The Voynich Manucript
SI Jan Feb 11 from home SI new design masters 11/12/10 11:57 AM Page 46The Voynich ManucriptThe Book Nobody Can ReadFor almost 100 years, experts and amateur researchers have tried to solve the riddle of a handwritten book,referred to as the “Voynich manuscript,” composed in an unknown script. The numerous theories about thisremarkable document are contradictory and range from plausible to adventurous.KL AUS SCH MEHThe facts regarding the Voynich manuscript can be toldquickly. It is a handwritten book of 246 pages containing numerous illustrations and approximately 170,000characters. What is special about it? The script employed isutterly unknown and therefore illegible. According to a radiocarbon analysis conducted in 2009 by the University ofArizona, the manuscript was created in the first half of thefifteenth century (probably between 1404 and 1438). So far,there is no written publication on this analysis, but one ofthe scientists involved in the examination confirmed by email that a paper is scheduled for 2011.The modern history of the Voynichmanuscript began in 1912. At thattime, a bookseller and book collectornamed Wilfried Voynich found it in anItalian Jesuit college. Further information is provided in a letter dated 1666,which—according to Voynich—wasenclosed with the manuscript. Thisdocument names some other previousowners who had all lived in the firsthalf of the seventeenth century, thus indicating that the manuscript had beenwritten before then. On the basis of thisletter, Voynich favored the Englishmonk and Renaissance man RogerBacon (1214–1294) as the book’s author. However, this theory is now considered very improbable.Not many more historic facts areknown about the Voynich manuscript(Kennedy and Churchill 2005). In particular, it is unclear who wrote the book,46Volume 35 Issue 1 Skeptical Inquirerwhat it contains, and what its purposewas. In light of the meager evidence,I—as a skeptic and member of GWUP(the German counterpart of CSI)—amnot surprised at the great number ofspeculative theories about the mysterious script. I will present the most important ideas here.A good point of entry into a Voynich analysis is certainly the script ofthe document itself. The author of themanuscript wrote from left to right—this can be discerned from the leftaligned formatting. The typeface andsize of the characters are inconspicuous,which is not altered by the fact that thetext contains no punctuation marks, because this is unexceptional for old texts.Thus it is evident to a layman, even before inspection of the illustrations, thatthe Voynich manuscript has its originsin European culture. Moreover, it is ap-parent that the author was quite accurate: there are no visible corrections inthe text. Unfortunately, the Voynichtext itself is not divided into chapters;there are no subheadings.Uncommon IllustrationsApproximately 220 of the 246 Voynichpages are illustrated. Some of the pagescan be unfolded, revealing illustrationsthat extend to several page lengths. Because, unlike the text, the illustrations canbe divided into different sections, sixchapters of the Voynich manuscript canbe distinguished: the botanical chapter(with large plant illustrations), the astronomical chapter (with charts containingcelestial bodies and the zodiac signs), thebalneological chapter (with nude femalefigures in tubs), the cosmological chapter(with circles and rosettes), the pharmaceutical chapter (with plants, parts ofplants, and pots), as well as a chapter withfood recipes (without illustrations).The different illustrations can hardlybe related to a common topic. Thus theVoynich manuscript—if it has meaningful content at all—must be a treatiseon many different subjects. One maypossibly say that it is a textbook for magicians, physicians, pharmacists, and astrologers (when it comes to theseprofessions, their borders were stillblurred 500 years ago). Provided that itis hardly possible to recognize significant symbols and religious motiveswithin it, the Voynich manuscript canneither be assigned to a certain school
