Re: VMs: Re: T-maps later than thought?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Larry,

At 10:25 10/02/2004 -0500, you wrote:
> Cryptobotany? Real plants with fake/imaginary roots?
>   No, that is not unusual.

Try asking people who research herbals what they think of it (especially 
its closest relations, the "alchemical herbals"). The VMs is unlike all 
other known herbals. That is "unusual".

> Cryptoheraldry? Hidden heraldic designs?
>   Now that is weird.  Well, I think it is.  It is not as if we looked at 
> herbals in as much detail as we have the VMS so far.

AFAIK, heraldry researchers have never heard of anything like this before. 
That is *very* weird.

> Cryptocartography? Hidden & distorted maps?
>   What maps?  How are they "hidden or distorted"?  I see nothing unusual 
> in the map pages.  They are pretty standard to me.

The only way the nine-rosette page is "standard" is if that's all you're 
looking at. It's not structurally like anything else, and the details 
aren't much like anything else either. What's standard about it - the size 
of the quill nib?

> Cryptocosmology? Unrecognisable planets and diagrams?
>   Nothing unusual here.  They are only unrecognizable because the labels 
> are unreadable.  If you could not read Latin you would find the old 
> astronomical books weird too.

Erm... I think we may be talking about different things here. Some of them 
are plausible, sure (particularly the divided-in-8-or-12 ones, which may be 
from an 8-point compass rose or a zodiac) - but where do you think the 
circular divisions into 14/16/18/45 come from?

> Cryptoastrology? 360 degrees of hidden astrological data?
>   Is that what it is?  Are you sure?  Again, it is only hidden because 
> you can't read it.

I'm sure that the VMs zodiac diagrams contain visually encoded information 
- but, having looked at a lot of other circular diagrams, I haven't seen 
anything with even remotely the same kind of layout. FWIW, I'm trying to 
read the *diagrams*, not the text.

> Cryptobalneology? A deep analogy between plumbing and human biology?
>   There is absolutely NOTHING weird about that.

...to your 21st century mind, sure: but there's little enough written on 
the history of plumbing as it is, and none of it that I've found has 
drawings anything like what we see in the VMs. In fact, show the pictures 
in that VMs section to anyone (including historians), and the word they 
normally come up with is "weird". So... I think it's possibly you against 
the world on this one, Larry. :-)

> The weirdness is tied directly to the text, and the combination of ideas.

There is just as much weirdness in the pictures as in the text - the only 
difference is that (with a bit of persistence) we can "read" a little more 
of the pictures. :-)

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


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