Monthly Archives: September 2018

Anchiton, Michiton, or An Chiton?

There’s a controversial word on the last page of the Voynich manuscript that is often read as “anchiton” or “michiton”. I’ve written about it before and so have many others, and yet the question hasn’t been settled despite decades of study. I’m hoping some paleographic insights might help.

The troublesome word is on folio 116v (near the beginning of the second line). The individual letters that form “chiton” or “chi ton” are not controversial—they are pretty clear and fairly conventional. Most people agree on them. The only unusual thing I noticed is the extra-long leading serif on the letter “i”. This is a less common way to write “i”:

The extra curve on the “t” is not unusual if the writer learned to write the more traditional round-stemmed “t”. The rounded “t” (written like a “c”) was popular for many centuries, from the early medieval age into the 15th century. Here are some samples of rounded “t” and straight-stemmed “t” in scripts with some overall similarity to the marginalia writing style:

In the 20 scripts with the greatest overall similarity to the marginalia, both rounded and straight t are represented, but most of them tend to be like the VMS t, in-between the two extremes:

So, putting aside “chiton” for the moment, let’s take a close look at the first letter, or two letters, since it’s not clear whether it’s one or two:

I can understand why anchiton/michiton is contentious. The first couple of letters can be read as ni, an, or mi, depending on the handwriting. Even “mehiton” (vaguely Semitic if it is a hard-h as in mechiton) might be reasonable if the other letters “e” were similar to the character preceding “h”, but they are not. It looks like “ch”.

The problem is further complicated by the less-than-professional-level script—the slants are all over the place, the loops are connected in different ways, and the letterforms are moderately inconsistent.

Nevertheless, I have some observations…

Note that the ending leg of “an” or “m” is not drawn like “i”. This writer has a tendency to draw “i” with a long leading serif, a straight stem, and no ending serif. The last minim on “an” is not drawn this way, so I am inclined to rule out “mi” or “ni” as a reading for this word. That leaves “m” or “an” (or perhaps a very unusual ligature “am”).

What about “an”? Here’s the full passage again, so you can look at all the instances of “a” and “n”:

Note the following characteristics of the handwriting…

The letter “a” is mostly tall, with a point at the top of a straight stem, but not always.
Ascending loops are usually sharp and at a certain angle, but not always.
The figure-8 letter (which is usually interpreted “d” or “s”) usually has a larger bottom loop, but not always.
The “n” is usually small and rounded, but not always.

So how do we know whether it’s “an” and both letters diverge slightly (the curve is squished on the “a” and the loops are sharper on “n”), or a loop-m that diverges even more?

Examples of Loop-M

Here are examples of “loop-m”, a particular style of medieval “m” that looks like a ligature-“an” to modern eyes. These are all chosen from unambiguous sources where it can be verified that the shape represents “m”. Loop-m was used more conservatively than regular–m. Some scribes only used it for names or for emphasis:

Did you notice that almost all the samples differ from the VMS in one important detail? Loop-m in medieval manuscripts always has a tail. Always… well, almost always. There are very few exceptions, and even the exceptions tend to have a short tail or a down-pointing end-stroke rather than a serif, in comparison to how the scribe wrote regular “m”.

Summary

I stated years ago that I was leaning toward “an” rather than “mi” and it has taken many years to find enough time to explain why. And yet, even though I lean toward “anchiton”, I’m not certain of either reading…

If this is “michiton” then the “i” is written differently from all the other “i” characters on the folio, and the “m” is an unconventional loop-m with no hint of a tail.
If this is “anchiton” then the “a” is a bit squished, and the “n” is more angular than other “n” characters on the folio.

In fact, I’m not even sure this is one word. It could be “an chiton” or “an chi ton”, which looks suspiciously like an awkward Greek transliteration. It could be coincidence, but if you search the Greek words chυτά/Χυτά or chυτό/Χυτό, and filter for the metallic ones, you will see some very ornate Voynich-like Greek and Russian oil lamps and incense burners:

Images courtesy of Nioras.com and Holy Archangel Liturgical Supply

Medieval versions were probably less ornate than those pictured above (although some of the medieval Jewish spice jars were very ornate), but the tradition of metal censers for funerals, healing rites, and sometimes exorcisms, goes back a long way and the word chytoú for “cast” goes back to biblical times.

If the text on 116v is a healing charm or medicinal remedy (not saying it is, but it’s a reasonable possibility), then a cast/molded burner (chytó, chytón χυτό) for incense (or even as source of flame for other purposes) would not be out of place.

J.K. Petersen

A Stitch in Time

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I’ve posted several blogs on hats and tunics and the VMS Gemini tunic is now being discussed in depth on the voynich.ninja forum, so it’s clearly a topic of interest. I’ve been researching the clothing of the zodiac figures for a number of years, so I have many examples from a large variety of sources (including mosaics and stained-glass windows), but I thought I would focus on fashion in two specific manuscripts.

I see the VMS zodiac tunics and robes as belonging together in terms of style.

Both male-Gemini and Sagittarius wear basic tunics with simple double-line neckbands, both are wearing hats, Gemini a simple rounded hat, Sagittarius a hat with a very long rounded tail (similar to a foxtail hat, but with fabric rather than fur). Sagittarius has the hint of a goatee. Note that Gemini is conspicuously short-statured even though there’s room to make the leg longer.
Both females (assuming the slightly androgenous Virgo is female) are wearing long robes with embellished sleeves and the hint of an undergarment peaking out from under the outer sleeve:

The clothing in Vatican Pal.lat.871 has been mentioned before, because it has many commonalities with the VMS figures.

