VMs: Solid-loop gallows...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

If gallows are (as I suspect) at the heart of some kind of number scheme, 
filling loops would seem to me to be an quick and easy way to denote (say) 
50 or 100.

Has anyone done a test to see if gallows characters with filled loops have 
different statistical profiles from the same gallows with no filled loops?

GC, have you taken account of this in your new transcription? Just a 
thought. :-9

The #1 place where this has always bothered me is on the second ring in on 
f57v, which contains a weirdo gallows character with the same single loop 
filled twice and empty twice. It could be accidental... but it does look 
deliberate, even on the hi-res image I bought from the Beinecke.

Similarly, "4o" sometimes appears to have the "o" filled - though that may 
simply be sloppy penmanship (or dodgy CopyFlo-ity, it's hard to tell).

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: a final quick observation about f57v: the lettering ink appears quite 
erratic in places, as though it was done once and then partly over-written 
for emphasis. I've a suspicion that there may be some steganography going 
on there - on the second ring in, at about 8 o'clock, is that an 'f' and a 
'g' hidden in the lettering? Just a thought... :-)