Re: VMs: Goat vs. sheep

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  > [Pam:] I have a photograph of a goat that shows very clearly the
  > "dew claws"; it is difficult to come up with one of a sheep which
  > shows clearly their absence.

Just for the record, Aries always looked "goatish" to me too. Thanks
for the info about dew claws, which turned that vague impression into
an objective statement.

What I meant for "leg anatomy" is the way the legs bend, the 
position of the knee, etc.. 

When people try to draw an animal for the first time, from memory,
they often draw all four legs with a knee in the middle, that bend
backwards like ours. The Aries in f70v1 has that feature; not so clear
for the other Aries and the two Tauri. Can you tell us whether those
legs are bending in an anatomically plausible way?

By the way, what about the Taurus images: are they bulls indeed?
Do bulls have dew claws, too?  (Jacques, does "Bull" translate
into Mandarin as "swamp goat", perchance? 8-)

  > So you don't think those illustrations of Renaissance ladies with
  > their Renaissance hairstles locate the artist/author of the
  > document in Europe?

The book is definitely an "European" artifact to some extent. The
"nymphs" do seem to be European women in European dresses (or
non-dresses 8-) -- unless the hair is a later addition. ... But that
does not exclude an exotic language and a foreign author.

There are a number of examples of "transcultural" documents that would
illustrate what I meant. For instance, there are a handful of
Europeanish books and documents writen by Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs
shortly after the Spanish conquest (Popol Vuh, a chronicle of the Inca
empire, etc.). There is even a European-style herbal an Aztec doctor
(Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, Martín de la Cruz, 1552).
Understandably, it did not have much success in Europe: can you
imagine handling the village apothecary a prescription for a dose of
Tlacuilolcuahuitl with some Piltzintecouhxochitl and
Cuauhhuitzitzilxochitl -- in doctor's handwriting?

Also keep in mind the funny spelling of the month names in the VMS
zodiac, and in the "michiton" text in f116v. (By the way, is the
little animal in that page a sheep or a goat?).

To me, those clues hint at an author who was mostly illiterate, in
Latin or in any other European language, but was fluent in Voynichese,
and enough of a scholar to want to compose a 240-page book on various
medico-astrological subjects. Why should we expect such a person to
know the precise meaning of "Scorpio" and "Aries"?

  > If this is the best the VMs author can do with these
  > illustrations, it seems to put the potential "sense" value of the
  > text one or two notches up from glossalia.
  
Methinks there is a bit of Western-centric prejudice here. Just
because the author had scant knowledge of the meaning and symbology
of the European zodiacal signs, it doesn't mean that the book's
contents is more nonsensical than, say, Dee's Angelic Diaries, or
Kircher's "translations" of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

In fact, I cannot conceive a text that would be more nonsense than
these two fine examples of European intellectual achievements. 8-)

All the best,

--stolfi


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