Re: VMs: Updates and summaries

[Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi GC,

At 13:34 21/08/2005 -0600, GC wrote:
> As to the split tails, I suspect you're refering primarily to the glyphs 
> on the right side of the second paragraph?  Hoping we're examining the 
> same evidence, I have a few plausible reasons for these, but nothing short 
> of finding an expert in old books to examine the original would clear many 
> of these things up once and for all, I'm afraid

f100r has all kinds of slightly incongruous Voynichese letters & syntax if 
you look closely: I'm currently working on finding a way of making these 
more visible more consistently.

> My problem with jumping to conclusions on such things is that we haven't 
> catalogued all of this type of evidence as yet, or at least not enough to 
> infer certain patterns inherent in the phenomenon.

Ain't nothing much wrong with jumping to testable hypotheses, tho'. :-)

> I'm just browsing my thumbnails and clicking on pages at random to see if 
> this effect is backed up by observation.  f41v has several glyphs that 
> demonstrate a heavy outlay on the right side of some, but not all 
> characters, '8', 'e', and the right side of several gallows.  f30r has a 
> similar phenomenon, located in each case to the right side of each of the 
> two paragraphs.  Nothing here I would consider a correction or retrace, 
> but there are signs of a light discoloration of the vellum in these 
> areas.  In this case it seems that the discoloration is a light transfer 
> of paint from the opposing folio (29v). The heavy/light ink of the glyphs 
> on f39r tends to be all over the place however, but wherever there is a 
> heavy glyph, it appears there is also too much ink laid down, which could 
> mean too much pressure on the stile.

FWIW, bleedthrough and bleedacross are normally the first two things I look 
for on a page: and AFAICT the effects I'm looking at don't appear to be 
paint-related.

> Factors to be considered -
> 1.  Quality of ink (do we agree that this is handmade ink, and therefore 
> not always a consistent mixture?)

AFAIAA, we don't know squat about the ink ATM. :-o

> 2.  Quality of vellum - with the MrSids especially, we see areas on most 
> folios that are of an inconsistent coloration, areas where the scraping 
> process was crude enough to be visible, etc.  Repaired tears are visible, 
> and major holes have been drawn or written around, making it apparent that 
> these flaws were extant before the writing process began on these 
> folios.  All in all, what I would term "remnant" or "home-made" vellum, 
> and not that vellum professionally manufactured, even for the time period.

According to Sergio Toresella, at least one of the holes appears to have 
been deliberately added, which is fairly strange. Like f112's apparent copy 
of a page-tear, perhaps this added hole is a copy of a hole in the original 
vellum? Something to think about, anyway! :-o

> 3.  Chemical reaction of components used in the ink and paints.  As I 
> pointed out on on folio above, there does seem to be some correlation 
> between much darker sections of text and the paints used on the opposite 
> or verso of the folios in question.  I'm not qualified to speak to this, 
> but only observe the general correlation.

True - but I don't think this kind of effect explains all the apparent 
variations in ink colour and density (for example, on f100r).

> 4. The effects of time, or more to the point, the effects of the 
> environment (or environments) on the folios and the chemicals involved in 
> their construction.  Heat, moisture, cold, etc.  There are signs of damp 
> on many of the folios internally, and on almost all of them on the 
> external edges.  The "darker" text is found on many folios nearer the 
> outside edges than in the center or right edges.  Your f100r could fall 
> into this general category, or at least if you add up all the affected 
> characters by location.

...or then again, it might not. I'd say not enough is yet known about the 
effects of aging to form a proper opinion. Then again, we could test this 
experimentally - if we had 500 years to spare... :-)

> Someone pointed out a folio where this was obvious, but one folio does not 
> constitute a concerted effort to modify or change the script, since these 
> were nothing but "retraces", and not corrections and amendations.

Like I say, I'm on the trail (wherever it happens to lead), & will update 
the list as things move forward (fingers crossed).

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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