Here are examples from folio 4r. The subject matter is quite different from zodiacs, it’s a nativity scene, but the roundel-with-text presentation, drawing themes, and clothing have VMS parallels in necklines, gathers, and the hard-to-find bootlaces:

It’s possible that the round-tailed style of hat doubled as a carrying pouch since tunics generally did not have pockets. Small items were strapped to belts, carried on the back, or slipped into hat bands or pouches. The VMS hat does not look like an animal tail. Note that many of the neckbands are similar to the VMS (a plain double-line band), even though a variety of necklines are represented:

There are also tunics with bumpy or scalloped edges like those in the VMS:

One can also find sleeves that are narrow at the wrist and wide at the elbow (left), which is less common than sleeves that are mostly even or much wider at the wrist:

The illustrator was definitely making distinctions in dress. Not all collars were a simple band, there were also high collar, capes, and cowls. Tunics were sometimes single-layer, sometimes double.

There are also many hat styles in addition to the “pouched” hat, including Phrygian hats, royal crowns, tonsured monks, berets, bowlers and, since this is a biblical text, pointed and flat hats to represent Jews and Philistines:

The drawings in Pal.lat.871 make it look like the “pouch” style of hat was common, but it is not easily found in medieval manuscripts. Usually, the tail was an animal tail or the ends were ragged, like a cock’s comb. Pouched hats with very long tails, like VMS Sagittarius, are especially hard to find, although I previously posted this one from Morgan M.453 (left) and one from a Swedish book of law that has a fairly long tail, with a conspicuous roll for the band:

Getting Back to Tunics

Many of the robes in Pal.lat.871 are long or have simple edges, but there are also tunics that are distinctly pleated (e.g., some of the warrior tunics, left) and some that are drawn with a bumpy, gathered, or scalloped edge, like the VMS:

So we can see numerous parallels to VMS clothing styles throughout the manuscript, not just in one or two places.

Finding the Origin of the Manuscript

I was curious about who drew the illustrations.

Pal.lat.871 is written in German, and I noticed it was a dialect. It is thought to be from central Germany, possibly north Hessen (near Frankfurt) or west Thuringia (about midway between Frankfurt and Prague). There is a woodcut version of the Pauper’s Bible created nearby in Bamberg, just north of Nuremberg (c. 1460s) with some of the same clothing styles.

I don’t know if it is specific to the illustrator, but there’s a political statement on folio 16r, a nimbed figure holding the battle banner of the Scandinavian tribes. This puzzling image is sandwiched between Sampson carrying tablets and Jonah in the mouth of the whale. It’s the only roundel on the folio without text.

In manuscript art, the white cross on a red field frequently represents the Lombards or Danes. The inverse of this flag, a red cross on a white field, often represented Helvetians, Templars, or participants in the Crusades. By the time this manuscript was created, Lombardian rule had long since diminished, and Lombardy itself had receded from Florence north to Pistoia, but it still dominated what is now northern Italy, and there were still pockets in Germany, Switzerland, and southern Italy.

But, I have also seen the white-on-red flag in drawings of 14th-century “Gaisler” (Geißler), Christian flagellants associated with the plague years.

Perhaps a sister manuscript can shed some additional light on origins.

A More Primitive Drawing Style

Vatican Pal.lat.1806 was created at approximately the same time as Pal.lat.871 and has very similar clothing themes. It is interesting because the illustrator’s skill level is a little less accomplished than Pal.lat.1806 and thus closer to that of the VMS. Here are some examples of tunics:

There are also sleeves that are narrow at the wrist and wide at the elbow, but they tend to be paired with fancier tunics. Here are some of the simpler ones

Also, if you keep looking, you can find the Sagittarius “pouched” hat. The hat (right) in Pal.lat.871 is not just a vague or generic drawing, it is drawn in a distinctively different way from the ragged-fabric chaperone on the left:

Pal.lat.871 and Pal.lat.1806 are thought to be from different towns, and are drawn by illustrators of different skill levels, yet the clothing themes are clearly related and, in turn, are similar to the VMS zodiac costumes.

Drawing Skill and Cultural Differences

What happens if the same subject matter is interpreted by someone from a different culture and significantly better artistic skills? Do the tunics change? That’s a subject for a separate blog, but I’ll include a few examples to introduce the topic. On the left, from Pal.lat.1806 and on the right, the same scene from BNF Latin 512:

Here some more specific tunic comparisons between Pal.Lat.871 and BNF Latin 512, both of which are from approximately the middle or third quarter of the 15th century:

As might be expected, there are more details in the drawing by the better artist, but paging through the manuscripts side-by-side, there also appear to be small cultural differences that are probably related to the difference in German and French origins. In terms of clothing style and drawing skill, the VMS is obviously more similar to Pal.lat.1806 than BNF Latin 512.

Summary

I have much more on this subject, and don’t have enough space to post about the female dress in the same blog. For the moment, there are enough examples to illustrate that the two German manuscripts Pal.lat.871 and Pal.lat.1806 (in addition to those mentioned in previous blogs), bear notable similarities to the costumes of the VMS zodiac characters.

J.K. Petersen

The Rise of Venus

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Folio 77v of the Voynich Manuscript always struck me as anatomical. Mammaries and a uterus in the middle, tubes that might be blood vessels or the path between the ovaries and the uterus, something on the middle-right that resembles tubules or a curled intestine and, on the left, a penis with a nymph standing in the testicles, her hand by a “pipe” leading to the penis.