SI Jan Feb 11 from home SI new design masters 11/12/10 11:57 AM Page 47of thought nor to a particular religion.Unfortunately, none of the 126 plantillustrations can be definitively identified. However, the plant pictures at leastenabled certain conclusions regardingthe date of origin, before the radiocarbon dating was performed. Comparisons of artistic styles showed thatthe manuscript presumably did notoriginate before the fourteenth century,which was, of course, later confirmed.Not confirmed, however, was a theorystated by the botanist Hugh O’Neill(O’Neill 1944). He considered twoplant illustrations as representing sunflowers and identified another one ascapsicum. Because both plants spread inEurope only after the “discovery” ofAmerica, their identification appearedto narrow down the period of origin.However, the two identificationsO’Neill made are not precisely compelling, and thus O’Neill’s conclusion—like so many others in connection withthe manuscript—is just speculation.It is hardly more illuminating to takea look at the astronomical and the cosmological sections, which contain pictures that can be identified as the Zodiacsigns still familiar today (Aries, Taurus,Libra, and so forth). Scarcely another illustration in the Voynich manuscript isas unambiguous. Unfortunately, this observation does not result in further insight into the book’s origin. The celestialbodies illustrated in the astronomicalsection cannot be identified and probably are only figments of imagination.Some Voynich researchers believe theyrecognize in these pictures the Andromeda fog or the Pleiades, but this again isjust speculation.The hairstyles and clothing of thepeople pictured in the book, as well as thestyle of the illustrations, were usuallydated to the period 1450–1520, whichproved reasonably compatible with theradiocarbon dating (between 1404 and1438). In most cases, the pictured persons are naked women in big tubs filledwith water, which makes conclusive interpretation of these illustrations in thecontext of fashion impossible.Botanist Hugh O’Neill (1944) identified this illustration as a sunflower. However, this interpretation does notappear to be completely conclusive.Taking all facts into account, it is astonishing how little the numerous illustrations reveal about the Voynichmanuscript. Does this make an argumentfor the whole document being meaningless? Or did the author intentionallychoose ambiguous illustrations to prevent inferences about the encrypted (andtherefore secret) text? I consider both explanations to be possible.Cryptological AnalysesA glance at the pictures in the manuscript is indeed interesting, but as a cryptologist I am naturally more interested inthe Voynich text. It is unclear whether itis an encrypted message or simply a textcomposed of unknown letters. This is irrelevant for cryptological analysis, because the use of unknown letters is also aform of encryption. For the analysis of anencrypted text, cryptology provides quitea number of statistical methods—for example the determination of letter frequencies. Some of these analyses indicatethat the Voynich manuscript is composed in a usual language but written inunknown letters. There are between fifteen and twenty-five different letters inthe manuscript, but in many cases it isnot clear whether identical or differentsymbols have been used. For this samereason, letter frequency cannot be determined clearly. Nevertheless, the language of the manuscript can be broughtin line with European languages, because the average word length is four orfive letters. Following this line of consideration, arguments can be put forward that Greek, Latin, or one ofseveral other European languages wasused to compose the Voynich manuscript. It is a pity that this approachdoes not implicate a specific language.However, the language of the manuscript does not correspond to any European language because the Voynichhas no two-letter words or words withmore than ten characters. Moreover, itis curious that some words are repeatedsuccessively up to five times. The distribution of the letters within eachword also does not answer known language patterns. Looking at the text as awhole, far fewer recurring words turnup than would be expected. Such arguments reveal with a high probabilitythat—against all appearance to theSkeptical Inquirer January/ February 2011 47
SI Jan Feb 11 from home SI new design masters 11/12/10 11:57 AM Page 48Detail of the Voynich manuscript text.In the astronomical chapter of the Voynich manuscript are illustrations of celestial bodies and signs.48Volume 35 Issue 1 Skeptical Inquirercontrary—we are not dealing with asimple substitution of letters. There alsois no clear evidence that other simpleencryption methods were used.A study by the philosopher WilliamNewbold took another direction. Newbold declared he had solved the Voynichmystery in 1921 (Newbold 1928). Heconsidered as relevant not the lettersthemselves but the small, barely visiblemarks applied to them. These markssupposedly formed Greek characters,making up a text that could be decodedinto a meaningful message. The resultseemed to be sensational: the producedmessage not only confirmed RogerBacon as the manuscript’s author, but itreputedly also revealed that Bacon already had a telescope at his disposal andknew the spiral structure of the Andromeda galaxy—either of which wouldrevolutionize the history of science. Butas expected, Newbold’s decryption cameacross as largely arbitrary and moreoveronly worked for a short section of thetext. Therefore Newbold’s theory couldnot prevail.In 1943, the lawyer Joseph Feelypublished a cryptological paper regarding the Voynich manuscript. Feely, too,presented as a direct result of his research the supposed solution of theVoynich encryption (Feely 1943). Bymeans of statistical analyses, he had
