VMs: RE:Voynich Astrological Symbols

[<elillie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Nick.

Thanks for pointing me to the archival posts concerning the Astrological
symbols on folio 57V. My own Google search for "Voynich - 57V - Astrology"
didn't find them. I'm sure you can understand rationing limited personal
time to original research rather than reading through the voluminous files
of the archives. I'll read through the bulk of the AAH posts at my
earliest convenience.
At a glance, I see that the entire repeating sequence of the second ring
has been matched to not only the zodiacal signs but planetary ones as
well.
Rather than being based on planets, I've tended to look on the source of
the Voynich characters as being based on numbers. I speak of the the
characters that look like 0, 2, 4, 8 and 9 (EVA: o, s, q, d and y).
While looking through some unrelated materials, I came across a picture of
something called the Orloj, the large zodiac clock located on the Old Town
Hall Clock Tower in Prague(of all places!). I found a good photo of its
dial at the link:

http://orloj.com/orloj_dial_sphere.jpg


Take a look at the characters used to represent 4 and 7 on the clock face.
I don't know if the connection has been made before but they are identical
with the EVA "l" and "a" characters as used in the manuscript.
These make an interesting addition to the previously listed characters,
bringing the list up to 7 of the 10 digits represented. Perhaps the
original source was both numerical and astrological. The relative rarity
of the astrological symbols would suggest that they may represent actual
zodiacal references.

As long as I'm writing about possible sources for the characters. . .

I have found 4 other manuscripts containing representations of the "Aries"
wierdo from folio 1R.
The first is in the Aztec manuscript: Codex Mendoza. I "Googled" it to see
if anyone had mentioned it and found a reference to Roger Nelson's post:
     http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2000/10/msg00090.html

I tend to agree with some of the later posts that suggest that most of the
other character similarities he reports are common to medieval manuscripts
in general, but he's right in that the "Aries" symbol from folio 1R is
used as a paragraph marker. In checking through my own facsimile I find it
all through the Mendoza, up to a dozen times on a single page.
The other places I found the "Aries" wierdo are likewise in Mesoamerican
manuscripts. It occurs in the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, again as a
paragraph marker about 3 dozen times between folios 42V and 44R.
It occurs at the beginning of a paragraph on folio 215R of the Codex
Tepetlaoztoc.
It also occurs several times on folios 41V and 42R of the Codex Aubin.

I regret that I don't have access to complete facsimiles of the final two
manuscripts. My source in this case is the book: AZTECS by Eduardo Matos
Moctezuma and Felipe Solis Olguin, pages 384 and 388-9 respectivly.
All four of these manuscripts were written in Mexico following the Spanish
conquest by either Spanish priests or Indian scholars (the Book of Chilam
Balam was written in Mayan by a Maya priest who had learned the Spanish
alphabet).
I've seen various other symbols used for the same function as this one in
other manuscripts. However, I'm unable to find any information on
determining provenance of manuscripts in general based upon things like
paragraph symbols, if its even possible.


Until later

Erni



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