Re: VMs: Re: Inks and retouching

["Jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Jon,

On my page, I did deconvolution too and got the same results as you (see my referenced page). 
Still, comparing with the other methods, deconvolution  seems to remove also the areas where 
blue is over the brown, where it should leave the brown.  That of course does reduce the brown 
text under into a series of unrecognizable spots which does not help us too much. We cannot 
concentrate on one method only, but do comparisons of many. If you take two first pictures on 
your page and magnify them for comparison, you can see my  point. 

I based my decision on the fact that first six characters are all recognizable as certain numbers. 
In the case of one, two or even three, I would admit the coincidence, but if there is more, the 
case is worth of studying.  Unfortunately, the "masker"  did quite a good job. I added to my 
page another picture - the first  one - showing the masking  ("Y") above  the one in question 
("X"), which is clearly avoiding the decorative circles. On the other hand, in the area in question 
we can clearly see the vertical slashes covering almost only  the height of symbols, leaving quite 
a large area uncovered. Now this was not  coloring, it was masking. 

As for the size of numbers: it is almost the same height as some VM "letters" so there was no 
problem to write it legibly. For proper investigation, the size of the sample of 
course has to be large enough (but without distortion, which Beinecke scans allow up to the size 
I  used, but not larger) . "The bumps in the vellum, lumps in the ink, and artefacts of the image 
compression" cannot of course be discounted, but it is obvious they will not effect it to such 
level as we can see.  It would be rather random and would not certainly make up for the shape 
so close to certain numbers. 

As for Nick's arguments: he apparently did also only the deconvolution. True, there are strings 
or circles or dashes somewhere else, but that is just jumping to conclusion based on sheer 
similarity. As for "no reason for something to be there" - that's exactly what 
steganography is based on :-).   

 I realize that if we consider there are numbers there, we would have to make some unwelcome
conclusions like the one that it was really "hidden" there - first intentionally ( by locating it in the 
place nobody would look for it), then even masked by other  color  (maybe unintentionally, if 
the "masker" overlooked it) .  The author's knowledge of Arabic numbers was of course 
expected long time ago and the use of steganography as well. And what is more important: we 
would have to admit that the VM is something more than just what "meets an eye", but that  we 
have known all along :-).
   
Jan 



======= At 2004-08-03, 09:49:00 you wrote: =======

>Here http://www.geocities.com/jgroveuk/voynich/Column2.jpg is my best
>attempt at removing the blue paint from the column on f102v2, and revealing
>the markings beneath it. Personally I'm not convinced that the marks are
>numbers - they don't really look any more number-like to me than the marks
>in the rows above or below the blue paint, and when you consider the true
>size of the marks I think it's probable that we're just looking at bumps in
>the vellum, lumps in the ink, and artefacts of the image compression. But
>YMMV!
>
>Cheers,
>Jon.



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