Another one Middle Ages history hypothesis

[XChanger]

Hi everyone, I am informatique engineer, 30 years working in personal computers IT field. My country is Lithuania, where Wilfrid Voynich was born I have master degree of informatique engineering from 2002 year. As English is not my native language, I apologize British readers for big count of grammar mistakes and some hardly understandable musings... Will try be simple
Several years I am subscriber of Voynich mailing list, but all this time I was more a reader - I can't be expert in science fields which are needed to take part in list discussion. But as amateur with wide interests in those sciences I decided to public here in forum the hypothesis which may look like "unified theory" of some list members, scientists and researchers. I hardly can say this hypothesis strict scientific - using fragments of dreams description of Robert Firth from his diaries as sample can't be serious argument - but there are so many theories about Voynich MS, so please be polite to yet another one.
My "unified theory" stands on fundament of works of these researchers:
1) Diaries of Robert Firth
2) Internet references about works of Ramon Lull, especially his book "Ars Magna"
3) Some ideas of Nick Pelling (including materials from Steve Ekwall)
4) Material about grammar rules of Voynichese from Jorge Stolfi
Because of large amounts of writing I will try publish hypothesis in several chained posts here or by adding portion of text to this post. To be continued...

[proto57]

Welcome to the Forum, Xchanger. No worries about the English, I understood you perfectly. And I look forward to seeing more about your ideas...

Rich.

[XChanger]

Thanks for warm welcome, Rich. In this post I will begin introduction to my hypothesis.
As for many Internet age people, first knowledge about VMS I have found in forums of historical secrets. It was about 2007 year. Links from forums bring me to primary research sources: book of Mary D'Imperio, Beinecke library SIDs and archives of old Voynich mailing list... About two years of reading various rants and musings, interesting ideas and tries to read manuscript glyphs formed my first opinion - many of ideas by meaning are too near our times, at the best post Rennesaince times. And nothing strange about more popular ideas: cipher, unknown language, magic language. But absence of results in field with so many researchers speaks about something what stays out of these methodology. First serious claim abot VMS being the creation NOT language type is from Captain Currier "Words of WMS seems to me more like numbers... They (words) are NOT words!". Cipher specialist had beautiful mathemathical feeling, but this was only first claim.
Mathematical distribution of WMS glyphs keeps enthusiasts of enciphered VMS version front very strong. Fully refuse of these versions for now is practically impossible. Manuscript shows some illustrations with similaritie to stegangraphy: faces between circular ornaments as example. Native language unknown, enciphering method too. Dating of manuscript about 1440 year also places it near Renessaince enciphering methods creation time.
But there is one hook: is VMS document of 1440 or... is it copy of earlier source? Pergament dating not speaks about text dating. Voynich and Newbols tried to assign Roger Bacon as author of manuscript, but this is Middle Ages man about 1300 year. VMS not deems to be enciphered with naturally simple Bacon cipher and more advanced ciphers of his time are not known, at least for me. Some information about manuscript illustration sources in Nick Pelling's Ciphermysteries blog seems to show into about 1440 time or later. But there Steve Ekwall's Excitant Spirit (ES) voice sounds "It is older than you think!". Here I must say several words about this researcher - his ideas about manuscript visual encoding and famous ES claims "You can decode but not read it!", "All symbols in manuscript are NOT letters" were my guides to this my hypothesis. And, on other side, it seems to me Steve Ekwall was virtual person, created by someone researcher for publication of "non scientific" ES arguments. I apologize if my opinion is errorneos
There was introduction. Next post will talk about my candidate to initiator of manscript (I not think he is author of VMS, it may be his collegue or sholar) - Ramon Lull, Middle ages Catalan genius. He IMHO is author of VMS creation system. To be continue...

[proto57]

Hi: You've probably already seen everything available on the Web about Raymond Lull, or "Lully", but Jan Hurych has a good page at the JVS library on Lully and his works, and in relation to the Voynich:

http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/20-4-2009-10-16/

And I also found this mention again, in a 1930 letter from Anne Nill to Herbert Garland (manager of Voynich's London office):

"Thompson pointed out that in the 16tch century MSS. were not written on vellum, and that it was much more likely that our MS. might turn out to be by Raymond Lully, which, he said, more or less made Singer sit up. “Why, I never thought of that.” said S. The Crummers saw Singer in California, so I expect to get the real “low-down” on him when I see them.”

I had found and transcribed that letter in my blog in 2013, but used it for another purpose, not Lull. I've clipped the section of this letter, relating to Lull, FYI:

Thompson_Lully_Singer_Nill_1930_from_4334.jpg (35.48 KiB) Viewed 13152 times

I also looked back through D'Imperio, because I thought Lull might have been mentioned there, but could not find it. In any case, you are in good company. Have fun!

Rich.

