The mysterious Voynich manuscript has finally been decoded

[Kontinuum]

Since its discovery in 1969, the 15th century Voynich Manuscript has been a mystery and a cult phenomenon. Full of handwriting in an unknown language or code, the book is heavily illustrated with weird pictures of alien plants, naked women, strange objects, and zodiac symbols. Now, history researcher and television writer Nicholas Gibbs appears to have cracked the code, discovering that the book is actually a guide to women's health that's mostly plagiarized from other guides of the era.

Gibbs writes in the Times Literary Supplement that he was commissioned by a television network to analyze the Voynich Manuscript three years ago. Because the manuscript has been entirely digitized by Yale's Beinecke Library, he could see tiny details in each page and pore over them at his leisure. His experience with medieval Latin and familiarity with ancient medical guides allowed him to uncover the first clues.

After looking at the so-called code for a while, Gibbs realized he was seeing a common form of medieval Latin abbreviations, often used in medical treatises about herbs. "From the herbarium incorporated into the Voynich manuscript, a standard pattern of abbreviations and ligatures emerged from each plant entry," he wrote. "The abbreviations correspond to the standard pattern of words used in the Herbarium Apuleius Platonicus – aq = aqua (water), dq = decoque / decoctio (decoction), con = confundo (mix), ris = radacis / radix (root), s aiij = seminis ana iij (3 grains each), etc." So this wasn't a code at all; it was just shorthand. The text would have been very familiar to anyone at the time who was interested in medicine.

Further study of the herbs and images in the book reminded Gibbs of other Latin medical texts. When he consulted the Trotula and De Balneis Puteolanis, two commonly copied medieval Latin medical books, he realized that a lot of the Voynich Manuscript's text and images had been plagiarized directly from them (they, in turn, were copied in part from ancient Latin texts by Galen, Pliny, and Hippocrates). During the Middle Ages, it was very common for scribes to reproduce older texts to preserve the knowledge in them. There were no formal rules about copyright and authorship, and indeed books were extremely rare, so nobody complained.

Once he realized that the Voynich Manuscript was a medical textbook, Gibbs explained, it helped him understand the odd images in it. Pictures of plants referred to herbal medicines, and all the images of bathing women marked it out as a gynecological manual. Baths were often prescribed as medicine, and the Romans were particularly fond of the idea that a nice dip could cure all ills. Zodiac maps were included because ancient and medieval doctors believed that certain cures worked better under specific astrological signs. Gibbs even identified one image—copied, of course, from another manuscript—of women holding donut-shaped magnets in baths. Even back then, people believed in the pseudoscience of magnets. (The women's pseudoscience health website Goop would fit right in during the 15th century.)

The Voynich Manuscript has been reliably dated to mere decades before the invention of the printing press, so it's likely that its peculiar blend of plagiarism and curation was a dying format. Once people could just reproduce several copies of the original Trotula or De Balneis Puteolanis on a printing press, there would have been no need for scribes to painstakingly collate its information into a new, handwritten volume.

Gibbs concluded that it's likely the Voynich Manuscript was a customized book, possibly created for one person, devoted mostly to women's medicine. Other medieval Latin scholars will certainly want to weigh in, but the sheer mundanity of Gibbs' discovery makes it sound plausible.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017...pt-has-finally
http://beinecke1.library.yale.edu/download/Voynich-New/

[shadowmouse]

Thus proving that even in the 15th century it was nearly impossible to decipher what the hell the doctor wrote.

Interesting to see this possibly sorted out.

[Aggrophobic]

Thus proving that even in the 15th century it was nearly impossible to decipher what the hell the doctor wrote.

Interesting to see this possibly sorted out.

Haha! Oh, snap!

[Surfd]

Thus proving that even in the 15th century it was nearly impossible to decipher what the hell the doctor wrote.

Eh, while doctors are pretty bad for it, just about all forms of shorthand look like absolute gibberish to anyone unfamiliar with them. I remember somehow ending up helping clean up some of the storage rooms in my highschool library way back when, and while getting rid of some ancient books, discovered a guide to legal shorthand written as a training guide for someone who would be a courtroom recorder or the like. Think it was probably printed in the late 50's early 60's. A quick look through it was like looking at a how-to guide for converting standard english into absolute madness.

[Deleted]

Why are scientific explanations always so freaking boring?

[ls-]

Why are scientific explanations always so freaking boring?

Because RL is not a Marvel movie

[Deleted]

It was a book about weed, wasnt it?

Sometimes its more fun when its never decoded.

[jimboa24]

Here's my question: if the way the book was written (abbreviations of Latin) was so common, then why the hell has it been a mystery for so long? This thing has been sitting around, shrouded in mystery for literal centuries, people have puzzled at what the hell the writing means, including linguist experts. If the answer was so mundane and so simple, and the way the Latin was abbreviated so common, then why hasn't a single expert figured it out up till now?

[Logwyn]

Thus proving that even in the 15th century it was nearly impossible to decipher what the hell the doctor wrote.

Interesting to see this possibly sorted out.

There is a reason why they call what a Doctor does a "practice" as well!

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Here's my question: if the way the book was written (abbreviations of Latin) was so common, then why the hell has it been a mystery for so long? This thing has been sitting around, shrouded in mystery for literal centuries, people have puzzled at what the hell the writing means, including linguist experts. If the answer was so mundane and so simple, and the way the Latin was abbreviated so common, then why hasn't a single expert figured it out up till now?

I imagine they were common in the correct circles. Gaming slang like dps or lfm are "common" in this particular area, but future students of early 21st century slang are unlikely to be interested in that particular area.
In this case I imagine it's a case of small overlap between people who have heard of the manuscript and are interested enough in it to study it, and those who have studied what it actually contains in enough detail to understand it.

