Re: VMs: Re: Re: Inks and retouching

[Knox Mix <knoxmix@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick Pelling wrote:

> But hold on a minute: look again at the top line of the same page, and 
> you should see some very unVoynichese Voynichese going on. Words three 
> and four (EVA <qotoa sha>) break most of the structure rules we're used 
> to (no word-final a's, etc) - and in fact, I think you can see a faint 
> tail on the sidfile beneath the first word-final <a>, where the original 
> word was <qotoy>. 

I have not followed this thread but looked at the word you mention. No 
doubt about the "y". Surprisingly, the tail can be seen on the jpg about 
as well as it can on the sid.

The "q" of the wame word is interesting in that the uniformly broad 
vertical downstroke differs from the original writing. The consistent 
execution of rapid endstrokes with regular taper shows a very skilled 
hand that reduces pressure evenly as the stroke is made until the pen is 
lifted. At least those strokes been very well done on the few pages I 
have looked at. It might even be difficult for an original writer to do 
repeatedly with certainty from a "cold" start, as in retouching. 
However, I believe the original writer could do better than this. Note 
the word directly below in which the retouch went a little farther than 
it should.

Elsewhere, it is difficult to imagine that chemical action (or microbes) 
singled out entire tailless letters without affecting letters to either 
side. If it generally left the tails because of original thiness of ink 
I suppose there could be a threshold effect to explain the abrupt change 
from broad, uniformly dark stroke to tapering stroke. I favor the idea 
that attempts were seldom made to re-cover the tails because it could 
not be done properly. I am not overlooking the probability that ink on 
ink does not behave in the same manner as ink on vellum. The first 
application goes into the scratch so tends not to smear. Ink, I believe, 
was selected for its penetrating or etching quality. I leave that to 
someone who knows along with the effects of 500 years. I do see effects 
of only a few years of exposure on paper, ink, and paint. Although the 
environment could not be duplicated, other manuscripts for comparison 
would be helpful.

[snip]

Knox
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