[XChanger]

Thanks, Rich, Krakow link was browsed by me few days before, and in 2008 this article ( this time in Jan Hurych site hurontaria.baz.cf )was one of first sources guiding me. There is nice little .pdf publication about Ramon Llull's system made by my lovely Italian writer and scientist Umberto Eco and published by catalog editors:
https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Contribu ... 162/411647
My references to system author will be as in this document: Ramon Llull, I see there are more transcriptions of his name. At first reading of publications and English translations of Llull was a bit hard to understand. Thinker of Middle Ages was original man But my attention was payed to combinatorial aspect of his system. Book shows combinations of nine categories, but I found in Wikipedia about problematic first version of system which had 16 categories. Simplification to 9 helped in understanding system by men with less strong mental abilities but someone (or Llull himself) may preserve this system version. Why number 16 is so actual here - a bit later about this. Main statement here is possibility of logical operations by combining logical constants. Now it is bread and butter for computer programmer but in Middle ages there were new things. And now we can forget for some time about very popular work - separate consonants and vowels in VMS text. Because of looking at glyphs as not language. For now let's look at VMS circle diagrams (at least part of them) as mnemonic devices. Or magic circles of some sort. Or logic generators.
Here I must say I was reading big amount of researchers ideas, but my attention was payed to diaries of Robert Firth - link to these was found in Jorge Stolfi's internet page. Scientific approach of this research was good example of methodology but main topic for me in diaries became... curious dream. Subconsciousness of man sometimes leads to actual findings but as always there is bad corrector - interpretation. Some interpretations of Firth I doubted and there will be several my interpretations in hypothesis. But most of them seems to me very trustable. To be continue...

[XChanger]

"I was looking for the ring...". Firth speaks in his diaries about his tries to analyze with scientific methods, but he not speaks about looking for ring. These words in night dream descriptions guides to another sense - visual perception. In manuscript illustrations image of ring (sometimes with stone or empty hole in place of stone, sometimes without) is showing in hands of nymphs. One place to look is famous folio 57v:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f5 ... 0.411/5.00
Another one, almost hidden by green:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f8 ... 0.847/5.00
And here, with hole:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f8 ... 0.403/5.00
All ring images are not very noticeable, but our brain fixes all for night sorting Finding only pieces of ring in dream IMHO shows Firth's interest only in glyphs and "words" and here new proposition: ALL ROWS IN VMS ARE RINGS OF GLYPHS (and of "words" of course). Circular diagrams with inscriptions in VMS may be result of making such ring style glyphs rows.
Man with pepper and salt shakers later in dream makes me smile - cones with three holes also came from visual perception. Lets look here:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#Ro ... 0.899/5.00
Something like modern watch, but little circle center with three holes connected by line sometimes appear in VMS, in f57v as example. Interesting thing about returning outed pepper and salt back to shakers in dream scenario. This was not understandable for me until reading of paper written by Timm Thorsten "How Voynich manuscript was made". There may be involved mathematical seed concept - one manuscript line (ring) is in link with next. First this was mentioned by Captain Currier: "Line is the entity..." and have influence for next line. My proposition: little change in seed for generating sequence in logical generator. Seed combination of three parts research is made by Jorge Stolfi as analyze of VMS words grammar.
Next post will be about second floor of house in Firth's dream To be continue...

[XChanger]

Second floor in Firth's dream was a bit harder to understand for me. Vacuum cleaner in man's hands may be symbol of some machine for more powerful generating of glyphs sequences. But as always there was a simpler explanation concerning visual perception of manuscript picture - crux in perspective. Sample here:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f7 ... 0.184/3.00
Upper lady is keeping thing like catholic crux. If to look from far perspective to laying crux it will be similar to vacuum cleaner nozzle's flat bottom...
As we see under - another lady is keeping ring. Particles flow down from header lady with crux to bottom green painted area going near lady with ring, lady with utensil with blue and "device" with three holes. This looks for my like manuscript creation conception in some philosophical manner expressed visually. Crux and ring as parts of VMS text generating machine will be explained later.
Chanting with prolonged sounds in the end of dream seems for me like analogy to writing text with noise (mathematical) elements.
Yet in Firth's diaries are several sentences about dream with information about VMS was created (or projected) in Kashmir but he don't believed it is true. If we will look to this idea in Ramon Llull times perspective it is possible variant because of Llull was the missionaire wandering many countries. Kashmir in 1300 - 1400 AD was loosing Indian influence and people and settled by Muslim people. In Rosettes:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#Ro ... 0.526/5.00
This has some similarities with Muslim Mosques although there is not strong proof only probability. Pictures of tubes with liquid, goat painted in last page of VMS and some parts of plants decorated as wool sometimes not denies possibility author of VMS has been saw Kashmir wool production process (washing is one part of it) and has been get some ideas from this.
Talk about Firth's dreams is finished. Next post will talk about my dreams experience Hard mental work and questions which we trying to answer sometimes shows us new ways to solve puzzles... To be continue.

