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Voynich Manuscript May Have Originated In the New World

Posted by Soulskill on from the good-to-know-which-side-of-the-atlantic-we-were-trolled-from dept.

bmearns writes "The Voynich Manuscript is most geeks' favorite 'indecipherable' illuminated manuscript. Its bizarre depictions of strange plants and animals, astrological diagrams, and hordes of tiny naked women bathing in a system of interconnected tubs (which bear an uneasy resemblance to the human digestive system), have inspired numerous essays and doctoral theses', plus one XKCD comic. Now a team of botanists (yes, botanists) may have uncovered an important clue as to its origin and content by identifying several of the plants and animals depicted, and linking them to the Spanish territories in Central America."

2 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Interesting as it points to how to decipher it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think that some of your points are valid, but not this bit: "It's not plausible that everyone capable of reading the thing just died off without telling anyone." Given the impact of the Spanish conquest, I would say thay is perfectly plausible, morover it could have happened in a single generation. People don't seem to understand the impact of disease and slavery on the native American populations. Even educated people aren't going to have much time for reading between shifts in the salt mines, and when you're dead from smallpox you don't read much of anything. This thing could have been written for a tiny surviving readership, for posterity.

  2. Re:Interesting as it points to how to decipher it. by SpectreBlofeld · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's not even remotely plausible. You can't develop a writing system overnight.

    Sequoyah.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    "In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was the only time in recorded history that a member of a non-literate people independently created an effective writing system.[1][4] After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.[1]"

      So, yes, it's remotely plausible, in the sense that it's absolutely happened (at least) once.