The Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich manuscript is by far the most mysterious of all texts. It is seven by ten inches in size, and about 200 pages long. It is made of soft, light-brown vellum. It is written in a flowing cursive script in alphabet that has never been seen elsewhere.

math.ucr.edu...

(Maybe it was writen by the devil...)

Anyone agree with that???

during the height of the time of alchemists, many different alchemists concocted their own coded languages to prevent their work from being stolen by other alchemists. This appears to be such a code. However, by their nature, these codes tend to be rather simplistic in their approach usually, so I'm surprised there isn't a translation available...especially at such a school where they are housed... Many of the 'letters' in the text are alchemical runes. (though common to all alchemists, they sometimes meant different things to each)....hence the confusion. Most alchemists were a secretive bunch, and fully believed it is possible to transmute lead into gold, and didn't want another to beat them to it...especially using their notes....

This especially makes sense given the notes on astronomy, herbs, etc. Bacon was English, and schooled in France, (studying Latin of course too), so the base is likely one of the three, or a combination of the three (more likely), and then coded. However, Bacon was a veritable mathematical genius, so the code is going to be harder to crack than most other alchemists' notes....



[Edited on 2-5-2003 by Gazrok]

Lots in the archives on this, cyebr-chums: it is somewhat intriguing.

The self-assembly instructions for IKEA furntiure are, of course, THE mot mysterious texts of all time.

great find
very interesting

I thought Byrd debunked it...

Originally posted by Estragon
The self-assembly instructions for IKEA furntiure are, of course, THE mot mysterious texts of all time.

Here is a great link www.voynich.no-ip.com...
You can download the images of the B&W microfilm of Yale University Library (I think its the entire manuscript). The site is in japanese but the folio numbers are in english. The *.jpg's are big (400k to 700k so it takes some time if you don't have broadband). There has been quite a bit of activity trying to decode it.

It is a rewarding read for posters in this thread because -while it obviously has an immense loony-drivel-appeal factor: it is real and there has been some genuine research and scholarship expended upon it.

In many ways, this represents one of my favourite sorts of topics in this thread: real objects, publicly available, important... the Mayan codices, Linear A, Etruscan, Harappa and Mohenjodaro, Stonehenge etc. etc.

Has a good information on Voynich Manuscript. It is really interesting. It has Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic and even Greek symbols. It could also be a hoax, but the chances are very low.

www.world-mysteries.com...

Claims to decipher the manuscript....whilst a highly dubious claim, should prover to be intriguing...

www.amazon.com...