About the "|_/\" symbol

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > http://highway49.library.yale.edu/PHOTONEG/zoom/z361/z3610554.jpg
    > 
    > [Dana Scott:] Now, I am wondering what a symbol (may be a
    > compound symbol) that looks something like |_/\ with a plume
    > above the underline cross-bar might be a reference to?
    
I tink it was Rene who made us notice that "17" would be written 
"| /\" in 15th century texts, at least in Germany:

  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/german3.gif
  
Coincidentally, that ring of text consists of 17 symbols, repeated 4
times (with minor variations).

Apparently, this coincidence was noticed before: on the Marshall
Library photocopy of this page, someone scribbled "17" next to that
glyph.

The "underscore" between the two digits could be just a calligraphic
ligature. The small circle above it is harder to explain. It could be
just a dot, to mark the sequence's starting/ending points. Or it could
be a 10's place symbol, as in (ahem) Chinese --- where the number 17
is written with three symbols, literally "one-ten-seven".

All the best,

--stolfi