RE: VMs: Re: Re: Inks and retouching

["John Grove" <4groves@xxxxxxxxx>]

	As GC pointed out f3v.8.5 is an 'oka' and it doesn't look like any
retouching was done to it. There's also a curious 'okai' as the last word
on line 3. Maybe there is more in the paint - but I doubt it (just looking
at the 8x).

	I'd say the qotoy is a 'y' and the 'sha' is an 'a'. Maybe the retouching
are indicators of which grille to use 8-)

	John.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Nick Pelling
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 6:09 PM
To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: 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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