SI Jan Feb 11 from home SI new design masters 11/12/10 11:57 AM Page 49None of the plants illustrated in the Voynich manuscript could conclusively be identified.come to the conviction that the manuscript was composed in Latin and contained numerous abbreviations andabbreviated sentences. With this basis,Feely translated a forty-one-line sectionof the manuscript. Unfortunately,Feely’s approach made no sense at alland therefore quickly turned out to bea further dead end in Voynich research.The U.S. cryptologist WilliamFriedman (1891–1969) was considerably more competent. He is regarded asthe most successful code-cracker of allages; his name guarantees cryptologicalquality. In the course of his forty-yearcareer, Friedman examined thousandsof encryption methods during his service for the U.S. military and solved almost all of them. Unfortunately, despiteall the texts he successfully analyzed, hehad to surrender in the case of theVoynich manuscript. He thereforecould not bequeath more to posteritythan an educated guess. Friedman considered the text to be a treatise composed in an artificial language.More Current StudiesThe next Voynich studies worth mentioning originate with Robert Brumbaugh, a professor of the philosophy ofthe Middle Ages. He holds that the unknown characters are numerals that areeach assigned several letters of the Latinalphabet (Brumbaugh 1978). However,the decryption provided by Brumbaughdid not make any sense. Another dispensable Voynich analysis was publishedby the physician Leo Levitov in 1987(Levitov 1987). He, too, believed that hehad decrypted the text. According toLevitov, the book is composed in an oldform of Flemish that assimilated German and French words. Levitov supposed that in this manner a literarylanguage emerged that served as an alternative to the Latin language commonat that time. According to Levitov, themanuscript turned out to be written bythe Cathari in the Middle Ages. However, Levitov’s paper is so full of speculative assumptions that it can barely betaken seriously.The British linguist Gordon Rugg isamong the most reputable Voynich researchers. He conducted a most interesting cryptological experiment. For hisexperiment, Rugg generated a tablewith random combinations of characters that he used as prefixes, roots, orsuffixes of new words. He positioned aquadratic stencil, like the ones used forencryption in the sixteenth century,over the table. In this manner he obtained a sequence of letters that boregreat resemblance to the text of theVoynich manuscript. Rugg’s experiment supports the hypothesis that themanuscript is nothing but a compilation of meaningless lines of letters (thehoax hypothesis) (Rugg 2004). Thehoax hypothesis is backed by a textanalysis by the Austrian physicist Andreas Schinner. Schinner discoveredunnatural regularities in the word orderof the manuscript that do not occur inany known language. He therefore alsocame to the conclusion that the Voynich manuscript is a fraud’s artful fabrication, containing merely meaninglessnonsense (Schinner 2007).A relatively new theory was publishedby Briton Nick Pelling (2006). He considers the Italian architect Antonio Averlino (1400–1469) to be the Voynichauthor. Pelling supposes that Averlino escaped to Constantinople (Istanbul)around the year 1465, having beforehandrecorded his knowledge as encrypted inthe Voynich manuscript. Pelling providesnumerous cryptological analyses thatsupposedly allow us to infer an appliedmethod, but he does not present a solution. If we accept an inaccuracy of a fewdecades, Pelling’s theory is consistentwith the radiocarbon analysis. However,I consider the Averlino hypothesis veryspeculative. In addition, it seems improbable that the Voynich manuscript—Skeptical Inquirer January/ February 2011 49