It seems strange, a nymph standing in testicles, but that’s what it looked like to me.

Then, while searching for something unrelated, I came across a detail in a manuscript from the 15th century that I never expected to see.

Illustrated Myths in MS Rawl. B. 214

Rawlinson B. 214 is less than 20 pages, and consists of two-tone compass-drawn charts sandwiched around colored illustrations.

The illustrations are painted in generous shades of brown blue, red, and green. There are Sibyls and gods, including Saturn, Jupiter, and other characters from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, such as Iuno (queen of the gods), Neptunus, and Pluto:

At Saturn’s feet, there is a character that may have particular significance to the VMS. But first, a quick summary of the other pages…

On the following leaf, we see Apollo with a harp and Corvus flying over a laurel tree:

Next to the laurel is a bevy of females, with muses Talia (comedy) and Urania (astronomy) standing out from the crowd. You might notice that Urania is drawn in an appealing way, similar to a few of the VMS nymphs who were drawn with an extra dose of charisma:

Under this is Phiton, a dragon with long ears and somewhat vague wings that reminds me, once again, of the critter in the VMS that is nibbling on a large plant. At first I wondered if this was an animal version of Phaeton (the charioteer), but it turns out it might be a python, and the marginalia mentions “Phiton serpens”. In medieval bestiaries, as illustrated in the previous blog, serpents were often depicted with legs and ears. There are numerous references to serpents in the Metamorphoses.

The following folio has another complex scene in which Venus takes center stage, standing in water, flanked on the left by three naked nymphs. The next page shows Diana with a bow, next to several unlabeled nymphs modestly dressed. Below this, is a rainbow framing Pallas (Minerva). In her hand is a head on a shield labeled “Caput gorgonum” (Gorgon’s head):

Following this is Iuno/Juno with her sight obscured by a cloudband (perhaps at the moment when Jupiter turns into a heifer). She is standing behind another rainbow, flanked by “pavones” (peacocks) whose tails memorialize the hundred eyes of Argus after he was decapitated by Mercury:

Below this, Sybil Bethia rides in a cart.

A Change of Style

And then the lushly colored illustrations revert to something that could easily be mistaken for a cosmology or geometry chart, but which is labeled with Grecian landmarks, including Mount Pindus, Mount Pelyon (Pelion), and Mount Ossa. These are north of the Greek Islands, as one travels toward Macedonia. It’s a map, in a style quite different from modern maps and more similar to early eastern maps than those of northern Europe.

After the map, is a drawing that looks vaguely cosmological, but reading the labels tells us it is about literature and philosophy, listing Virgil, Omer, and Ovid, along with muses and poets, somewhat in the manner of Lullian diagrams.

Back to the VMS

This line-up is quite interesting… nymphs, rainbows, a map in a slightly unconventional style, charts of elements and literature that might be hard to interpret if the labels were in a strange script, and an unusual biological reference that I wrongly assumed was unique to the VMS. When I saw the drawing of Venus in Rawl. B. 214, it instantly reminded me of the VMS drawing on folio 77v, which has always looked to me like a nymph standing in testicles above an ejaculating penis:

It seems unlikely that the Rawl. Venus-in-testes was copied from the Voynich Manuscript, it was created in the mid-1400s, but it could be the other way around, IF the VMS text and drawings were added a few decades after the parchment was processed. But, assuming the VMS drawings were added early in the 15th century, then an earlier textual or visual source might have inspired the explicit drawing.

And then I had an aha! moment…

A nymph standing in gonads. Of course! It’s the classical story of Venus born of the foam of her father’s severed genitals. It might seem a far-fetched way to interpret the VMS nymph if it weren’t for the Rawl. Venus being clearly labeled, clearly standing in a testical-boat, and clearly placed within the context of classical myth.

Can we go one step further? Might there also be an astrological interpretation, as suggested by K. Gheuen’s Konstellations? Maybe. Not only were the classical gods deeply associated with stars and planets, but classical poets were fond of creating alternate stories…

Accounts of how the newly born Venus reached shore vary, but here is one version…

When her father’s godly froth hit the sea and Venus was born, she was aided by fishes, who ferried her safely to the beach and guaranteed their place in history by reigning over her in the sky. The following image may be intended to reflect the environment in which Venus was born, rather than the story of the fishes, but it helps us visualize Venus’s birth. Note the cherub handing her the mirror that became her attribute:

The birth of Aphrodite from a Roman mosaic in the Bardo National Museum, Tunis.

In the Iliad, Aphrodite (Venus) is associated with sexual intercourse, which would make her an appropriate symbol for a biological description of sexual organs or the sexual act. It is thought by some that Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) added or adapted the story of the severed genitals.

But is 77v a clinical description of sex and sexual organs dressed up with classical imagery, or is it classical imagery in the context of ancient myths (without the clinical component)? The difference would influence how one interprets the text.

My personal suspicion, until we know more, is that the drawings on this folio are meant to express biology, with classical myths as mnemonics. I lean this way because plants, astrology, biology, and therapeutic bathing (especially bathing in thermal spas), are all important medieval medical subjects.

Wresting Meaning Out of an Obscure Drawing

The VMS is not exactly like the Rawlinson drawing. It has an extra detail. There is a “tube” by the nymph’s hand. I thought it might be the connection between the seminiferous tubules and the penis long before I realized there might be a connection to classical literature. If there is, then the VMS drawing makes a more direct reference to the biological path for the “froth” by which Venus (Aphrodite) was born (the Greek word αφρός/aphros means “foam” and can also be interpreted as semen).

