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Re: VMs: Re: Re: Inks and retouching

Hi GC,

At 12:54 28/07/2004 -0600, GC wrote: 
I'm at least happy you're using terms like "consistency" and "inconsistent",
because that's exactly what we're seeing. The 8 in f3v.14.1 is inconsistent
with your counter-observation above, as are the e's in f3v.8.4 and f3v.9.3.
One may identify specific features consistent with a specific subset, but no
single subset of observation creates the entire image.

Well: no, not really. As per f3v.14.1 / f3v.12.2 (the word-initial <Sho>) / f3v.10.1 (the <oShos>, the original ink appears to be affected by the colou

> 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>. Also, the second "o" of "qotoa" has a slightly different shape
> from other o's (it has a "v-notch" at the top) - IMO, these letters were
> retouched by someone who was not the author, who simply did not understand

v-notch - these o's were accomplished writing two strokes.  The v-notch is
where one stroke ends and the other begins.  This can be seen in varying
degrees throughout the manuscript, and is a Voynich feature.

Perhaps you're not seeing what I'm seeing with this glyph. Look again at the shape of the end of the word-final <a> in f3v.1.4 - as well as the stroke shapes, the stroke ends are downward curved, arched round. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this appears to have been written with a more rounded nib, whereas the rest of the letters on the page have been written with a flatter nib. Same author?

Anyway, perhaps we're simply missing the simply point about why the first part of the stroke making up EVA "n" is often heavier - that the writer pushed his quill upwards (down-right to up-left), before completing his stroke with a "plume". There are a good number of asymmetrical <Ch> pairs on this same page where the left <C-> half is heavy and the right <-h> half is light - there's even a two-halved <o> (f3v.12.2). Perhaps for these pages, the scribe pushed his quill upwards in this way a lot of times, but wasn't yet experienced enough in writing Voynichese to control the flow of ink completely (it is only the start of the first quire, after all).

No word-final a's, is this a Voynich rule?  In the contiguous herbal section
there are seven, and though that's not a large number, I am reminded that
for every Voynich "rule", there is something to be found that does not
follow the rules.  These examples are located at:

f3v.1.4
f3v.8.5
f11v.4.8
f14r.2.5
f32v.3.9
f44v.8.7
f45v.9.6

I'll go after these another day (it's late, it's hot...)

IMHO whoever wrote this 'a' wrote the others.  The real
question is - is there any evidence of retouching on this a?  The simple
fact that it's darker than surrounding text does not immediately imply
retouching, yet you've already jumped to this conclusion.

Errm... so the wispy tail underneath it doesn't count as evidence, then?

The effects you describe from the bleed-through is not the case at all.  If
the dark background were the cause of the ink appearing darker, EVERY glyph
inside the dark background would appear darker than those outside.  Only the
heavier inked portions of the glyphs appear to be affected, not the lighter
sections.

No, plenty of lighter portions are affected as well. AFAICS, the ink isn't well-behaved enough to conclusively prove or disprove either of our theories on this page (a familiar story,*sigh*).

  This effect is relational to the pigmentation portion of the ink,
not to the sections where the ink is too thin to cover the bleed-through.
Where the pigment is too light or non-existent, this effect does not play
through.

We're getting into the realms of psychophysics and perceived brightness here (back to retinex algorithms, again). Suffice to say that you have to be extremely careful when comparing brightnesses over a changing background - the eye uses relative mechanisms for doing this, not absolute ones, and so what we see can be quite wrong, no matter how careful you are.

Are there any "retouched" glyphs you see on f3v besides the 'a'?

As I mentioned before, I'm suspicious about both word-final <-a>'s on line 1, and the <-o-> preceding the first one: but while I'm really not seeing retouching everywhere, I'm definitely seeing it in places.

Incidentally, has anyone tried colour deconvolution on this page, specifically on the end of line 2? This finishes "okai", which kind of suggests that the rest of the word might be the "-n" finishing the next line (which would be out of place otherwise), or obscured the daubed blue paint.

I said that features can be categorized in subsets, and when this can be
done, the effect is systemic in nature, not systematic as retouching would
be.  I also implied if not directly stated that there are several subsets
here, the above discussion being on only one of these.

If you think that subsets can overlap (ie you can have a reinking splodge being affected by bleedthrough, etc), then I'd agree.

I look forward to the retouching evidence. So far we have Jorge's 'm'.

I think f1r has more than you admit to, f3v's top line has some, the ink stain on f93r has quite a few, and the "okeos" in f73v Jorge mentioned also seems to be in a different hand. This is only the start of a list, but probably not the whole list... we shall see. :-)

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


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