SI Jan Feb 11 from home SI new design masters 11/12/10 11:57 AM Page 50which without any doubt would have attracted attention in the course of a luggage inspection—merely served as ameans of secure transport.What Is Behind It?Looking at the diverse cryptologicalanalyses of the Voynich text, we cometo a similar result as we did regardingthe illustrations: a seemingly good initial theory becomes downright pooronce investigated. This is one of severalreasons that at least one thing becameclear to me after looking at the mostimportant theories: the Voynich manuscript does not offer an obvious explanation. Nevertheless, it is possible tonarrow down the solution. First of all, Iam not aware of any convincing theoryregarding the author of the manuscript.That the manuscript is a forgery madein the early twentieth century, whichwas a plausible and much-discussed hypothesis for decades, can meanwhile beruled out. This assumption is not onlydisproved by the radiocarbon analysisbut also by a recently discovered seventeenth-century document that mentionsthe Voynich manuscript. Therefore, wemust search for the author half a millennium in the past. However, RogerBacon and several other proposed authors (for instance Leonardo da Vinci)lived in the wrong time to be the author,and Antonio Averlino is a very speculative guess. This means that the authorof the Voynich manuscript was probablyan anonymous artist living in the firsthalf of the fifteenth century. Maybe itwas even someone who is completelyforgotten today.I am also not aware of a convincingtheory explaining the meaning of themany figures in the Voynich manuscript.Neither the plants, which have no equivalent in nature, nor the other illustrationsmake any sense. The most likely explanation therefore is that the figures don’thave a meaning at all. Probably they werejust included to make the manuscriptlook more mysterious. If the figures haveno meaning, it is very likely that theVoynich manuscript didn’t serve a realpurpose. My favorite explanation for themanuscript is that it was simply createdto produce a mystery. Maybe the authorintended to sell it for a large amount ofmoney to a wealthy contemporary, or50Volume 35 Issue 1 Skeptical Inquirermaybe he even acted by order of such aperson. Another theory, which I considerplausible, posits that the Voynich authorwas a mentally ill person (for example,someone suffering from autism); it isquite common for mentally ill people tocreate art. As far as I know, this hypothetical origin of the Voynich manuscripthas never been researched by an expert.If the Voynich manuscript is really ahoax—as I suspect it is—it is very likelythat the text is mere nonsense. Howeverthere are two other theories worth mentioning. The first one is based on a factknown by every cryptologist: that thedesign of a secure encryption procedurewill become distinctly simpler if the encrypted text is longer than the originaltext. Under this condition, it is in factpossible to hide the original informationin meaningless filler text. It is absolutelypossible that the author of the Voynichmanuscript used this trick. Perhaps hetransferred an original, shorter text (e.g.,50,000 letters) into an unknown scriptand extended the result to the 170,000letters he finally put down. Unfortunately nobody has yet discovered apattern that allows the separation of theoriginal from the filler letters. If such apattern exists and is sufficiently complex,then there is only a minimal chance thatit will ever be decrypted.If the Voynich text is not simply nonsense, I consider the artificial-languagehypothesis developed by William Friedman as a second plausible theory. It iscertain that alchemists and scientistsmade efforts to develop secret languagesduring the Renaissance. Maybe such asecret language expressed in unknownletters forms the basis of the Voynichmanuscript. However, there is no preciseassumption as to what the underlying artificial language might have looked like.However, the most probable theory isthat the Voynich manuscript does notcontain meaningful text. The papers ofGordon Rugg and Andreas Schinnersuggest not only this theory of a hoax,but the assumption that the manuscripthas no real purpose. In my view, there arestill some interesting open research questions in this area. Was it possible to produce hundreds of pages of nonsensicaltext that has many things in commonwith natural language by using a methodavailable in the fifteenth century? Thisquestion is heavily debated among Voynich scholars, and some think it impossible. However, there have been but fewattempts to create a text that resemblesthe original. Rugg’s method is one example, but there should be many more—involving encryption procedures as well asmethods for producing meaningless letter sequences. If one of the results hasstatistical properties similar to those ofthe Voynich text, this might tell us whichmethod the Voynich author applied.The Voynich manuscript is and mostlikely will remain a riddle. We can hopethat the manuscript will not merely become a playing field for mystics andpseudoscientists. After all, the subject isfascinating enough without adventurousspeculation. nNoteThe original German version of this articlewas published in the journal Skeptiker. This English version was translated by Susanne Kisser andedited by SKEPTICAL INQUIRER staff. In October2010, the author updated this article with considerable new information.ReferencesBrumbaugh, Robert S. 1978. The Most MysteriousManuscript: The Voynich “Roger Bacon” CipherManuscript. Carbondale: Southern IllinoisUniversity Press.Feely, Joseph M. 1943. Roger Bacon’s Cipher: TheRight Key Found. Rochester, NY: n.p.Kennedy, Gerry, and Rob Churchill. 