Saturday, July 2, 2011

Voynich Manuscript

Do you know about this amazing book? While scientists puzzle over what it is, what language it is written in and what its illustrations mean ("Is it a code, a cipher of some kind? People are doing statistical analysis of letter use and word use – the tools that have been used for code breaking. But they still haven't figured it out.")*, I think religious Witches will know precisely what the book is about without much guesswork!

After all, what kind of book would be written in code (so that only like minded approved others could understand it), have illustrations of plants, the cosmos and their workings, and multiple pictures of dozens of women ritually bathing together? Who would take all that time to painstakingly transcribe in gorgeous calligraphy and illustrations a book in no known human language?

Scientists describe the book as "Rows of text scrawled on visibly aged parchment, flowing around intricately drawn illustrations depicting plants, astronomical charts and human figures bathing in – perhaps – the fountain of youth." They have radiocarbon dated the pages to the early 15th century.

Linguists have studied the book and it does not appear to be written in any knwn human language- alive or dead. "Alien characters, some resembling Latin letters, others unlike anything used in any known language, are arranged into what appear to be words and sentences, except they don't resemble anything written – or read – by human beings." says one scientist.

Our intrepid scientist added, ""Who knows what's being written about in this manuscript, but it appears to be dealing with a range of topics that might relate to alchemy. Secrecy is sometimes associated with alchemy, and so it would be consistent with that tradition if the knowledge contained in the book was encoded. What we have are the drawings. Just look at those drawings: Are they botanical? Are they marine organisms? Are they astrological? Nobody knows."








*Greg Hodgins, University of Arizona's Department of Physics

5 comments:

  1. It's so fascinating! I remember reading about it somewhere.

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  2. It is indeed fascinating and I believe it to be a grimoire as well. The fact that they haven't entertained this notion is bewildering to me!

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  3. i thought idly once, without adequately perusing the pictures of the pages, that the language might be Theban? But, hell, looking at it now, it ain't! (But you may be right--wouldn't that be grand?)

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