Decoding The Voynich Mystery – Are We Getting Close?

In September 2012 and April 2013, I wrote about the Voynich mystery.

The Voynich Manuscript was created during the 15th century and is still an intriguing unsolved mystery. It is written in an unknown language that not even military cryptographers were able to decipher. It also contains beautiful illustrations and descriptions of events and flora unknown to man.

It seems that finally at least a small part of the code has been cracked. Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire, claims to have deciphered part of the manuscript using linguistic analysis.

Professor Bax is an expert in mediaeval manuscripts and familiar with Semitic languages such as Arabic. This helped him to analyze text letter by letter. Up till now, he was able to decipher 14 letters and 10 words.

He identified one of those words as the term for Taurus, alongside a picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades. He also found the word KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury as well as a number of other plants.

Professor Bax explained: “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.”

To learn more, watch the following video.

 

The Ongoing Mystery of the Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book written in a language or script that is completely unknown. It is named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich. He acquired it in 1912.

The pages are filled with colorful drawings of strange diagrams, odd events and plants that do not seem to match any known species. The appeal of the manuscript is impossibility to decipher it.

The original author of the manuscript remains unknown. Carbon dating has revealed that the pages were made sometime between 1404 and 1438 in Western Europe. Needless to say, it has been dubbed "the world's most mysterious manuscript."

There are legions of theories about the origin and nature of the manuscript. Some believe it was meant to be a pharmacopoeia with the purpose to display topics in medieval or early modern medicine. This is founded on the illustrations and descriptions of herbs and plants.

It has also been implied that it is some kind of alchemist textbook. This theory is based on the fact that many diagrams appear to be of astronomical origin, as well as the unidentifiable biological drawings.

Needless to say, it has also been stated that the book might have an alien origin. The book is quite likely not a hoax. It would involve too much time, money and effort to produce it, since every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings of a provincial but lively character. Each page is drawn in ink with vibrant washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red.

The content of the manuscript falls into six sections:

1. Botanicals containing drawings of 113 unidentified plant species;
2. Astronomical and astrological drawings including astral charts with radiating circles, suns and moons, Zodiac symbols such as fish (Pisces), a bull (Taurus), and an archer (Sagittarius), nude females emerging from pipes or chimneys, and courtly figures;
3. A biological section containing a myriad of drawings of miniature female nudes, most with swelled abdomens, immersed or wading in fluids and oddly interacting with interconnecting tubes and capsules;
4. An elaborate array of nine cosmological medallions, many drawn across several folded folios and depicting possible geographical forms;
5. Pharmaceutical drawings of over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots portrayed with jars or vessels in red, blue, or green, and 
6. Continuous pages of text, possibly recipes, with star-like flowers marking each entry in the margins.

Will anyone ever be able to decipher it? In the mean time, it remains one of the unsolved mysteries of our time.