2005. TheVoynich Manuscript. London: Orion BooksLimited.Levitov, Leo. 1987. Solution of the Voynich Manuscript: A Liturgical Manual for the Endura Riteof the Cathari Heresy, the Cult of Isis. LagunaHills, CA: Aegean Park Press.Newbold, William Romaine. 1928. The Cipher ofRoger Bacon. Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press.O’Neill, Hugh. 1944. Botanical remarks on theVoynich MS. Speculum 19: 126Pelling, Nick. 2006. The Curse of the Voynich: TheSecret History of the World’s Most MysteriousManuscript. Surrey, UK: Compelling Press.Rugg, Gordon. 2004. An elegant hoax? A possible solution to the Voynich manuscript. Cryptologia 28(1) ( January): 31.Schinner, Andreas. 2007. The Voynich manuscript: Evidence of the hoax hypothesis. Cryptologia 31(2) (April): 95.Klaus Schmeh, a computerscientist, works as an encryption expert for a Germansoftware producer. He is author of several cryptologicaland scientific books (mostlypublished only in German).His book Codeknacker gegen Codemacher(W3L-Verlag, 2007) deals with the history ofencryption technology. He is a member of theGerman skeptic organization GWUP.
ing the Voynich manuscript. Feely, too, presented as a direct result of his re-search the supposed solution of the Voynich encryption (Feely 1943). By In the astronomical chapter of the Voynich manuscript are illustrations of celestial bodies and signs. means of statistical analyses, he ha
May 02, 2018 · D. Program Evaluation ͟The organization has provided a description of the framework for how each program will be evaluated. The framework should include all the elements below: ͟The evaluation methods are cost-effective for the organization ͟Quantitative and qualitative data is being collected (at Basics tier, data collection must have begun)
Silat is a combative art of self-defense and survival rooted from Matay archipelago. It was traced at thé early of Langkasuka Kingdom (2nd century CE) till thé reign of Melaka (Malaysia) Sultanate era (13th century). Silat has now evolved to become part of social culture and tradition with thé appearance of a fine physical and spiritual .
Abb. 1: Erste Seite Voynich Manuskript, erster Absatz (Folio 1r) 2 Das Voynich Manuskript ging 1912 in den Besitz des Antiquars und Sammlers Wilfrid Michael Voynich (1865– 1930) über. siehe: Hunt, Arnold, Voynich the Buyer, S. 11f., in: Clemens R
On an exceptional basis, Member States may request UNESCO to provide thé candidates with access to thé platform so they can complète thé form by themselves. Thèse requests must be addressed to esd rize unesco. or by 15 A ril 2021 UNESCO will provide thé nomineewith accessto thé platform via their émail address.
̶The leading indicator of employee engagement is based on the quality of the relationship between employee and supervisor Empower your managers! ̶Help them understand the impact on the organization ̶Share important changes, plan options, tasks, and deadlines ̶Provide key messages and talking points ̶Prepare them to answer employee questions
Dr. Sunita Bharatwal** Dr. Pawan Garga*** Abstract Customer satisfaction is derived from thè functionalities and values, a product or Service can provide. The current study aims to segregate thè dimensions of ordine Service quality and gather insights on its impact on web shopping. The trends of purchases have
The Voynich manuscript is a book handwritten on 240 vellum pages, rich in illustrations. The book has its name after the Polish-Lithuanian-American book dealer - Wilfrid Michael Voynich, who acquired it in 1912. Despite many studies on the Voynich manuscript, the author, the con
Dr. Alfredo López Austin [National University of Mexico (UNAM)] Golden Eagle Ballroom 3:00 pm 3:15 pm BREAK 3:15 pm 4:00 pm BREAKING THROUGH MEXICO'S PAST: DIGGING THE AZTECS WITH EDUARDO MATOS MOCTEZUMA Dr. David Carrasco (Harvard University) Golden Eagle Ballroom 4:00 pm 4:30 pm 4:30 pm 5:00 pm TLAMATINI AWARD PRESENTATION to Dr. Eduardo Matos Moctezuma (Bestowed by Dr. Rennie Schoepflin .
