Elements of the Voynich Manuscript story could fit comfortably into the plot of a Dan Brown best seller. A mysterious, ancient document whose secrets have puzzled scholars and codebreakers for centuries, the 234-page document is written in letters that do not correspond to any known language or code. Multiple theories have been forwarded and different techniques have been employed by linguists, historians and code breakers; no one has translated the document, and it is considered one of the most perplexing cryptological puzzles in the world.
Little of its history is certain; its author, meaning and intended purpose are unknown. It was first purchased by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II in the 16th century for 300 gold pieces, and appeared in the modern era when art dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich acquired the document from an Italian monastery in 1912. Since the ’20s, the Voynich Manuscript has been kept at Yale University. It’s now in a climate-controlled environment in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, available to students and researchers on a limited basis. “Among the medieval manuscripts, it’s probably one of the more frequently written about,” Robert Babcock, curator of early manuscripts at the Beinecke Library said.
Because of the hand-drawn pictures of plants, astrological diagrams and nude women, researchers believe the book is probably what’s called an “herbal” — a book about plants and their uses. Unfortunately, the illustrations don’t explain the text. In the ’20s, University of Pennsylvania professor William Newbold hypothesized that the visible text is meaningless, but that each character was composed of a series of tiny characters that could only be seen under magnification.
Newbold proposed the hidden text contained information about scientific knowledge that should have been unknown at the time the manuscript was created.
by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk
Little of its history is certain; its author, meaning and intended purpose are unknown. It was first purchased by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II in the 16th century for 300 gold pieces, and appeared in the modern era when art dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich acquired the document from an Italian monastery in 1912. Since the ’20s, the Voynich Manuscript has been kept at Yale University. It’s now in a climate-controlled environment in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, available to students and researchers on a limited basis. “Among the medieval manuscripts, it’s probably one of the more frequently written about,” Robert Babcock, curator of early manuscripts at the Beinecke Library said.
Because of the hand-drawn pictures of plants, astrological diagrams and nude women, researchers believe the book is probably what’s called an “herbal” — a book about plants and their uses. Unfortunately, the illustrations don’t explain the text. In the ’20s, University of Pennsylvania professor William Newbold hypothesized that the visible text is meaningless, but that each character was composed of a series of tiny characters that could only be seen under magnification.
Newbold proposed the hidden text contained information about scientific knowledge that should have been unknown at the time the manuscript was created.
by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk
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