Comments on: Parchminers, scriveners, lymners, bookbinders, stationers…

By: nickpelling

nickpelling — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:59:04 +0000

Diane: Good science isn’t just about facts, it’s also about demonstrating the reasoning that gets you to those facts from the evidence – and right now, we’re still waiting both for the evidence and for the reasoning…

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:53:10 +0000

Seems to me we should just accept the scientific evidence – unless and until we have some absolutely irrefutable evidence that part, or all, of the inscription must have occurred later.

Of course it means relinquishing a theory or two, but surely fact must take precedence over hypotheses, no matter how dear to us.

By: nickpelling

nickpelling — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:46:45 +0000

I’m pretty sure that the question has been asked before (it would be a way of validating the calibration), but that it is (pretty much as your Cambridge contact said) too costly for too little historical return.

By: Rich SantaColoma

Rich SantaColoma — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:22:36 +0000

Rene! I like that, “Writing Delay Time”… WDT. I got my first response back from the blanket inquiry I made on the subject, from Cambridge:

I am afraid that, as far as I am aware, Cambridge University Library has never sent any vellum Manuscripts for carbon dating. I do not think that the question has ever arisen, and in any case, the process would normally be too expensive for us to contemplate.

I like that the question has never arisen! Imagine: a question which may have not been asked, as the answer has been assumed, so no one probably knows! Somehow that is exciting to me. There may be a whole new understanding buried just beneath the surface of this… value: unknown.

By: Rene Zandbergen

Rene Zandbergen — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:20:10 +0000

What I would be especially interested in is in examples (statistics) of C-14
dating results compared against other (reliable!) dating evidence for the
same items. This includes the writing delay time, if we may call it that,
but also ‘errors’ in the dating (either dating).

By: Rich SantaColoma

Rich SantaColoma — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:52:53 +0000

Nick: In my opinion, learning the habits of vellum use… including all cases, and all conditions, will give a better picture than focusing on the specific case of the Voynich. My point is that I think it would be a mistake to look only at this one condition, and not learn about the greater picture. Quite the opposite of the allegorical situation you relate by evoking the “streetlamp” parable (for the person looking only under the streetlamp because it is the only place which is lit), I think in this instance we would learn more by looking at all cases we can find… even those seemingly unrelated to the exact type used in the VMs. I feel that it is too soon to assume that this cannot be helpful to us in this case… but do understand your feeling that some of it being unrelated in some ways, it will not help.

But: it is easy enough, and interesting enough, to pursue all cases… and as often happens, I feel that we might all be surprised and enlightened, whatever comes of it. It has often happened that something surprisingly pertainant has been learned by asking a question slightly tangential (although this is both tangential and inclusive).

By: nickpelling

nickpelling — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:53:53 +0000

Rich: unless I’m missing some obvious codicological insight, the many unusual bifolio shapes are a bit of a giveaway that the Voynich Manuscript was – to a very significant degree – constructed from uncut vellum… basically, you can’t piece together cut sheets to make bigger sheets. The only statistics worth pursuing would therefore be those to do with the stocking or storage of uncut vellum – though interesting in its own right, doing the same for cut vellum is unlikely to give us any historical assistance. But you know all this already.

By: Rich SantaColoma

Rich SantaColoma — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:00:37 +0000

Hello Rene!

Still, finding specific examples will be interesting, especically if one gets some statistics out of this.

That is what I would like to do, and am doing… compiling some statistics. And there are so many separate categories to this… it would be wrong to jump to conclusions about the relative use or frequency of these different cases: Cut/stored, uncut/stored, unused blank pages bound, unused blank pages unbound.

Then there is the separate case which is another unknown: Our missing knowledge of “habits of old vellum use”. For all we know, many (undated by C14) manuscripts were written on vellum which was decades old. It actually surprises me that there is any resistance at all to learning about these points. These unknowns affect almost everyone… me the least of course, and probably not at all… but most others “in” the late 15th to mid-16th centuries (I would have thought) should be very excited about what can be learned, and the fact that it would support many of these ideas the more case that we find… assuming we continue to find them. This “streetlamp” actually covers many, and we do have to look under it pretty carefully, and not assume anything about this before we have some figures.

By: Rene Zandbergen

Rene Zandbergen — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:04:53 +0000

Oops, the Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile of Padova is meant, Rene

By: Rene Zandbergen

Rene Zandbergen — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:03:34 +0000

The question is of general interest, and I don’t think that anyone will
claim that it is impossible that the parchment was written upon later than
it was produced. Still, finding specific examples will be interesting,
especically if one gets some statistics out of this.

I know of one example, which may, however, not be representative.
The Dioscorides herbal MS gr.194 kept in the Biblioteca del Seminario
Vescovile consists of 200 paper folios. The paper watermark is datable
to 1329-1339, but the illustrations and text must have been written
between 1353 and 1406.