in the
guise of an academic,
say an archeologist on the track of an ancient lost city?
These questions of course directly impact against the conventionally
accepted, though
un-proven, provenance that Wilfrid obtained the VMS at the Villa
Mondragone in Italy, and
from the Jesuits. Rich SantaColoma has recently on vms-list
emphasized the need to remain
cautious with that notion, having some back-and-forth about it with
Greg. The provenance
of the VMS still remains very problematic, and for VMS newcomers to
understand why, it is
useful to explore some of the plenty of material about it scattered
across J.VS, and in
particular to read the writings on the subject of Jan Hurych [6].
The speculative idea that Wilfrid Voynich may have obtained his
famous manuscript in
Russia or via Russian connections, is not new - as I recall it is,
however briefly,
somewhere in the earlier archival record of vms-list. This idea now
seems to me far more
plausible than ever before, and I think that it deserves some
serious consideration.
It can be seen from the image 3_RM_C_VMSf1r.jpg that the
scene I've traced does not cover
anywhere near the entire right margin area of f1r - there could be
much more to discover
in the right margin, and elsewhere around f1r, symbols and emblems
perhaps which might
indicate more precisely the origins of the VMS.
I'll close here with some of my impressions of Wilfrid Voynich, the
man. I've long
believed he was brilliant. I think that once he got out of his
revolutionary groove and
into his antiquarian groove that he played things pretty straight.
But as a young
revolutionary, we shouldn't be surprised if he participated in all
sorts of deceptions.
If indeed he first came across the VMS while at least still partly
in his revolutionary
groove, then plausibly he forged the true reality of the VMS. And,
as Rich developed
recently on vms-list, the VMS story Wilfrid painted to the world may
have gotten away from
him, and he couldn't backtrack beyond controlling access to the
manuscript tightly and in
effect undermining its open sale [7]. As for Wilfrid faking the
entire VMS, I agree with
Greg - it's a no-go idea for multiple reasons.
Berj / KI3U
[1] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #280 (Vol. III, 14 JUL
2009):
J.VS: The p-problem of the alleged Tepenecz autograph on Voynich
f1r; by Berj / KI3U.
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolIII2009.htm
[2]
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1516863.php/Mysterious-Voynich-manu
script-is-genuine-scientists-find
The later released English version of this film was titled "The Book
That Can't Be Read".
[3] voynich.net vms-list thread post: " RE: VMs: Wilfred Voynich,
Forger? ", Thu 7/26/12
9:45 PM, by Greg Stachowski.
[4] Journal of Voynich Studies communication #380 (Vol. VI, 1 FEB
2012) :
J.VS: The Voynich Manuscript Mystery : What is it?, and Who did it?;
by Berj / KI3U.
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolVI2012.htm
[5] See J.VS thread beginning with comm. #194 (Vol. II, 31 MAY 2008)
:
J.VS: Voynich Biographical Data and "Ivan Kelchevsky"; by Greg
Stachowski.
http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm
[6] Jan's most recent paper (29 DEC 2010) on the problems of Voynich
Manuscript provenance is:
" MONDRAGONE FOREVER? "
http://hurontaria.baf.cz/CVM/
[7] See Rich's comments in voynich.net vms-list thread:
" VMs: Wilfred Voynich, Forger? ", launched by Rich SantaColoma 25
JUL 2012.
******************************************
385
From: Berj N. Ensanian / KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 11-23-2012 8:54:06 AM EST
J.VS: WWII coded Pigeon message mystery
Dear Colleagues:
Here's an interesting item from the bbc news website by Gordon
Corera, dated 23 NOV 2012 :
" WWII pigeon message stumps GCHQ decoders "
" Britain's top code-breakers say they are stumped by a secret code
found on the leg of a dead pigeon.
The remains of the bird were found in a chimney in Surrey with a
message from World War II attached.
Experts at the intelligence agency GCHQ have been struggling to
decipher the message since they were provided with it a few weeks
ago.
They say it may be impossible to decode it without more information
- some of which could come from the public.
The message was discovered by David Martin when he was renovating
the chimney of his house in Surrey. "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20456782
Berj / KI3U
************************************
386
From: Berj N. Ensanian / KI3U
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-19-2012 2:09:17 PM EST
J.VS: Re: WWII coded Pigeon message mystery
Dear Colleagues:
Here's some further development on this story in a BBC online
article dated 16 DEC 2012 :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20749632
" Has World War II carrier pigeon message been cracked? "
" Gord Young, from Peterborough, in Ontario, says it took him 17
minutes
to decypher the message after realising a code book he inherited was
the key.
Mr Young says the 1944 note uses a simple World War I code to detail
German
troop positions in Normandy. "
Berj / KI3U
************************************
387
From: Greg Stachowski
To: Journal of Voynich Studies
Sent: 12-19-2012 1950:00 GMT
J.VS: Re: WWII coded Pigeon message mystery
From the previous comm. # 386 in this thread:
" Gord Young, from Peterborough, in Ontario, says it took him 17
minutes
to decypher the message after realising a code book he inherited was
the key.
Mr Young says the 1944 note uses a simple World War I code to detail
German
troop positions in Normandy. "
If you look at what he's done, it's just assigning more or less ad
hoc words to each
letter, the "message" is pretty meaningless and vague, and clearly
"forced" to fit.
The whole thing about the codebook is misleading, he didn't use it
as a key, he has an
artillery spotters abbreviation book and used abbreviations along
those lines.
Greg S.
************************************
J.VS Archive continued in
Vol. VII, 2013