Usually we see sanitized versions of Venus’s birth (albeit some lovely ones like Boticelli’s). Here is a much simpler 14th-century drawing (right), from an Occitan manuscript—Venus in the surf, holding her mirror attribute. An ancient depiction, from a Pompeiian fresco, shows her lying in a large shell, with a stylus or small scepter, with drapery overhead. In fact, they aren’t necessarily sanitized, they are probably alternate versions in which the semen falls to the sea without the father losing his family jewels. The tradition that explicitly talks about castration diverges from Homer.

The Cringe-Worthy Version

William Sale suggested in 1961 that the castration myth traces back to the Cyprians, as expressed in a Corinthian terracotta figure of Aphrodite arising from a genital sac, but I had trouble finding examples online, and was hoping to find exemplars more accessible to a medieval manuscript illustrator.

There are gruesome drawings of Cronos castrating his father Uranus, and some where the victim just stares in another direction as though it’s no big deal for your son to whack off your privates (e.g., Bodleian MS Douce 195).

It doesn’t seem necessary to post dozens of examples (which can be found in ceramics, sculpture, manuscript art, and also in tarot cards), as there appear to be three main kinds:

Cronos/Jupiter castrating his father with no inclusion of Venus,
Cronos castrating his father with Venus nearby, often in water,
Venus born from the castrated genitals of her father (as in Rawl. B 214 and possibly the VMS).

Here are examples of what appear to be typical variations, with the less common Rawl. drawing included for reference:

Summary

I was eager to find a possible exemplar for the VMS but one never knows how long it will take. Most of the more common depictions are of French or English origin, but there may be other sources for a theme that dates back to ancient Greece.

If additional images of Venus standing in her father’s genitals were found, or even just one that predates the VMS, it could be a key link in unraveling which predecessors may have influenced its construction.

J.K. Petersen

Tracing Long-Necked Taurus

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I posted a blog on long-necked Taurus in April 2016, but was reluctant to add a specific picture of a red bull with a strikingly long neck. My focus was zodiac symbols and I didn’t want to include dozens of bulls that were not in zodiacs. I’ve decided to post this one, because the manuscript does have a zodiac series and the bull (which is in a different section) is so strikingly similar to the VMS.

There are two drawings of bulls in the VMS, one painted a little darker than the other. The placement of eyes and style of the nose differ, but their bodies are essentially the same shape:

In another manuscript that predates the VMS by about half a century, we find this drawing of a bull. It’s not a zodiac symbol, it’s in the bestiary section, but it is labeled “Taurus”:

I lightened the background (right) to make it easier to see the shape and pose. Note the long neck, long white curved horns, raised front leg, reddish coloration, very long tail, narrow pointed penis, and landscape background. Even though the background is rectangular and more ornate, the bull is very similar to the lighter VMS Taurus, including the angle of the head.

This drawing is more similar to the VMS bull than the one in the zodiac section. The zodiac Taurus is amber and faces the other way (and doesn’t have the front leg raised). The rest of the zodiac is based on traditional symbols and differs from the VMS in a number of ways—Sagittarius is a centaur, Leo has a man-face, the scorpion is more-or-less naturalistic, and the Libra scales are held by a female figure. It fits in with the H 437 tradition in the previous blog. The only significant commonalities with the VMS are the crayfish and the long noses on Pisces.

Are the similarities between the VMS zodiac bull and the bestiary bull coincidental? Why would these two long-necked bulls look so much alike when the zodiac drawings have little in common?

Maybe it’s not entirely a coincidence. If we look at Scorpius in BPL 14a, it is roughly like a scorpion, and yet the scorpion in the bestiary section (right), with fatter legs and body and snake-like tail, leans more toward medieval drawings of lizards and tarasques than a scorpion. Even though it’s drawn at a different angle, in some ways the bestiary critter is more similar to lizard-style Scorpiuses than the slightly more realistic one in the zodiac:

It seems possible that the illustrators of BPL 14a were consulting different sources when drawing the zodiac versus the bestiary. What’s even more puzzling is that the description next to the lizardly scorpion in the bestiary describes the stinger and knobby tail of a real scorpion, and yet these features are not in the drawing.

Crayfish, Centaur, and Libra-with-Figure

BPL 14a expresses themes that were common to the region, and which continued well into the 15th century, as illustrated by these two examples, one from the southern Netherlands (c. 1360) and a later, similar one in a 1455 Book of Hours (both now in The Hague).

Note how these differ from BPL 14a in colors and the shape that encloses the symbols, but they are the same basic themes: Virgo with grain, Libra with figure, somewhat naturalistic scorpion, shield Gemini, centaur-Sagittarius, and crayfish:

Like BPL 14a, the KB zodiac has Gemini shield, crayfish, Virgo with grain, Libra with a figure, a real scorpion, and centaur Sagittarius. Except for Aquarius and Leo, it’s clearly the same basic template.

Some of the Parisian and Castilian zodiacs follow this template, as well, except that Gemini does not have a shield, as in Egerton 1070, and BL Add 18851 and Add 38126.

Is there a match for Pisces in the bestiary?

Is there a pattern? Can we find evidence that VMS zodiac animals were taken from bestiaries?

It turns out that the fish section in BPL 14a is fairly extensive, and several drawings have long noses and double dorsal fins. Here are some examples, four of which have notably long snouts:

But… I don’t think they match the VMS as well as the Greek fresco fish mentioned in a previous blog.

