VMs: Re: VMS: Chinese theory, pushed against the wall...

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  > [Pam:] ... if we assume the nymphs to correspond to degrees rather
  > than days, do we agree that we don't have a reason for Pisces to
  > contain only 29 degrees/nymphs/stars? And we indeed have 300
  > parading naked ladies (nymphs) extant in the VMs? I mean just the
  > ones we can see, not including the ones we presume are missing.

The following are the counts that I got a couple of years ago, from
the images that were available back then. I haven't checked against
the new SID images yet.  (The table must be read with fixed-pitch font,
and without line-folding.)

  | The numbers of nymphs, stars, and labels in each diagram are given
  | below, first for the central figure (C), then for each band, (1-3,
  | innner to outer) and then the totals for the whole diagram (T).
  | The "overflow" nymphs are shown as band 3.
  | 
  |   page   70v2 70v1 71r  71v  72r1 72r2 72r3 72v3 72v2 72v1 73r  73v 
  |   name   Pisc Ari1 Ari2 Tau1 Tau2 Gemn Canc Leo  Virg Libr Scrp Sagt
  |          ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  | C stars   2    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    1    -    1    -
  |          
  | 1 stars  10    5    5    5    5    9    7   12   11*a 10   10   10
  | 1 nmphs  10    5    5    5    5    9    7   12   12   10   10   10
  |          
  | 2 stars  19   10   10   10   10   16   11   18   18   20   16   15*b
  | 2 nmphs  19   10   10   10   10   16   11   18   18   20   16   16
  |          
  | 3 stars   -    -    -    -    -    5   12    -    -    -    4    4
  | 3 nmphs   -    -    -    -    -    5   12    -    -    -    4    4
  |          ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  | T stars  31   15   15   15   15   30   30   30   30   30   31   29
  | T nmphs  29   15   15   15   15   30   30   30   30   30   30   30  
  | 
  | ----------------------------------------
  | *a: one star seems to have been erased.
  | *b: one star reduced to a dot.
  | 
  | Some of the star counts could not be confirmed because of poor
  | copy quality. Folio 74 (the other half of the bifolio bL1 =
  | f73+f74) is missing in the VMS.

So while Pisces has only 29 nymphs, it has 31 stars. Also Scorpio has
one extra star at the center, but in neighboring Sagittarius one of
the stars is erased (?) leaving only 29 whole ones. Virgo has one
extra star at the center, and one erased star, keeping the total at
30.

All these "compensations" among the "errors", if confirmed, 
cannot be coincidental...

On the other hand, the partition of each 30-star chunk among the three
bands seems to be arbitrary. I would say that, up to the last page,
the author was experimenting with various layouts for these diagrams.

All the best,

--stolfi
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