Re: Re: Re: Re: VMs: Criteria for a successful solution

["Jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello John,
you wrote:
>> >- The VMs is a clear copy, or a second copy, most likely by the original >> 
>author(s), since a latter day copiest would be less practiced (at first), >> 
>resulting in errors and awkwardly formed letters.

 There are two kinds of copies, 
1) those  for multiple distribution, the way the mediaeval monks copied the 
manuscripts befiore the time of the printing press - but I do not think this is the 
case, since no other copy was found, and as you say, for  copyist uninitiated in 
the script it would not be "textual" copying but rather "pictorial"  copying,  pretty 
cumbersome and erroneous business.  
2) the copy of the draft, usually - but not necessarily done  - by author himself,
 for better appearance, elimination of corrections, modification of text or some 
other reasons.  And I agree with you this is the case with the VM.   

Now if there are some corrected errors in the VM, they are so few  we have to look 
for them very closely. True, when copy was done by author himself, he would 
easily eliminate most of them, but anybody else - even the skilled copyist - would 
do more mistakes when copying unknown, or known but not so well digested new 
script.   And yes, I think the author could easily encode and correct the text on  the 
fly without making some  other, additional mistakes (unlike when he would have to 
mentally count order or something).  The ink however cannot be easy removed by water 
without leaving the spot and  the scratches are clearly visible (see erased name of 
Horczicky). So that's why the copy was needed. Also, some editing of the text 
could have been done, using the advantage of loose sheets - one does  not need to 
rewrite the whole book again and again :-).

As you said, we cannot spot uncorrected errors (yet :-). And I sincerely see no 
reason why the author wouldn't  correct the mistakes which would otherwise lead 
to misunderstanding (and some symbols are of  very close shapes, so easy to be 
confused when the full attention is not there all the time!)  But some errors in the 
draft may have been still overlooked, not corrected  and found later in  the copy - if 
there were only few, the author  probably would not bother to rewrite the whole 
sheet again, and those erasures would be easily spotted. But again, even those 
could be more then what we can spot.  So I rather subscribe to the idea there was 
not too many mistakes to start with and the reson is the particular encoding 
method. 

That would lead to interesting point: there are apparently not so many encoding 
methods which allow for so few  mistakes to be made. And I am not actually 
concerned   how labourious it was - it  could have been time consuming but still 
easy to do -  I am looking for  explanation which simple methods could have been 
used so the author  made so  few mistakes. I guess the methods that need mental 
counting,  many reversals or  transpositions, complicated ciphers  and especially 
several-step methods, are all out.  Even double checking could create  some 
additional mistakes,  too. When copying, there are also mistakes when you  copy 
the letter from the wrong  place in the original, since you do not any more 
understand the text and so you copy more or less mechanically. 

On the other hand, for instance the grill  does not need any particular mental effort: 
you just see next free window and put there the next letter, then when you are 
finished,  you just rotate the grill, etc. Mistakes are almost non-existent and 
checkup is  practically not needed at all:  you  hardly miss the next window   or the 
next letter, since the plaintext has some meaning, easy to remember. Well, there you 
have it: one does not need to start with gibberish to be able to use the grill; hear, 
hear! :-). Besides, you still see the plaintext via grill windows.

But the shape of the text in the VM, as it is written, does not suggest any particular 
higher order  grill (say 5by5, used several times over) unless -  for some  odd 
lengths of sentences -  the rest of the grill was filled by nulls.   But how about the 
simple two one-row grills, complementing each other, used one after another to 
complete the row? To make things more interesting, the first  grill may be filled in 
left-to-right order and the second one from right to left. This would of course be 
the draft only - since the lines of our "copy" are not  straight, but drooping when 
going further right.  When copying the draft, the droop would not matter, for it is 
encoded already, but of course the cracking would require to rewrite text it in 
straight lines, and keep proper distances between letters, otherwise the grills could 
not be used. Easy form can be  prepared, to be filled by letters, already 
transcribed in our alphabet and the same grills can be applied.

Jan







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