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

["Barbara Barrett" <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Barbara Blithered;
> > Most exhibitions have websites these days, did the one you went to have
> > one?

> Elmar Elucidated;
> Not that I could find one. It was just a temporary thing ("Aderlass und
> Seelentrost" in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum), so it's possible they
> didn't  bother. There is a catalogue available, though.

Barbara Babbles;
Perhaps if you've got the English name of the map I can look it up on the
net; most of the significant medieval maps are one line somewhere.

> > it sounds like a type C map (Zonal) which showed "regions" rather than
> > land  masses. Use of the Zonal persisted until reasonably recently (18th
C
> > IIRC).

 > No zones, since there was _no_land_at_all_ -- only the skies and the
water. > So  it either wasn't a map, but a symbolic view of the earth, or a
map of the
> times  of the great deluge.

I thinks there's been a language hic-up here ;-). Zonal Maps showed
_no_land_at_all_; "zones" being things like the proportion of air to water,
or  temperature/climate. Might I recommend Mapping Time and Space; How
medieval mapmaker viewed their word,  by prof Evelyn Edson, ISBN
0-7123-4535-3, Vol 1 of the British Library Studies in Map History? It's a
damn good book for getting into the mindset of medieval mapmaker - for whom
geographical accuracy wasn't any concern at all.

> > A T-O map has 6 points of identification and the Voynich "galaxy page"
> > T-O map has them all which makes a 100 percent correspondence. This
> > is actually  a higher degree of correspondence than what is necessary to
> > convict on  fingerprint evidence!

> Uhm... No.
> I recommend Barlow, Roger J.: "Statistics" (ISBN: 0471922951) as a good
> beginner's book on the subject.

I had to give up my JP training due to ill health, but in fingerprint
evidence only 14 points of exact correspondence ( and a vague resemblance
fore the rest of the prints) were necessary to declare a Match out of
possible hundreds points of correspondence/features.

> In a nutshell, two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears are characteristical
for
> a human being. But they might as well belong to a monkey, a dog, or a
> pig. "100%" means little to nothing.

Not if you are specific. IE *Human* nose, eyes, nose, mouth, ears can not be
found on any other beast. And the correspondences are specific, not general.


> > As a trained artist I'm very aware of what is actually
> > on the page and what ones eyes want to see. The image on f68v3 of the
> > Voynich is a T-O map beyond any reasonable doubt.
>
> It would be, if you could read the labels. Until then, it's just a circle
with
> two lines. Or we have differing opinions on "reasonable doubt."

Ah, but you're making the assumption that the labels on a T-O map always
identify its constituent parts, which is not true. In for example a history
of the roman conquests the labels on the map would refer to what the roman
army did in that area (see Sallust's "Jurgurthine war" or Cincius's "On
Military Science"). In the vms the labels could possibly refer to which
genus of plants come from those areas or which astrological houses were
associated with.
It is just that given the simplicity of the labels in quarters they're more
*likely* to be simple labels like "Africa" and "Europe" than anything else.

Furthermore the f68v3 isn't just a circle with two lines; look again and
see: it's a circle *within* a circle, the inner most of which is bisected
and one of the halves of which is bisected. That is; it has correctly placed
Don/Nile line, Mediterranean Line, African quarter, European quarter, Asian
half, and world-girdling Ocean outer circle. The very specific and peculiar
geometry is specific to T-O maps. And it was these features that ancient and
medieval writers expected their readers to identify and recognize - labels
then went on to expound the writers notions or act as visual aids by
repeating the body-text in the appropriate area unless the writer was
introducing the concept of the T-O map itself the continents and divisions
and world ocean were not always labeled as such - they were expected to be
recognized. Their are atypical (but far from unheard of) features in the
voynich T-O - but the reason for those will not be clear until we are able
to read the text.

> My point is rather that the painter had probably never seen a scorpion and
> hence had little idea how to draw it. (Similar things happened in other
> contexts with elephants or other exotic animals.) It was meant simply as a
> light-hearted remark.

mea culpa <blush>

Auf Wiedersehen petal

Barbara


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list