What about Leo?

VMS Leo is distinctive for having a long neck (as do several of the other critters), only a hint of a mane, and possibly a furry coat. It has been suggested this might be a panther/leopard rather than a lion, but young lions are shaggy, with spots, and do not yet have manes, so even a cat with skimpy mane could represent a young or female lion.

This drawing in the feline section of the BPL 14a bestiary caught my eye, with the tilted head and its tail through its leg, but it is explicitly labeled “pardus” (abbreviated p[er]dus), so it is intended to be in the leopard rather than the lion family. It’s not posed quite like the VMS, either, but I thought I would include it for reference:

Note the faint suggestion of blue on the VMS lion.

There are a few zodiac and bestiary lions that are blue. Most of them originate in England or northern France/Normandy. The one in Walters W.37 has its tail through its leg, but has a distinctive mane. Trinity B-10-9 has a man-face and Morgan M.729 is posed quite differently (although it should be noted that Scorpius is rather tarasque-like and Gemini is an affectionate couple). Add MS 21926 (below) has a blue lion with one leg raised and only the hint of a mane:

The blue lion in Cotton MS Galba A XVIII (below) might be one of the earliest zodiacs with a blue lion (c. 9th century). It is facing the other way, but interestingly, several of the animals are standing on bumpy terrains, as are some of the VMS critters, and Sagittarius is a human.

It has been noticed by several researchers that the crayfish in this zodiac appears to have two heads. However, the zodiac also differs from the VMS in that the twins are male warriors, and Libra is held by a figure. Scorpius appears to be a two-headed serpent, a fairly unique depiction:
But getting back to the blue lion, what does it have to do with bestiaries?

I think it was Ellie Velinska who first brought this to my attention, but there’s a bluish-gray bestiary feline with a suggestion of fur or spots, a sparse mane, a raised paw, and its tail through its leg that is more similar to the VMS Leo than anything I’ve seen in a zodiac. Note also the very rounded shoulder joint on both the VMS and the bestiary lion:

Glancing through the bestiary, I noticed one other thing related to VMS critters in general…

In the serpent/dragon section of BPL 14a are a number of dragon-like critters that reminded me of the critter nosing a big plant in the VMS, in the sense of being vague and hard to figure out. These all are named, some of them with the names of real snakes (like “boa”), but they do not resemble snakes in any way. Sometimes it’s impossible to identify medieval creatures without the captions:

So what does all this mean?

I’m not sure yet, there’s still much work to be done… the VMS is consistent with a certain branch of zodiac illustrative traditions, as I hope I’ve demonstrated in previous blogs, and yet it’s possible the details, the animals and figures, were drawn from other sources. The VMS illustrator may have studied the zodiac motifs and then plugged in content from somewhere else.

I know that’s easy to say, but not so easy to prove, even if the resemblance of VMS Taurus to the bestiary bull is quite striking. It’s probably a good idea to keep in mind that VMS exemplars might be less obvious than assumed.

J.K. Petersen

Catching the Crayfish

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Crayfish are on the Voynich zodiac menu these days, so I thought I would cross-reference some of my previously posted maps and point out additional details about traditions that may have inspired the crayfish symbols in the VMS. Crayfish are quite prevalent in medieval and early Renaissance zodiac art (about 40%), with the rest being crabs.

In February 2016, I posted a blog about the unusual placement of legs on the crayfish tail, and also included naturalistic drawings of crayfish, showing how different species have different numbers of legs.

In that blog, I pointed out that some zodiacs have a pair of cee shapes on the backs of crayfish/lobsters and some don’t. I’d like to discuss this detail in more depth.

The Lines that Define

You can see the double semi-circles or “cee shapes” on the greenish VMS crayfish on the left and on the medieval calendar-zodiac crayfish on the right:

The crayfish above-right is from Würtzburg (c. 1240s). It is not the earliest example of a crayfish zodiac (an earlier one from Catalonia was described in the previous blog), but it may be one of the earliest to indicate the carapace with curved lines. It has four sets of spindly legs, like the VMS crayfish, but they are correctly placed on the body, not on the tail.

The earliest crayfish zodiacs emerged around the 11th and 12th centuries, in church architecture and manuscript art, but unlike the VMS, the crayfish was typically paired with traditional male Gemini twins.

There are no cee shapes on the crayfish symbols below. Instead, there was sometimes a line running from head to tail. The cee shapes were not yet a popular crayfish motif.

Some details are added by illustrators according to whim, and color (or the direction the figures are facing) is not always a defining feature, but the cee shapes provide an interesting glimpse into zodiac traditions. They appear to have emerged sometime around the 13th century.

Charting the Crayfish’s Carapace

After the c. 1240s Würtsburg symbol, there is a cee-shaped crayfish (c. 1260s) thought to be from Austria. It does not include a romantic Gemini or human Sagittarius, but is similar to the VMS in other ways (non-scorpion Scorpius, no-figure Libra, long-nosed Pisces) and might be considered a “cousin” in terms of motif:

Crayfish with cee shapes are sometimes found in Hebrew manuscripts, such as the Machsor Mazhor (which also has a non-scorpion Scorpius and male/female Gemini). The Machsor Mazhor, in turn, has similarities to Morgan M.855 and BSB Cgm 32. All three were created in the same general region (Austria, or possibly Germany) from c. late 1200s to c. 1340:

Geolocating the Crayfish Tradition

In March 2017, I posted a map of the origins of zodiacs that have a crayfish rather than a crab. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fit all the examples (some dots are on top of each other), but hopefully there are enough to show that crayfish follow similar patterns to other VMS zodiac symbols, with notable clusters in northeast France and southern Germany, but the examples above suggest there may have been a convergence of traditions a couple of centuries after the earliest examples.