[XChanger]

First dream about VMS came after several hard days of trying finding any simple rule in manuscript text line. Last mind before sleeping was "How it was encoded?". In dream I saw pendulum moving in both directions through two circle's quadrants:
https://ibb.co/LQmrb6V
After dream I listed Beinecke content several times to find something similar to pendulum, but founded only something slightly similar thing:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f8 ... 0.078/5.00
Nothing more was founded and for some time I forget the dream. But after several weeks I made attention to f57v :
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f5 ... 0.414/4.00
Two figures with turned away faces shows directions of pendulum moving by hands... Circular diagrams have four sequences of symbols matching those quadrants. This looks promising but for now is not clear for me in details how to use this for finding encoding technique. Several propositions later.
Next dream came as answer to mind "How to decode?" several months later. But this was hard to understand for me. I saw little model of solar system in black background. Center was dark, planets were only four (they were colored in different colors) with concentric lines of their orbits. Similarity with f57v exist here, but my imagination was stopped here - I don't know how to use this Morpheus advice...
Yet one dream came year later: I saw little room similar to calculation center with old IBM mainframe. Young man with black leather jacket get in, sat down on chair in front of old typewriter (or tape punch device). With one finger he pressed three keys and old big matrix printer printed several lines of Voynichese like text but only glyphs, there were no word separation. Dream has been finished... No more dreams came from this time, about 10 years I was returning to VMS text only sometimes. But yesterday (sic!) I has been found something similar to this last dream text generator:
http://molbiotools.com/randomsequencegenerator.html
If to generate random RNA or DNA sequence with this tool, this will be very similar pattern text.
Dreams history is finished. Next post will contain my propositions about VMS encoding mechanism (with links to Nick Pelling and Steve Ekwall ideas). To be continue...

[XChanger]

There are so many Voynich manuscript research works I have read I have noticed it becomes hard to formulate proposition and it will have least chance not to be proposed earlier ... So before I begin to lay my propositions there in the forum I recommend at first to read research work of Timm Torsten "How Voynich manuscript was made". Google search will find it quick. It is fundamental for later reading.
Next very actual question is about corrections in VMS. With my eyes being not specialist's of writing pergament books I see in Beinecke images sad truth: manuscript was corrected in many places. May be it was the try to bold some faded glyphs and pictures lines but the next question is wasn't text made misrepresent? Corrector may not understand what he was retouching and misrepresent glyph by himself... There are famous merlons in Rosettes page which I see painted with different ink:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#Ro ... 0.237/5.00
And only one wall of castle is in merlons, others are simple orthographics. This nuance sometimes is shown as pointer to North Italy, but I am skeptic for this thing - IMHO there is later times manuscript correction. Another strange correction I found in last page's marginalia:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f1 ... 0.196/5.00
Text in glyphs and two words in Spain (possible)... Many researchers tried to interpret marginalia words in own manner. For me seems here are correction touches and some erasing. I read these two words as "golden ring" however corrections IMHO made reading words not trustable.
But in some manuscript's pictures I see red painted ring in ladies hands. Expression "red gold" was very popular in medieval times. For little explanation:
https://earthandstarryheaven.com/2016/07/06/red-gold/
Manuscript has some inscriptions in red ink. Some researcher looking VMS in Beinecke noticed some gold color inclusion (no link, sorry - forget name too). Interesting fact - red gold came from India and China according previous link. If to add copper compounds in ink found by expertise - IMHO Kashmir is possible as inspiration country of manuscript
Next post will talk about possible methods of manuscript lines generating - without concrete algorithm of course. I see such algorithm as the only way to decode VMS. To be continue...

[proto57]

Hi Xchanger: You have many ideas here, and I admit I had trouble following all of them. I suppose you are not finished, and that when you post some conclusions, I will have a better idea as to what the "unifying theory" is, and how it has led you to some ideas on decryption. I hope you get around to that point for us.

Meanwhile, a few thoughts below... and none of them are meant to be arguing against your comparisions, most of which I agree with. I'm only giving some of the previous thoughts by myself and others, on the images and ideas you present:

In this post: viewtopic.php?p=99&sid=0265ebdcfc263264 ... 09a953#p99 you list various rings. I agree with those ring identities, but not this one:

https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#f5 ... 0.411/5.00

The one here does not have the double line of the others, and so I personally believe it is meant to be an orb, or disk, and not a ring.

Different people have suggested this is a clock, or watch, because of the "hand like" shapes, but I disagree:
https://www.jasondavies.com/voynich/#Ro ... 0.899/5.00

If meant to be anything, this looks to be the alchemical symbol for the Sun, or Gold (Gould):



And I think that might follow in the context, as the other corners of the Rosettes are: Upper left and lower right, the Sun, and upper right, a T/O map of the world. So having a sun symbol on the lower left might fit that theme.

As for the reference to gold that you cite, perhaps it is the one on the Journal of Voynich Studies (JVS):

https://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/JVSvolII2008.htm

On that page, Berj Ensanian/ KI3U quotes David Suter, "Turning some page, the number of which I did not have time to note, my eye was caught by a single "gallows"- like marking in the middle of some text; I believe it was formed of gold leaf."

And then Berj goes on to identify some possible places where actual, metallic gold may be pressed into the surface of the Voynich. You can see them listed there, but here is a composite image he prepared, of some of them: http://www.as.up.krakow.pl/jvs/library/21-1-2008-08-31/

As for the possibility that there is some sort of "numerically based" code here, I've also thought that a possible in the past, as have others. I'd love to see your suggestions for decoding, when you have a chance.

Rich.