Voynich Manuscript Being Decoded (Maybe)

From the University of Bedfordshire

Note:  There is a 47 minute long You Tube video included in the article that provides EXCELLENT resource websites, including one that provides page by page images of the Manuscript.  In the video Dr. Bax goes through the evidence he examined to arrive at his conclusions and a partial decoding of several proper names of plants used in the Manuscript.  In short, he is building an "alphabet," but much yet needs to be done.  Absolutely fascinating!  I'm convinced Dr. Bax is on the right track.  I suggest you read the article (below, which is a brief summary of some of the highlights from the video) and then view the video for more in-depth information:



600 year old mystery manuscript decoded by University of Bedfordshire professor

Fri 14th February, 2014

 

AN award-winning professor from the University has followed in the footsteps of Indiana Jones by cracking the code of a 600 year old manuscript, deemed as ‘the most mysterious’ document in the world.

 

Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics, has just become the first professional linguist to crack the code of the Voynich manuscript using an analytical approach.

The world-renowned manuscript is full of illustrations of exotic plants, stars, and mysterious human figures, as well as many pages written in an unknown text.

Up until now the 15^th century cryptic work has baffled scholars, cryptographers and codebreakers who have failed to read a single letter of the script or any word of the text.

Over time it has attained an infamous reputation, even featuring in the latest hit computer game Assassin’s Creed, as well as in the Indiana Jones novels, when Indiana decoded the Voynich and used it to find the ‘Philosopher's Stone’.

However in reality no one has come close to revealing the Voynich’s true messages.

Many grand theories have been proposed. Some suggest it was the work of Leonardo da Vinci as a boy, or secret Cathars, or the lost tribe of Israel, or most recently Aztecs … some have even proclaimed it was done by aliens!

Professor Bax however has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic. Using careful linguistic analysis he is working on the script letter by letter.

“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax.

“The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”

Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval herb, as well as a number of other plants.

Although Professor Bax’s decoding is still only partial, it has generated a lot of excitement in the world of codebreaking and linguistics because it could prove a crucial breakthrough for an eventual full decipherment.

“My aim in reporting on my findings at this stage is to encourage other linguists to work with me to decode the whole script using the same approach, though it still won’t be easy. That way we can finally understand what the mysterious authors were trying to tell us,” he added.

“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature, perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.” 

Ancient Writing: Undeciphered Voynich Manuscript Dated to Early 15th Century

That's the early 1400's.  So very interesting - hasn't the Turin Shroud also been carbon-dated to about that same time period?  Two enigmatic survivors from a time we think we know about - and yet, what do we really know about then, or now, for that matter? 

University of Arizona experts determine age of book 'nobody can read'
10 Feb 2011
University of Arizona

While enthusiasts across the world pored over the Voynich manuscript, penned by an unknown author in a language no one understands, a research team at the University of Arizona solved one of its biggest mysteries: When was the book made?


[Excerpted] University of Arizona researchers have cracked one of the puzzles surrounding what has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript" – the Voynich manuscript, a book filled with drawings and writings nobody has been able to make sense of to this day.

Using radiocarbon dating, a team led by Greg Hodgins in the UA's department of physics has found the manuscript's parchment pages date back to the early 15th century, making the book a century older than scholars had previously thought. ...

Currently owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, the manuscript was discovered in the Villa Mondragone near Rome in 1912 by antique book dealer Wilfrid Voynich while sifting through a chest of books offered for sale by the Society of Jesus. Voynich dedicated the remainder of his life to unveiling the mystery of the book's origin and deciphering its meanings. He died 18 years later, without having wrestled any its secrets from the book.

"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."

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The Voynich manuscript's unintelligible writings and strange illustrations have defied every attempt at understanding their meaning. Credit: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.  td>

Okay. Where have we seen this kind of pattern before? In board games, darlings! Think about it. Is this not a Nine Man's Morris gameboard?  I'm not saying about what's in the rest of the book - but this drawing - heh. 

Looks like the stuff one sees under one's very first microscope!  I got one when I was in seventh grade (I was 13) for Christmas, and I spent many happy hours in the attic over the next four years exploring the microscopic world of whatever it was I could find to put on a glass slide and put under the magnification lenses.  I'm sure it did not cost a lot of money.  My parents were poor and there were six children to provide for -- but that little microscope opened up a new universe to me.  I could see, up close, for the very first time, that there were, literally, worlds within worlds within worlds.  I didn't spent much time in that un-insultated attic during the winter, it was friggging cold up there, let me tell you!  But I had my own little world-fort up there, and NO ONE was allowed to cross the magic line, which was sometimes hung with a blanket-curtain, that constantly fell down.  When we moved to a house across the street that my parents bought the year I entered high school (1966 - an eon ago), that microscope moved too, and I set up a "lab" in the attic of the new house, which had three dormer windows and roomy bays!  It was a real change from the old house, but the floor still creaked and it was still dusty and mouldy and hot as hell in the summer and cold as hell in the winter.  I chose the west-facing bay to set up my new lab, and spent many hours crunched up with a blanket wrapped around in the cool days in Grandpa Newton's green leather club chair that we'd inherited after he passed. 

Well, I haven't thought about these things for a long long time, and it's making me very sad right now.