Re: VMs: Re: word length counts

[Gordon Rugg <g.rugg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Nick,

Good points. Having done my time in archaeology, though, I'm wary of art historical
approaches as a sole method for dating - a lot of archeological dates had to be
seriously revised after carbon-14 dating came in. Used in conjunction with other
evidence, they can, as you say, be very powerful, and the example of cumulative
scribal errors is a good one.

>From the viewpoint of reducing problem space, I haven't been able to work out a
method for distinguishing between (a) the VMS as a document produced in 1480-1500
and (b) the VMS as a document produced significantly later (e.g. 1550-1586), and
made to look like something from the earlier date. The later date would make a
complex code significantly more plausible, but would also make a hoax more
plausible, so a firm date wouldn't necessarily help a huge amount :-(

Thanks for the information about the Tree of Life, which I must have missed first
time round.

As for the elephant, it looks more like a Mayan parrot to me (archaeological joke),
and at other times, looks wondrous like a whale...

Best wishes,

Gordon

Nick Pelling wrote:

> Hi Gordon,
>
> >A further point: the historical approach is something of a double-edged
> >sword in
> >this context, because the same evidence can be taken as pointing in two
> >different
> >directions - either the VMS as deriving from a tradition, or the VMS as the
> >earliest example of a tradition. So, for instance, the earliest example of the
> >Tree of Life is apparently from 1515, according to the interesting previous
> >discussion on this topic. This means either that the VMS was composed
> >substantially after the 1470-1500 date suggested by the other evidence
> >(plausible,
> >but raising interesting questions), or that the VMS really is from
> >1470-1500, and
> >is therefore the earliest example of the Tree of Life. Hmmmm.....
>
> Close analysis of medieval families of herbals is one area where causality
> (through the mechanism of cumulative scribal errors etc) has been invoked
> to powerful effect - and the same kind of analysis has helped inform other
> art historical analyses (such as of schools of painting, sculpture, and
> architecture).
>
> The reason I'm just a bit skeptical about the claimed link with the Tree of
> Life is that (a) the 9-rosette picture shows no obvious signs of having had
> any additional pages attached, and (b) 10 seems to be a crucial number to
> Kabbalists, and one that's not really negotiable downwards (think Moses). :-o
>
> FWIW, if I was looking for Kabbala-inspired imagery in the VMS, I'd look
> for things hidden within "non-herbal" herbal images - for example, f57r
> [the start of Quire 8] has ten groups of leaves, f65v has ten "root lumps"
> (call them what you will), f65r has two curiously looped branches, etc: and
> then there are all those shared roots (f43r?, f46r?, f52r, etc. As for the
> roots in f90v1... you make up your own mind. :-o
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
> PS: do the roots in f55v look like an elephant to anyone else? :-9
>
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