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Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book Library is in possession of many fascinating historic texts, but perhaps its most perplexing item is a six century old, one-of-a-kind book known as the Voynich Manuscript. The textual content of this mysterious illustrated book is unknown because it is written in an unidentified language using an unfamiliar alphabet, and despite the efforts of expert linguists and cryptographers over many decades, not a single word has been deciphered.
Curiosity of the book’s content is fed by the bizarre, elaborate illustrations that appear throughout its pages. The manuscript appears to be made up of several sections, each containing distinctly different illustrations which shed little light on its contents. Some illustrations appear to be plants and herbs, most of them strange and unidentifiable; others resemble astrological charts; and still others are groups of nude women bathing in tubs and pools shaped like human organs. The book also includes several large, elaborate fold-out pages full of the same strange text and drawings.
The book is named for Wilfrid M. Voynich, a Russian-American book dealer who acquired the manuscript in 1912. The book contains about 240 parchment pages, but appears to be missing several pages as evidenced by gaps in the page numbering, which is in standard Arabic numerals. The actual origin and date of the book are vigorously debated, though scientific inspection of the manuscript—radiocarbon dating and analysis of the ink—strongly suggest it was written in the early 1400s. The manuscript also contains a few words and phrases in Latin, and the spelling of these suggest a central European origin. The earliest confirmed record of the manuscript is from a correspondence in 1639, where an alchemist named Georg Baresch complains of it as a puzzling “sphynx” taking up space in his library.
Despite the fact that statistical analysis of its text reveals character patterns similar to natural languages, more than a few people are convinced that the manuscript originated as an elaborate hoax—nothing more than arbitrary symbols arranged in a meaningless order. But because that contention is inherently unprovable, and because the manuscript’s patterns seem to reflect real information, many experts and amateurs continue in efforts to decipher this holy grail of historical cryptology. Over the years many individuals have separately claimed success in decoding of the text, but each such decoding relies on broad, unfounded guesses, rendering the results useless.
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[Quote]”The actual origin and date of the book are vigorously debated, though most agree that it was written in central Europe in the late 1400s or during the 1500s. Several plant drawings inside the book have been identified as specimens from North America, so it is presumed that the book must not predate Columbus’s voyage to the New World in 1492.”[Quote]
Just because Columbus didn’t come to North America until 1492, does not mean that the author(s) of the manuscript did not find their way before him. There is evidence of Vikings (here) from long before Columbus.
I wonder why “They” would exclude any pre-dating of Columbus?
Damnit, now I need to add this thing to the list of languages I want to attempt to decipher. >= (
Linear A anyone?
It should also be mentioned that the basques were in the americas long before columbus; and given that they have a language that scholars find entirely mystifying (that is, they have no clue where it came from, and it doesn’t fit into any other language families), that seems a good place to start looking.
I think it’s odd that so few people are actually interested in this. I love these bizzare pictures and other morbid and damn interesting stuff.
By the way, I’ve looked into this a bit, and I haven’t heard if someone actually looked for some form of language structure in the text.
Maybe Voinych just wrote two hundred pages of gibberish and expected scholars to just overlook the blatantly obvious.
Ah please don’t trot out that “Basques speak a language isolate and thus are the source of all kinds of weird mysteries” crap.
Regarding the Vikings: first of all, the Vinland discovery had absolutely zero effect on history. No artifacts were brought back, at least of which any record is made, and even if any such information was brought back, it remained isolated in the North. Without being more than passingly familiar with the Voynich Manuscript, I will stick my neck out and guess that the plants described are from the tropics and subtropics where Columbus explored, and where no-one claims Vikings landed.
However, regarding the manuscript itself, I have seen some remarkable claims made for it, all of which deserve the single-word response: “Hoax”.
Quote: “The book contains about 240 parchment pages, but appears to be missing several pages as evidenced by gaps in the page numbering.”
So, they have deciphered the numbers? Or for some ridiculous reason the numbers were already modern?
Yeah they do have normal numbers…you can see them on the high res scans of the images. I have no clue if they were added before or after the initial writing though.
The only odd reason I don’t think this a complete hoax is why is there a normal statistical distribution of the lettering that follow Zipf’s law? If I was making up BS to sell a book several hundred years ago, I don’t think I’d predict that people may eventually run statistical analysis on it. The best guess I think I’ve heard is that it’s some unknown language not descended from Latin, but who knows.
Enter your reply text here. OK
Basques, Vikings, and Indians. Then civilization.
You guys said it. Accurite?
Scientific discovery. If I cannot prove where it came from, its a hoax or not true. If no one has found the viking ship that landed in the carribean then there must have never been one! These things could be classified as reasonable doubt….However…..there is also very reasonable probability that someone happened up the americas, documented some of their travels and came from a civilization to which we have lost all record of their language. Egpytian was only broken by the discovery of the rosetta stone. Why must we pride ourselves in being able to understand everything and not remember that these past discoveries weren’t just some kind of clairvoyance.
