Re: VMs: Link between Phaistos Disk & VMs...!?

[Wayne Durden <wdurden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 7/27/05 2:39 AM, Rene Zandbergen at r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

>The VMs has been studied or handled
> by several MS experts, historians and archivists,
> and they would be able to distinguish
> between a 15th C MS and one from 1000 or more
> years earlier from 10 m distance.
> 
> We can safely rule out the possibility that the MS
> is much older than what is the going estimate.
> 
> Kind regards, Rene
> 
> 

Hi Rene:

Can't we do better than this hyperbole (or are you really suggesting there
is some feature of the VMS that says from more than 30 feet its age) and
point to something concrete?  These kind of dismissive summary statements
sound erudite and all, i.e. "we can safely rule out the possibility that the
MS is much older than what is the goint estimate" but they are actually
vacuous and say nothing.  I think the only thing "we can safely rule out" is
that all of the collective minds of the greatest code breakers that have
turned their attention to the VMS have produced a solution to date.  Now I
realize the Dacian hypothesis is "out there" but a summary wave of the hands
just doesn't satisfy my background as acceptable evidence either.  Elmar is
concerned that no amount of evidence will suffice to persuade me, but
contrary to that assertion, I merely found the clothing example he provided
not entirely convincing.

I would like nothing better than to close an avenue of research that
occupies LOTS of valuable time if there is in fact evidence beyond question
that it is wasted effort.  However, with clues in hand, the mere summary
statement by someone that it is  so doesn't cut it for me and I am hoping
you can offer me something concrete.  As near as I can tell, the evidence
related to the physical media is mere opinion.  No C-14 dating, no pigment
nor parchment analysis, etc.  It is said to feel like fish and smell like
crayon.  Does it have some wax or hydrophobic impregnation that might affect
its aging?

I would note that your statement that the VMS has been studied or handled by
several MS experts, historians and archivists and one would distinguish the
age difference glosses over the fact that the opinion by the "experts"
already ranges more than 500 years as it is from modern fraud to the 1400's
where the list consensus lies.  My search down codicology's background has
not led me to conclude these types of experts possessed Rasputin like
mystical powers despite some pomposity at times.  What is it about the media
with unintelligible markings that makes it so surely placeable?  Does it
possess a urine chemical signature that dates it?  At first I personally
thought the mere physical existence of such media at this age might be the
clincher, but not after researching Pergamom, et al.

  Are you aware of how it was prepared or scraped that dates it, because if
so, I would like to close down an avenue of inquiry?  Is there some kind of
signature in the feel or smell that dates it beyond reproach that I can
verify?  Is it the skin of a new animal that wasn't in existence 1000 years
earlier?  ;)  Herodotus mentions the writing on skins as common in his time
5th century BCE in volume 58 of his Histories...

In all seriousness, MS experts and archivists can't conclusively agree on
the Vineland map whose C-14 datings were finally released in the new
millenium.  If the experts that have looked at it can't agree that a
document within the last 600 years (when pigment usage and media usage
changed far more than in the 500 year immediately preceeding that) what can
we conclusively say.  Virtually every VERY ancient parchment is dated by the
content on the media, and the media is used in a secondary sense to verify
or show fraud.

If it sounds like I might be a little wound up on this issue, it is only
because this is one of a multiple episode of a summary vacuous statement of
this nature without more.  Don't take it as a personal item, I once blasted
off on this issue regarding a summary statement by the esteemed Nick
Pelling.  However, this issue hit my pet peeve point because it does have
more than one example sourced to you.  For instance, in one of my early
posts related to a court reporter you concluded in summary fashion that a
practice I witnessed and participated in first hand was impossible.
Specifically, that the court reporter could make headway with a phonetic
capture of a foreign language she didn't know.  This was the container ship
captain incident where his vessel overran a capsized shrimping vessel in the
process of being raised and salvaged, where that did indeed take place with
for about 1/2 an hour with me participating...  Should you still have doubt
despite my naked assertion, the names of the parties I represented Lutz and
Foran can probably be used for verification as the matter made its way all
the way up to the Georgia Supreme Court on other issues, and if I am not
mistaken those cases even from the early 90's are now online.  As it was in
admiralty it is likely something like "In Re Foran, et al."  As an attorney
I dealt with enough expert witnesses to know that you can hire one on either
side of ANY issue, and no matter how black and white the issue they usually
find some shade of grey.  My lifelong practice of seeking testable evidence,
or corroborated evidence or opinion evidence with a clear rationale for the
basis of the opinion has served me in good stead, so forgive me if I choose
not to abandon it at this point.

After all, consider a variant on your tautology...  "The VMS has been
studied by many verbose cipher experts for decades, including some that can
recognize a cipher from 10 meters.  Because none of these learned experts
have solved the VMS as a verbose cipher, we can 'safely rule out' the
possibility that it is a verbose cipher and concentrate instead on a lost
natural language in unknown writing system."

Kind regards, but hoping you might have something a bit more compelling
about the aspect of the parchment that says it is quattrocentro from 10 m.
away so that I can shut down this line of inquiry.

Wayne

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