Cipher Mysteries

At the start of my own VMs research path, I thought it was important to consider everyone's observations and interpretations (however, errrm, 'fruity') as each one may just possibly contain that single mythical seed of truth which could be nurtured and grown into a substantial tree of knowledge. Sadly, however, it has become progressively clearer to me as time has passed that any resemblance between ...

As should be pretty clear from my posts over the years, I'm a big fan of René Zandbergen: he's one of the very few Voynich researchers that have managed to keep a consistently clear head over the years, and it is his generally even-handed approach that casts a pleasantly affable shadow over voynich.nu, the website he put together many ...

Even though René Z likes to tut-tut Voynich speculation (and usually with good reason, it has to be said), there's something about the maturity and cohesion of Voynichese as a system that makes me quite sure that, unlike Athena, it did not suddenly spring forth fully-grown (and, indeed, fully-armed) from its parent's forehead. I further infer that the author probably made a major ...

For years, numerous Voynich researchers have pored over the VMs' confusing images, hunting for any tiny clues that might possibly be hidden beneath the clumsily-applied paint. And yes, I admit that I've done probably more than my fair share of this kind of thing (Curse pp.96-102 stands as testament to this endeavour): so it's now interesting to hear that René ...

Here's something neat and slightly unexpected from long-time Voynich Manuscript researcher (and Voynich theory über-skeptic) Rene Zandbergen I think you'll probably appreciate. Arguably the least-discussed subject in the VMs is the set of tiny plant drawings in the two 'pharma' (pharmacological) sections, which somehow usually manage to fly beneath most researchers' radars. Yet it has been known for decades that a good number of these plant ...

Rene Zandbergen recently stumbled upon a circular drawing in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France's MS Coislin 338, and wondered whether it might be "a possible precedent for a Voynich astronomical illustration, where the original MS is Greek", just as for two other Greek manuscripts (Codex Taurinensis C VII 15 and MS Vat Gr. 1291) ...

Edith Sherwood very kindly left an interesting comment on my "Voynich Manuscript - the State of Play" post, which I thought was far too good to leave dangling in a mere margin. She wrote:- If you read the 14C dating of the Vinland Map by the U of Arizona, you will find that they calculate the ...

Here it is, the Austrian Voynich documentary we've been waiting so eagerly for - and you don't even need to have a satellite dish to watch it (as long as you hurry, it'll probably only be online for a few days). (Hint and tip: if you click on the diagonal arrow button just above the video, you can watch ...

Just to let you know that a Voynich Manuscript radio interview I gave a few days ago (either download it, or click on the Flash Player play button [half a screen down on the right] to hear it) has just gone live on the Red Ice Creations website. They wanted me to chat about all things ...

I've just received (directly from the author, thanks!) a copy of Vladimír Karpenko's admirably thorough 1990 AMBIX paper on the "cesta spravedlivá" pair of manuscripts. From his analysis, it seems very much as though these are both genuinely 15th century and (just as Rafal predicted) entirely unconnected with the VMs. Oh well! :-( Even so, the secret history of the mysterious "Antonio of Florence" ...