Cee-Shape Crayfish Paired with a More Lizardly Scorpius

The three previous examples have the turtle/tarasque style of Scorpius. The following zodiac is thought to be from France (possibly Provençal, c. 1340). It has a lizard-like scorpion and an interesting detail that is not especially common… Aries, Taurus, and Capricorn have rounded “paws” that aren’t very hoof-like, just as the VMS has unusually rounded hooves. The poses are also similar—note how Aries’s head is drawn from the side and Taurus from a higher perspective so both eyes and horns are visible:

While we’re on the subject of anatomy, look at Aries’s nose. It’s not a very common way to draw it, indistinct and very rounded, so I thought I would post this zodiac from Libr. pict. A 92 (possibly from Germany, c. 1400), which is one of the few that has animals with similarly drawn snouts. They’re not exactly the same, the mouths are more deeply indented, but they are worth noting, since it looks like the hooves on Capricorn might be somewhat rounded, as well:

Variations on Cee-Shape Themes

The following zodiacs, also from France, have similar themes to H 437 (traditional nude twins, a lizardlike Scorpius, centaur Sagittarius, and cee-shaped crayfish) but differ in having a figure holding the scales. Despite the differences in palette and style, they are thematically very similar to each other but, in a sense, one step farther from the VMS. Quite a few northern zodiacs had elaborate frames and traditional nude Gemini behind bushes or behind a shield:

Pairing the Crayfish with Human Sagittarius

The previous zodiacs all have Sagittarius as centaur or satyr. The earliest one I could find that has a cee-shape crayfish and a human archer is Vindo. Pal. 1850 from Prague (c. 1405). Unfortunately, the twins are traditional nude males, and the scorpion is naturalistic, so it’s not quite in the VMS ballpark, but it does have a no-figure Libra:

This 16th-century zodiac from Nuremberg (Cod. Pal. germ 833) has only minor differences and clearly comes from the same tradition as Vindo. Pal. 1850:

False Alarms

It’s easy to get excited about individual images when one first sees them. For example BSB Clm 826 (c. 1390) has a leg-tail Leo with its tongue sticking out, but I was reluctant to post it until I had done more research… I discovered that leg-tail lions are extremely common in medieval art, plus other aspects of Clm 826 are quite different from the VMS. It’s a real scorpion, Virgo has wings, Sagittarius is a satyr, and Taurus is a half-bull emerging from a cloudband. It seems unlikely that the VMS illustrator would copy Leo and completely ignore the other symbols when there are quite a few zodiacs that match the VMS quite well.

Summary

This all adds up to some interesting patterns. The VMS chiefly differs from other cee-shape-crayfish zodiacs in having affectionate male-female Gemini rather than the traditional male twins, yet is more similar overall to zodiacs that don’t include the cee shapes on the crayfish’s back, such as these, thought to be from Augsburg and Cologne:

As can be seen from the above examples, two of the better matches, in terms of motifs, are Morgan MS m.94, which has a line down the crayfish’s back, and Augsburg 2 Cod 5, which has an unusually ornate, decorated crayfish.

Part of the challenge of tracing these traditions is sorting out which details are significant, and which ones are not.

J.K. Petersen

From Brotherly Love to Otherly Love

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In May 2016, as part of a VMS zodiac series, I posted a blog about Gemini symbols evolving from twin brothers to affectionate siblings to the “otherly” love usually associated with romantic couples. I noted that the Claricia Psalter is one of the earliest depictions of male/female Gemini in an affectionate embrace. If you haven’t read it already, I suggest you at least scan the second half of the previous blog.

I chose the Claricia Psalter for a number of reasons—it is one of the first zodiacs to unambiguously show the twins as different genders, and is possibly one of the earliest zodiac images of “otherly” love (c. 1200s or earlier). It’s difficult to know if the figures are fraternal twins or a romantic couple, but the fact that they are male/female is a departure from classical images of Castor and Pollux, and also different from medieval images of the twins as warriors.

But there is more… it is also, in a sense, a “template” for zodiac cycles with the same cast of characters as the Voynich Manuscript.

Background

I’ve already described classical zodiacs a few times, but here is one from the 9th century to make it easier to see the differences between this and later zodiacs that resemble the VMS zodiac. Note the girdle on Aries, the nude, male warrior twins, Cancer as a crab, a real scorpion, and Sagittarius as a centaur:

The Claricia Psalter (Walters W.26) was created about three centuries later, probably in the southern HRE about midway between Bohemia and the Alsace, and is distinctly different in a number of ways that are relevant to the VMS.

The Claricia Psalter was created for an Augsburg abbey (possibly commissioned) and yet is rather crudely drawn and painted, not much higher in general skill level than the VMS. The palette is also similar, although the Claricia is enhanced with some highlights in gold, and the shade of red is a little more orange than the VMS and used with more frequency.

Here is the Claricia zodiac together with the Augsburg Psalter (which is very similar in subject matter, and contained within roundels like the VMS):

Is There a Traceable Zodiacal Tradition?

Is it possible to pin down the VMS to a specific illustrative tradition?

When I search through my database of more than 500 medieval zodiacs, I find fewer than 40 (only 6% of the total) that have this particular combination:

male/female Gemini,
Libra scales with no associated human-like figure, and
Cancer as a crayfish/lobster.