I woul say that the language in the book is saying something. Who would write so much and have it say nothing? keep in mind this is all written by hand…a meticulous process.
Deciphering an unknown language is a daunting task. First one needs to understand the foundation of the language and its basic interpretations.
As stated the Egyptian writings were frustrating since there was no foundation to work from as it was a dead and forgotten language. The only reason Champollion solved the mystery was when he got a hold of the Rosette Stone. It was discovered by chance when a French officer found it during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt during 1799. The stone had a decree by Ptolemy V engraved in it in 196 BC. The decree was written in three languages, Grecian, Demotic, and Egyptian. This created a stepping-stone into the nuances of the Egyptian written language, or an important puzzle piece to unlock the whole.
Another language is Cretois, a dead language in all senses. The text they left behind, labeled Linear B, had confounded scholars until Ventris came up with what many considered a ridiculous hypothesis in the 1960s. First the writings were not Cretois but those of a Greek invader and that the signs did not stand for a thing like Egyptian but rather some sound as in phonetic writing. This daring leap was the key essential to cracking that nut.
Also without a native speaker you have to rely on samples matched with the word.
In Sioux the word peta means stone, yet the word pte is a buffalo cow. Now tatanka is a buffalo bull while tonkala is a mouse. Then there is gender specific words such as tuki which is only used by a women meaning “is that so”, or for the word “yes” men say hau while women say han.
Also the Sioux Nation has around fourteen different sub-groups, each with its own unique dialect and different spellings of common words.
So it is important to have some keystone to help decipher/decrypt the language.
The Don.
I was reading more about this and I came across another book of a very similar nature called “Codex Seraphinianus.” The dead tree edition will set you back $500 or more, but some internet savvy should yield a pdf version for a more reasonable price… ;) It is without a doubt the most bizarre yet cool book I have ever seen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus
Damn interesting, broski. I appear to be a bit late commenting, but I couldn’t help myself.
I would have thought the book’s ‘secrets’ to be obvious. Human nature does not change, my friends. If someone looked back at /us/ in five-hundred or so years, what would a book; illegible to the naked eye, filled with odd annotations and colorful pictures be?
Ohhai, Dungeons and Dragons player manual~ I see that your druid just lost five mana points due to fatigue.
[[I do hope you wonderful folks got that reference. If not, the joke originated on xkcd.]]
Several plant drawings inside the book have been identified as specimens from North America, so it is presumed that the book must not predate Columbus’s voyage to the New World in 1492
Thats only any good if you assume the text was european in origin.
Latest theory is it may actually be in an extinct dialect of the Mexican language Nahuatl.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24987-mexican-plants-could-break-code-on-gibberish-manuscript.html
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=54124
(Dont ask me why that second link is on a catholic website !)
Over 70 words and names gleaned using a new transcription alphabet indicate constructions of an old Finno-Ugric origin with a substantial amount of Old Norse. In addition, there is a distinct Slavic influence. Some of the pages contain text suggestive of Karelian runic charm songs or Sami joiks in that they are highly alliterative and trochaic.
More here:
http://voynichbirths.blogspot.com/2014/12/follow-on-facebook-functiond-s-id-var.html
The pages depict female heliocentric star charts resembling Nordic brooches. They also depict kolovrats, octagrams, sauna/banya, torcs, a seidr staff, the sun cross symbol, intercalary year, red conical roofs, onion domes, plants from the northern hemisphere, a landscape resembling the Ruskeala marble caves, zaftig fair blond women, a Permic-like lizard of the underworld, the pike of Tuonela, and runic glyphs (comparable to those found in Icelandic magic books).
Some visual designs are reminiscent of a Sami shamanic drum, Karelian embroidery, and Vologda lace. The herbal powder receptacles are modified sewing necessaires in the tradition of north European treenware.
All of this points to core elements of north European culture that can be found in Scandinavian, Finno-Ugric, north Germanic, and to some extent Celtic traditions. These belief systems go back thousands of years.
Good day!
My name is Nikolai.
To a question about the key to the Voynich manuscript.
Today, I have to add on this matter following.
The manuscript was written no letters, and signs for the letters of the alphabet of one of the ancient languages. Moreover, in the text there are 2 more levels of encryption to virtually eliminate the possibility of computer-assisted translation, even after replacing the signs letters.
I pick up the key by which the first section I was able to read the following words: hemp, hemp clothing; food, food (sheet of 20 numbering on the Internet); cleaned (intestines), knowledge may wish to drink a sugary drink (nectar), maturation (maturity), to consider, to think (sheet 107); drink; six; flourishing; growing; rich; peas; sweet drink nectar and others. It is only a short word, mark 2-3. To translate words consisting of more than 2.3 characters is necessary to know this ancient language.
If you are interested, I am ready to send more detailed information, including scans of pages indicating the translated words.
Sincerely, Nicholas.
This casts doubt on aliens ever being able to decode television broadcasts or the devices on the Pioneer crafts.