RE: VMs: RE: Yet another page

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick wrote:

> The titles appear on f1r and f8r, which make even less sense. :-(

Actually, this is in line with my opinion that "In the beginning, there was
no order". :-) The same "artifact" is visible on both sides of the bifolio,
leaving one to ponder that these were filled out in succession, and only as
an afterthought the last page (strangely enough our perceived first page,
f1r) was partially filled in and the rest filled in later.

Hopefully you accept my premise that the "bifolio came before the quire",
and with that, more readily accept some stats that point to this.  I truly
think we're presently looking at these "folios" in a rather modern sense,
rather than what seems to be more common for the time.

 > The concept of "readers' needs" is actually quite hypothetical
> here: if the
> VMS was intended for archival, we have not so much a reader as a
> "retriever". But I take your point all the same. :-)

I fully agree.  "personal" books, such as herbals and "commonplace" books,
were not intended to be shared with others.  The fact that there is no
mention anywhere of anyone seeing the VMS before Rudolph's court may be
interpreted to mean this was a personal work. IF you were one of the many
"scribes" in a production line, obviously your career as a scribe wouldn't
end with the VMS, so we'd expect to see at least one book here or there that
had a doodle related to the VMS script.  Surely writing such strange glyphs
would stick in your mind, and as fascinated as we all are with the forms,
one or two of the "production scribes" would have had the forms burned into
their subconscious?  Hey, just a thought. The fact that nothing of this
nature has been discovered since 1912 is some small indicator that this was
an individual work - but then again, there WERE WMD, even if there is no
current sign of them.  We have all those scientists to interrogate, and yet
nothing concrete even on active WMD Programs.  The truth can be elusive at
times, I guess.

GC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Nick Pelling
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 4:20 PM
> To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: VMs: RE: Yet another page
>
>
> Hi John,
>
> At 16:00 24/07/2003 -0400, John Grove wrote:
> >I agree that the first two quires seem to be pretty solid in their
> >order, and that as per GC's comments - we need to perhaps take a
> >closer look at which came first - the binding or the writing.
>
> The correct central bifolio in the balneological section with the pipes
> going between f78v and f81r (and the out-of-sequence bifolio [containing
> f79r to f80v] erroneously inserted right in the middle of it)
> would seem to
> point to the writing having come first.
>
> Of course, if the binding were removed for that quire, it might
> reveal just
> the opposite: but it looks to me as though the writing came first there.
>
> On f71v (the "light" Taurus "volvelle"), it looks as though the
> picture was
> done first, as the binding (joining it to f72r1) goes over one
> character's
> head and some of the text on the outer ring. There are a (very) few other
> places where pictures end up being overlapped by the binding -
> though these
> may of course be where it was rebound due to accumulated damage.
>
> >If written first, then bound - was the text meant to be read from
> >f1r then f8v, then f1v and f8r? then on to page two?
>
> The titles appear on f1r and f8r, which make even less sense. :-(
>
> >Second option for writing first, then binding - could be the author
> >new exactly what order the pages would go in when bound and therefore
> >wrote f1r, flipped over the vellum and wrote f1v, flipped it over
> >again and wrote the last two pages the same way.
>
> If copying from an unbound manuscript, this would be easy. Or, if sending
> wax tablets through a scribal production line, there's no problem with
> linking stuff up. To be honest, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the
> encoded contents of some pages turn out to have been placed on the wrong
> diagram. :-o
>
> >I don't know if we can be certain whether the vellum was bound before
> >or after writing - or when the quire marks were made. There is no
> >doubt that some of the binding gave way over time and repairs were made
> >(incorrectly shuffling some pages I think -- like the misaligned quire 9)
> >and perhaps the B-tokened pages.
>
> Having someone look critically at the binding stations etc should help
> resolve a lot of these questions - though that might also raise a
> load more
> questions to be answered (as seems to be the case here).
>
> >If the pages were written separately and piled up in a specific expected
> >order before being bound, the author would still have to make sure that
> >the result would be read by following f1r/f1v/f2r/f2v wouldn't
> he - rather
> >than the above. This means that if he wrote a full B-tokened page as
> >the beginning and end of a quire he would expected the reader to follow
> >through the various pages in between wouldn't he?
>
> The concept of "readers' needs" is actually quite hypothetical
> here: if the
> VMS was intended for archival, we have not so much a reader as a
> "retriever". But I take your point all the same. :-)
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
>
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