What is even more significant about this combination-search is that quite a number of the hits also have a non-scorpion Scorpius (in the form of a turtle/tarasque, dragon, or reptile/amphibian)—another commonality with the VMS—as in this example from the 13th century, created a few decades after the Claricia Psalter. Note also that the zodiacs are contained within roundels, like the Augsburg Psalter and the VMS:

To push the comparison with the VMS beyond the realm of coincidence, some of them also have Sagittarius with legs and Leo with his tail threaded through his legs.

I can’t quite tell if Cod. Vindo. Pal. 1982 (14th century) is male and female or two males, but it otherwise fits in this group, with a no-hand Libra, Cancer-crayfish, human Sagittarius, and tarasque-Scorpius.

Even though it is roughly drawn, and colored only with a bit of amber wash, the zodiac symbols in BAV Pal.lat.1369 (c. 1400s) have much in common with this tradition, as well. The couple is male/female, Cancer is a crayfish, and the scales have no figure. But this is a scientific compilation with many charts, and a number of volvelles, and the illustrator drew the zodiacs with the traditional centaur and a more-or-less real scorpion.

Note the clothing, which is very similar to the VMS, including unembellished round necklines. The symbols are contained within roundels and the labels are in German, but German was used in many places, including eastern Switzerland, Germany, parts of Bohemia, and parts of Lombardy, so the language doesn’t specifically pin down the localality:

This combination is first seen around the 1100s or 1200s and continues until the early 1500s. If we eliminate Sagittarius as a centaur, then we are left with those originating around the time of the Claricia Psalter until the 1470s. Specifying a human Sagittarius eliminates Hildegard von Bingen’s zodiac, a 13th-century zodiac from Stuttgart, Ludwig VIII 3, Codex Sang. 42, and the Augsburg Psalter, but I was curious to see which ones had the greatest similarity to the VMS symbols.

Morgan MS M.280 is very similar in format to Walters W.78 (the Augsburg Psalter). It has roundels with a clasping couple, crayfish, no-figure scale, and tarasque-Scorpius, but lacks the human Sagittarius:

Morgan M.280 and Walters W.78 demonstrate how two different illustrators can draw essentially the same things in quite different ways simply by changing the direction of a head or tail, or adding a detail or two:

Even though it has twists of its own, like the double-crayfish and the added stars, in terms of subject matter and chronology, the VMS zodiac fits quite well with this group. You can almost guess that Aquarius would probably be a mostly-clothed male with a single jug rather than two, and that Capricorn would be a running or walking goat rather than a mythical goatfish or a goat next to a water-well:

Another Transition

By the 1460s, another change was unfolding… a number of zodiac illustrators who closely followed the above patterns, including leg-tail tongue-Leo, reverted back to the traditional nude male twins and naturalistic scorpion, as in Codex Pal. Germ 298 (which also has a crossbowman) and LJS 449.

Dating to approximately the mid-15th century, Codex Pal. germ 298 includes roundels with crayfish-Cancer, leg-tail Leo, no-figure Libra, and the famous crossbowman, in keeping with zodiacs already mentioned, but like LJS 449, Gemini has been drawn as traditional nude twins rather than as a romantic couple in fine clothing.

But wait… LJS 449 has two zodiac sets (the second one incomplete) and in the second (which is the signs associated with their ruling planets), the symbols are contained within roundels, and Sagittarius is a human. Separate from the zodiacs, under a tree in a garden, we see an amorous couple. LJS 449 also has some medical topics, including an illustration of urine specimens.

Ludwig XII 8 also seems to fit within this group, with no-figure Libra, crayfish-Cancer, romantic-looking Gemini, a slightly dragony Scorpius, and a human archer. BSB CGM 7269 is similar, as well, and includes a crossbowman. The twins are of both sexes, holding hands, and sharing a bath (the “in” thing to do at the time was to dine together while bathing).

Cod. VIndo. Pal. 1951 (c. mid-1400s from France?) converts the bowman back into a satyr. Morgan MS G.1 (c. 1450s) has a lizardly Scorpius but Sagittarius is a centaur, and the twins are youthful nudes. It seems that by the later-1400s, some illustrators were reverting to traditional forms (as in Vat. Barb.lat.487 and Walters W.428), with the exception of Cancer, which remained a crayfish into the 16th century.

Summary

Can we geolocate the closest matches?

Even though the non-scorpion Scorpius may have originated in NE France, the manuscripts that combine it with male/female affectionate Gemini and crayfish-Cancer seem to be mostly from southern Germany, especially around Augsburg, with one from Basel, Switzerland (14th century).

This survey is restricted, of course, to digitized examples available on the Web, there may be treasures hiding in dusty libraries, but at least it gives a reasonably good picture of a specific approach to zodiacs that is consistent with the VMS.

J.K. Petersen

Not Náhuatl?

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In previous blogs, I described possible influences on VMS Pisces and later added a postscript with some pictures of the alligator gar—a New World fish identified by certain researchers as the inspiration for Pisces. This blog looks at other animal identifications and the otolal “label” near the Pisces fish, which the researchers claim is in Náhuatl.

Janick and Tucker, in collaboration with Talbert and Flaherty, have published articles and a book about the Voynich Manuscript that make significant claims about the identity of the flora and fauna. It will take several blogs to comment on their theories and interpretations, so I decided to start with something simple.

