VMs: Re: Re: Re: humanist [was; Some thoughts etc]

["DANA SCOTT" <dscott520@xxxxxxx>]

Hello Barbara,

I am a left handed writer and find no difficulty at all writing the VMS 
characters with a ball point pen or calligrapher's nib (though a bit 
slower). I think that the jury is still out as to the number of hands used 
to write the VMS. If multiple scribes, then I would have little difficult 
imagining that some were right handed and others left handed.

I can even imagine an ancient course in "secret writing" in which the 
instructor assigns one page to each student, teaches them the basics of a 
"secret" invented language, and tells them to write a section based on the 
topics of assignment (plants, anatomy, astrology, cosmology, etc.). The 
students hand in their assignments, are dispersed and go merrily on their 
way to invent new "secret" code for their leaders. A bit fanciful no doubt, 
but the point is that the variations in style from folio to folio could 
"easily" suggest multiple scribes. BTW, I have read that the artwork could 
be knocked off very quickly by an expert from the unknown era in question. 
Modern day experts could probably "draw" each plant in less than 30 minutes 
with the coloring in coming later. Disney and his troupe of cartoonists 
comes to mind.

My vote is for a single savant, being a right handed scribe and a single 
artist, being the same person, until "proven" otherwise. I also wonder if 
the same ink mixtures/sources were used in the text and drawings (dark 
outlines and colored paint) due to the substantial bleed through of the 
drawings compared to the text.

If the work was first set to ink on separate sheets prior to transcribing to 
vellum, then it would be nice to find the originals. The "experimental" 
basins on f78v, f81r, and f81v might also provide date/location clues. I am 
guessing that they were metallic.


Regards,
Dana Scott


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Barbara Barrett" <barbarabarrett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 12:12 PM
Subject: VMs: Re: Re: humanist [was; Some thoughts etc]


> >Omar Occluded;
> > hI bARBARA,
> >
> > May I ask you if you found it easier writing following left-to-right
> > direction ? Have you tried writing from right to left?
>
> Barbara Blathers;
> Do you mean the direction of the script or the hand used to write it?
>
> As for the direction of the script it is definitely left-to-right - the 
> line
> up on the left hand side combined with the "ragged right" line-ends, and
> paragraph ends in particular, shows that the script was started on the 
> left
> hand side of the page and finished on the right. Particularly in paragraph
> final lines this is a feature that'd impossible to imitate if writing 
> right
> to left - the final line would seldom if ever be able to line up with the
> leftmost first letter column - but it always does.
>
> Also on the high quality repo one sees faint words (where the ink was
> running out) followed by dense words (after the ink had been replenished).
> If the writing was right-to-left then the pattern would be dense-faint, 
> but
> the pattern is faint-dense which shows the next word written after the pen
> was replenished was to the right, and thus confirms the direction of 
> writing
> and of the script.
>
> I determined the direction of writing *before* I attempted to imitate it, 
> so
> no, I've never tried writing from right-to-left, there's no point in it.
>
> As for the handedness of the author, that's not a question I've addressed
> until recently. I tried writing with both left and right hands, I found
> left-hand difficult but not impossible and a left handed person would be
> better at it than I who am right handed. I used my right hand originally 
> out
> of convenience only.
>
> However, thanks to Nick's question on handedness (which I was originally
> uncertain about) I've found clue after clue which suggest a right handed
> person was the scribe, and now I'm reasonably certain that the scribe was
> right handed. Certainly the character set would have had quite a different
> appearance had a left handed person devised it ;-)
>
> Thanks to Nick I will be collecting all the evidence for a right handed
> scribe together and make a section of the planned website dedicated to 
> these
> arguments.
>
> Barbara
>
>
>
>
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