The “Cipher Manuscript.” That’s
its official name as it resides in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript
Library. You might have heard it called the “Voynich Manuscript.”
See for yourself
What’s known about it:
1. It’s
old, possibly from the 1400s.
2. It’s
real, in that it was really produced by human hands.
3. It’s
colorful.
What isn’t known about
it:
1. Who
created it
2. Why
3. Where
4. When
5. How
6. What
language does it use?
7. Is
it a secret code?
Loads of people have
proffered loads of “solutions” to any or all of those questions. What appears
from a distance as text has been analyzed and argued over, run through computer
programs, parsed by code breakers. And so far? Nothing much. While some figures
repeat, I'm not sure that any definitive language, code, or exacting linguistic pattern has
emerged.
After reading an article
in The Atlantic (An Intoxicating 500-Year-Old Mystery, by Ariel Sabar, September
2024) and looking at many of the Manuscript’s pages online, I’m going to make a
guess. I haven’t gone deep on research, so I’ll lay out my scenario of how the
Manuscript was created using Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation that I can
come up with.
The Manuscript’s possible
provenance has been swirling around in the back of my mind since working with
other children's writers on a panel about connecting kids locally to global
issues, including using nature journaling. What a powerful tool! I learned so
much. And because of that, I wonder if trying to decipher the "words"
in the Manuscript is even necessary. Are letters always parts of words or can they be
simple drawings or doodles? When I was in first grade learning to write the
letters “d” and “b,” I’d write them over and over just because I liked the way
they looked.
So…
Let’s say it’s sometime
in the 1400s. Parchment pages (made from animal skin) and paints were a thing,
if fairly rare, perhaps made by monks or artists. What if a woman from a
group of cloistered women (cloistered by choice or otherwise)--none of whom were
able to read--might have seen a nature manuscript and tried explaining it to
the others who decided to try making one themselves. Nature journaling doesn't
take nearly as much time as I had thought. Without other distractions and with
an endless amount of time to fill, a few pages could be written in a day in
their makeshift scriptorium.
It seems clear to me that the drawings were done by women because the figures
are so thoughtfully drawn. The plant drawings are more abstract, like a young
person learning to draw but not understanding anything about the details of
plant life or, in this case, maybe women who didn't have access to plants. Zodiac symbols are
something they might have seen but never understood other than as drawings.
Or maybe that woman was royalty, elite, exposed to books but forbidden to learn
to read. Imagine an English-only speaker seeing a book in Arabic and then trying
to copy it from memory.
Regardless of everything
else, why not have the handwriting analyzed? I have a friend who is a
handwriting analyst, and I’m going to ask her to take a look. Some things I’ve witnessed that she’s been able to see in handwriting:
1. a friend’s new
boyfriend was a total phony (and had us all faked out)
2. a friend’s boyfriend
was a bully (that we already knew, but she only saw his handwriting), and
3. an
acquaintance who has personality issues that many of us knew about but had
never discussed.
She can even read children’s printing and "see" various versions
of turmoil and personality. Maybe she can at least suggest what kind of person created the
Manuscript.
What do you think?
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