Another Look at the Voynich Manuscript
The Voynich Manuscript, a 500-year-old text with indecipherable writing and strange illustrations, remains unsolved despite scholarly efforts. Lisa Fagin Davis is exploring its connections to other manuscripts for insights.
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Manuscript is a coded text containing ancient medical knowledge, while others suggest it is a hoax. The manuscript, acquired by Wilfrid Voynich in 1912, features 234 pages filled with indecipherable text and bizarre illustrations, including strange plants and naked women. Despite extensive efforts by scholars, including renowned cryptographers, the manuscript remains unsolved, leading to its reputation as a formidable puzzle. Lisa Fagin Davis, a medievalist, has recently revisited the manuscript, seeking to explore its connections to other manuscripts rather than its eccentricities. Her renewed interest stems from a desire to understand the ordinary aspects of the manuscript that might shed light on its meaning. The Voynich Manuscript continues to captivate both scholars and the public, with its allure often overshadowing more traditional academic pursuits. The ongoing mystery surrounding the manuscript raises questions about the nature of knowledge and the boundaries of scholarly inquiry.
- The Voynich Manuscript is a 500-year-old text filled with indecipherable writing and strange illustrations.
- Despite numerous attempts by scholars and cryptographers, the manuscript's meaning remains elusive.
- Lisa Fagin Davis is taking a new approach to study the manuscript by focusing on its similarities with other texts.
- The manuscript has garnered significant public interest, often overshadowing more conventional academic work.
- Its mystery continues to provoke debate about the nature of knowledge and scholarly pursuits.
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- Several users share resources for further reading and research on the manuscript.
- There are discussions about the manuscript's unique characteristics, such as its text layout and potential meanings.
- Commenters note the interdisciplinary nature of Voynich studies, combining technology and humanities.
- Some express skepticism about the manuscript's authenticity and the validity of research methods used.
- There is curiosity about the application of AI and machine learning in deciphering the manuscript.
11 commentsHi-res scans of the manuscript: https://archive.org/details/the-voynich-manuscript_202008/
Declassified NSA seminar (1976): https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/news-features/decla...
'Till ~2020, Voynich research was pretty much reserved for nut jobs, and the very occasional academic intent upon career suicide.
In 2020, a senior A List scholar published her meticulous, narrow-niche Voynich research - https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/754633/pdf - which established that the Manuscript was the (physical) handiwork of 5 different scribes.
Since then, a fair number of serious researchers have done work on the Manuscript. So far, their conclusions are similarly dull and limited. (Though they do rule out many cool categories of nut theories.)
On a lot of the pages, the text is highly compressed against the illustrations. If you’re writing English you would find this hard to do, because you would need to insert a line break before a word if it’s too long. I couldn’t find any examples where the text overlapped the illustrations. That suggests to me that words are either very short, or graphemes themselves are words. Or, that the text is a meaningless hoax, because it doesn’t adhere to any rules and can be squashed against the illustrations easily.
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