[Mihalik]

This is not the first case of someone claiming to have deschiphered a Latin shorthand in the text. I would wait a bit before others either poke holes in the theory or confirm it.

[jimboa24]

I imagine they were common in the correct circles. Gaming slang like dps or lfm are "common" in this particular area, but future students of early 21st century slang are unlikely to be interested in that particular area.
In this case I imagine it's a case of small overlap between people who have heard of the manuscript and are interested enough in it to study it, and those who have studied what it actually contains in enough detail to understand it.

I can understand what you mean, but this manuscript is NOT obscure by any means. It's pretty famous for being this impossible-to-decipher book, and the first thing one would do in investing the manuscript is consult a linguist expert - and that's exactly what people have done over the centuries. It makes no sense that the answer to the manuscript's meaning would be so common among linguist experts specialising in medieval studies when those are the very people that would be first on the list of experts that people would turn to when trying to crack this thing.

And if you are an expert in Latin, medieval studies, and translating old books, there is no way in hell you are not familiar with the Vonyich manuscript. It would be like a historian unfamiliar with the legend of Atlantis.

[Deleted]

if the way the book was written (abbreviations of Latin) was so common, then why the hell has it been a mystery for so long?

Becuse this guy is only one by many who claime he have decoded the book... not that he do not give you a full translation only "pieces" and interpretations (he might be right in his interpretations) but he have not translate the book....it not the first time sombady say its about medicine-herbs.

[stinkphantom]

freaking magnets, how do they work?

[Asotcha]

I imagine they were common in the correct circles. Gaming slang like dps or lfm are "common" in this particular area, but future students of early 21st century slang are unlikely to be interested in that particular area.
In this case I imagine it's a case of small overlap between people who have heard of the manuscript and are interested enough in it to study it, and those who have studied what it actually contains in enough detail to understand it.

This sounds pretty spot-on; I'd like to add that interesting detail from the article about how the guy was able to study the manuscript for longer and at great detail because it was copied digitally. Maybe besides all those other factors at play, only having a little time to actually see the material made it harder to pin down.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I can understand what you mean, but this manuscript is NOT obscure by any means. It's pretty famous for being this impossible-to-decipher book, and the first thing one would do in investing the manuscript is consult a linguist expert - and that's exactly what people have done over the centuries. It makes no sense that the answer to the manuscript's meaning would be so common among linguist experts specialising in medieval studies when those are the very people that would be first on the list of experts that people would turn to when trying to crack this thing.

And if you are an expert in Latin, medieval studies, and translating old books, there is no way in hell you are not familiar with the Vonyich manuscript. It would be like a historian unfamiliar with the legend of Atlantis.

My guess though is that experts in this very specific area might not have been interested, and of course might simply have never considered that it could pertain to their area. If you heard the description everyone else gives of it, you don't immediately think that it sounds like something you'd have a hope of understanding; after all, better people than you have tried and failed. Likewise, those researching would never think to consult experts in medieval medicine, since there's no real indication that that's what it contained. It's easy enough to say now we know, but looking without that knowledge it's not that simple.

[Independent voter]

So it's like medieval shorthand?

I don't know if anyone uses shorthand anymore, maybe court recorders? I can see someone a thousand years from now looking at shorthand and wondering what mysterious message it contains.

[Osmeric]

Because RL is not a Marvel movie

[Vynny]

Here's my question: if the way the book was written (abbreviations of Latin) was so common, then why the hell has it been a mystery for so long? This thing has been sitting around, shrouded in mystery for literal centuries, people have puzzled at what the hell the writing means, including linguist experts. If the answer was so mundane and so simple, and the way the Latin was abbreviated so common, then why hasn't a single expert figured it out up till now?

Probably because that sort of specialized knowledge would be specific to historians with a focus on medieval medicine. Think about it, the main people who have had a fascination with this book have been cryptographers who by profession wouldn't necessarily have any idea about common medieval medical jargon, and until recently it has been kept under limited access due to the fact that old books such as this one need to be handled with the proper care or else they'd be utterly destroyed. Considering those two factors, it's not surprising that no one has made those connection until recently.

Internet: 1, Weird Specialized Knowledge: 0

okay fine, probably more than 0, but let me have this one :P

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This sounds pretty spot-on; I'd like to add that interesting detail from the article about how the guy was able to study the manuscript for longer and at great detail because it was copied digitally. Maybe besides all those other factors at play, only having a little time to actually see the material made it harder to pin down.

Dating puts the book at about 600 years old. They don't just let you waltz in and rent the book to study it for fear of it falling to pieces without the proper care. Digitizing the book allows you to access the book at your convenience and for as long as you want under the conditions you want rather than having to get approval from the school which would require having some sort of clean room and certification for handling ancient documents of this sort, and you would probably need quite a bit of money as collateral in case anything happens to the book while being studied. Digitizing it also allows function like zooming in and adjusting the gamma to check for watermarks that might not be very visible in person

[Garnier Fructis]

This guy's solution is rather simple, but many have pointed out issues. For one, translating his way doesn't even give grammatically correct Latin, apparently.

I think what people need to accept is that sometimes, a problem just doesn't have a simple solution. It's wishful thinking. We see this a lot in mathematics as well: famous problem has been around for decades, and some brilliant mind 'solves' it in 2 pages with elementary mathematics. Except that they're virtually always wrong. They make some mistake that would easily have been spotted by a trained mathematician.

Same basic issue here.

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Likewise, those researching would never think to consult experts in medieval medicine, since there's no real indication that that's what it contained. It's easy enough to say now we know, but looking without that knowledge it's not that simple.

Researchers had already posited the link to health before Gibbs came along. It's not exactly a revelation.