Here’s a novel explanation for the curious “aiin” and “aiir” pattern found throughout the Voynich Manuscript’s curious text (AKA Voynichese) that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else.
In my 2006 book, I pointed out that the Voynichese stroke conventionally transcribed as “n” (in EVA) is actually far closer to a “v” with an embellished right stroke: I [...] Read more »
I’ve just added a new page to the Cipher Mysteries site that looks at the (historical) mystery of the Voynich Manuscript’s quire numbers. This is an aspect of the VMs that has had relatively little coverage (apart from pp.15-18 of my book, *sigh*), yet which should form one of the key dating data.
Should be plenty there [...] Read more »
I suppose this is the review I’ve spent two years steeling myself for. No matter what book critics may say, reviewing other people’s books is an easy word-game to play (typically revolving around inserting themselves into the commentary): whereas putting your own writing under the same spotlight is something closer to therapy. What, with the benefit [...] Read more »
A Quality Assurance auditor from Cross Plains, Wisconsin, Mark Sullivan has been thinking about the VMs since the 1970s… and now suspects he has possibly glimpsed at least part of the answer, putting his current notes on a newly-started blog.
The key to it all, he believes, lies in the vertical column of Voynichese letters down the left-hand edge of page [...] Read more »
A German Voynich article by Klaus Schmeh just pinged on the Cipher Mysteries radar screen: the ten-second summary is that in an interesting mix of observations and opinions, Schmeh clearly enjoys playing the skeptic trump card whenever he can (though he still fails to win the hand).
In some ways, Schmeh’s bias is no bad thing at all: authors like Rugg [...] Read more »
On the one hand, “Linus’ Law” asserts that if enough people collaborate to solve a problem, it becomes simple - hence open source software. On the other, even though more people have eyeballed the Voynich Manuscript in the last two years (thanks to the Beinecke Library’s scans posted on the Internet) than in the previous four centuries, [...] Read more »
Halfway through Blunt and Raphael’s “The Illustrated Herbal”, a small lightbulb flickered briefly to life in my tired head. And it was to do with the VMs’ Occitan marginalia, something that has bugged me for years…
To my codicological eyes, the VMs appears to have had a busy time in the 15th century (with three or [...] Read more »
The view you take of the Voynich Manuscript’s text inevitably affects the view you take of its drawings: though you could construct scenarios where (for example) someone sane did all the writing and someone mad added all the pictures, they really wouldn’t be very likely. And so there are actually only three broad classes of Voynich theory that have attracted [...] Read more »
A few years ago, people Googling for “Voynich” started to see a sponsored “AdWord” link on the right hand side provocatively posing the question of whether there might be some link between the Voynich Manuscript and Leonardo da Vinci, and pointing them to www.edithsherwood.com.
Naturally, I pointed out that this hypothesis was a load of rubbish, primarily because Leonardo was [...] Read more »
Symmetrical and repetitive prey behaviour is the key tool exploited by hunter gatherers: and so it goes with Voynich Manuscript websites. Once you’ve seen the same damaged pattern a few times, the shared wonky rationale behind it is usually fairly transparent.
And so here is a suggested critical reader for those fruity (but decidedly wobbly) jellies [...] Read more »
