Unfortunately I am unable to access the website - has it been taken down already?
But FWIW the first thing that comes to my mind as a meaning for
"iota eta sigma. chi rho sigma"
would be part of the name "Jesus Christ" in Greek characters.
Hope that's of some help,
Jon.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nick Pelling [mailto:incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 09 December 2003 00:35
> To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: VMs: Tranchedino - on line now
> Importance: Low
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> At 20:15 08/12/2003 +0100, Petr Kazil wrote:
> >http://uair01.xs4all.nl/Voynich/Tranchedino/Tranchedino.html
>
> Here's my quick-start user's guide to the Tranchedino cipher ledger -
> hopefully, this will make it clearer what's going on there &
> what to look
> for. Let's look at the first two pages of Petr's first file:
> Tranchedino_vv_10r.pdf
>
> Page 1 contains some Latin (which includes a few notae-style
> abbreviations,
> like "q3") introducing the text. Incidentally, I'd expect the second
> paragraph (below, but please correct my Latin transcription!)
> to contain a
> cryptogram of some sort - feel free to hunt for it! :-)
>
> Scriba hunc cui dabitor manu Libellum
> Pertractare nimis Laboriosum
> Quanq~ difficiles notas uidebis
> Has exactus habet Labor fideles
> Inuente q3 tamen tibi pLacebunt
> To sis naro uolo diligens disectus
> Et pensare caracterum Labores
> Ne tis nescius Imprimens notabis
> Exemplar faciles dabit figuras
> Vt quascunq3 uoles notas resignes .j.
>
> The page also has column of symbols at the bottom right: don't worry,
> that's merely an overflow from the first and most important
> cipher in the
> ledger (on the next page), that of Nicodemo Tranchedini da
> Pontremoli,
> Milan's ambassador in Florence.
>
> Page 2 holds his cipher: unlike other ciphers in the ledger,
> this page is
> undated - perhaps because it was updated/revised numerous
> times? Or perhaps
> because it was *so* important?
>
> If you can read this cipher (the most complex one in the ledger), you
> should be able to read every other one without problem: so
> here we go...!
> This cipher starts with two symbols per plaintext consonant
> (three symbols
> per plaintext vowel), laid out in vertical columns:-
>
> a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.L.m.n.o.p.q.r.s.t.u.x.y.z.&.9.Rx
>
> As normal, "i" = "j", and "u" = "v" (as there's no need to
> code these as well).
>
> Then, a list of double letters ("Duplicate") is given (other
> ciphers use
> "Gemine" [twins]); followed by a list of nulls ("Nulle").
>
> After that, we see symbols for a number of common short words
> ("qua / que /
> qui / quo / che / perche ...", which appear (mostly) unabbreviated.
>
> Next, there's a list of (vowel, consonant) letter pairs.
> While you might
> imagine a [consonant, vowel] syllabic cipher holding "ba / be
> / bi / bo /
> bu / (etc)" to be useful, this actually holds a *reversed*
> (ie, [vowel,
> consonant] syllabic cipher "ab / eb/ ib / ob / ub / (etc)".
> To use this
> tricky feature, you'd encipher the first letter of a word (using the
> vertical tables at the top), but then try to use these
> [vowel, consonant]
> ciphers for the middle of the word. Here's what I mean:-
>
> ie, "nicodemo" => "n.ic.od.em.o"
>
> BTW, though I haven't counted precisely, something like
> 15%-20% of the
> ciphers Petr has scanned & posted so far have this "reversed syllabic
> cipher" (ab / eb / ib...) feature. Interesting...!
>
> Finally, the nomenclatura itself appears - this is a list of
> symbols coding
> for common words, such as "Papa" [the Pope], "Duca de Milano",
> "Fiorentini", etc: these normally give a strong indication of
> the kind of
> features (people, places, etc) the code would typically carry
> (and thus
> would be required to hide).
>
> * * * * * * *
>
> BTW: here are my notes on this very first cipher:-
> (1) "b" uses the astrological sign for Jupiter and "&" uses the
> astrological sign for Saturn - perhaps this gave rise to the
> idea that this
> cipher ledger contained many astrological symbols (as IIRC they are
> actually quite rare across the whole ledger).
> (2) "q" can be encoded using the "picnic table" sign. This is also an
> astrological sign (for the "quincunx" aspect, IIRC), so perhaps we
> shouldn't read *too* much into its presence here? :-)
> (3) "d" encodes as "4", and "is" as "4o" (though with the "o"
> above the
> horizontal bar of the "4", ie, non-ligatured). However, the
> cipher also
> uses "4a", "4e", "4:" (etc), so it looks like a systematic
> part of the
> cipher, rather than a free-standing "4o"-related effect.
> (4) I'm really not 100% sure what the final few words on the
> <short words>
> line (beginning "qua / que / etc") are. The last two look
> like "in effecto"
> and "concludendo" (written using abbreviations) - have I got
> this right?
> (5) Can anyone tell me what the very first line on this page
> says? To my
> eyes, it looks like:-
> "iota eta sigma. chi rho sigma" (in Greek, of course)
> Could this be some kind of date in Greek numbers, some kind
> of notarikon,
> or something else?
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
> PS: does anyone know which ciphers (IIRC, a particular set of
> six of them)
> in the ledger were the "intercepted" ones?
>
>
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