Deciphering VMS otolal

On page 162 of Unraveling the Voynich Codex, the researchers state that the VMS “Pisces” fish, and the large fish with a nymph in its mouth (f70r), are New World fish called the alligator gar. They follow this up with the following decipherment:

“The word otolal above the gar can be decoded as ātlācâocâ, according to Tucker and Talbert (2013). Based on similarities to Nahuatl, we suggest that ātlācâocâ might mean “still fished” (ātlācâ = fished, fisherman/spear throwers + oc(a) = still).” —Janick & Tucker, 2018

I don’t know Náhuatl, so I cannot comment directly on this decipherment, but I can pass on what I saw when I looked up ātlācâ in a classical Náhuatl dictionary.

Looking Up ātlācâ

I did a search for atlaca in the Náhuatl dictionary of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. There were numerous hits, but none of them had anything to do with fished, fisherman, or spear throwers. Instead, there was a list of fairly consistent definitions and word combinations relating to bad, ugly, malformed, unwell, bestial, or undesirable, many of them from the 1571 dictionary of the Náhuatl language compiled by Alonso de Molina, a Franciscan priest.

When associated with other syllables or words, atlaca is similar to “mal-” in English, French, and Spanish, which is used to form concepts like malicious, malignant, malady, malformed, and malevolent. There was a reference to mariners, but the word was not specific to sailors, it used sailors as an example of a group of people who are commonly maligned or considered unsavory and the word “ruffians” or “undesirables” could just as easily have been used.

I found some definitions for oc and oca, but I don’t know Náhuatl grammar and can’t judge if it would be correct or usual to append oc or oca to ātlācâ in this way. Perhaps someone who knows Náhuatl will eventually offer an opinion on this.

Another Puzzling Identification

Turning back to the imagery, Janick and Tucker identify this little drawing as a jellyfish:

The image on the bottom of folio 78r… clearly shows the bell and tentacles of a jellyfish…. This tiny zoomorph is crudely rendered and impossible to identify to species level, but there are two possibilities: Chrysaora fuscescens… commonly known as the Pacific sea nettle or the West Coast sea nettle…, or the moon jelly… which is the most common jellyfish in the Gulf of Mexico. —Janick and Tucker (2018, p. 161)

This identification surprises me. Are the researchers ignoring context? I’m pretty sure this is a drain pipe drawn from the front and has nothing to do with sea jellies. There is a drain pipe drawn from the side on the obverse folio:

Large-Plant Identification

Janick and Tucker have suggested that the vine-like plant on folio 49r is Lithophragma affine a delicate plant in the Saxifrage family. They have further identified the snake-like creatures in the roots as a species of salamander (Dermophis mexicanis).

The ID of Lithophragma affine is problematic.

Lithophragma affine, or woodlandstar, doesn’t grow in the Gulf area. It’s almost entirely confined to California, with a minority of sightings in the northwest corner of Mexico. I don’t know if it had wider distribution 400 years ago, but it seems fairly particular about its habitat and doesn’t like overly hot climates.

Dermophis mexicanis, a legless salamander, lives further south. It is a tropical/subtropical salamander that inhabits lowland moist forests from Mexico to Nicaragua. It feeds on bugs, snails, and earthworms as it burrows through loose soil and leaf litter. It does not eat or dig deep into solid roots, as far as I know.

If it were determined that the VMS was a New World publication, it would still be difficult to find links between D. mexicanis and Lithophragma affine that would inspire an illustrator to combine these geographically separate species on the same page.

Prior Identifications of 49v

I wrote about f49v in 2013. I believe the viny plant may be Cuscuta, commonly known as “dodder”. Cuscuta is a parasitic vine. It does not need leaves for photosynthesis because it infiltrates the stalks and sometimes the roots of its host plant. Some species of dodder wind themselves around the stem, others climb over the host to form a monster umbrella.

When Cuscuta is seeking a new host, a long slender shoot wiggles through the soil very much like a snake. Technically, it doesn’t burrow through roots, but once attached to the host, it does sink fang-like filaments into the host’s tissues to suck out the nutrients. If a new shoot doesn’t find a suitable host within a few hours, it will die.

The VMS plant is leafless, with flowers along the length of the stalk, and it’s quite viny. Cuscuta is much the same. In contrast, the woodlandstar (right) is a white- or pink-flowered plant with long, thin, relatively straight stalks and basal leaves somewhat like Ranunculus. The flowers of woodlandstar do not grow along the stalk close to the base.

While an ID of Cuscuta is not a certainty, it does explain the various features of the VMS drawing more completely than a tropical salamander coupled with a California plant that doesn’t resemble the VMS drawing well except for a small swelling behind the flower petals.

One More for the Road

I don’t want to make this overly long, but I would like to mention one more Janick/Tucker/Talbert/Flaherty animal ID.

In the past, I have posted images and maps of VMS Scorpius, which is brownish-green and somewhat similar to a lizard or salamander (lizards and salamanders were often drawn with upright legs in the Middle Ages, as the salamander on the right). It’s a little difficult to see the end of it, but the VMS critter’s tail is very long and reaches all the way past its ankle and in between the two hind legs:

It might seem like a strange way to depict a scorpion, but it is reasonably consistent with some of the Scorpius dragon/lizard/salamander zodiacs of the time. Once again, here is a map of some of the non-scorpion Scorpius drawings:

I was very surprised when Tucker and Talbert identified VMS Scorpius as a cat, and that Janick and Flaherty supported this ID. In their words:

The dark brown or black cat-like animal with a noticeably long tail on folio 73r… appears to be a jaguarundi (Puma yaguaroundi…) in agreement with Tucker and Talbert (2013), who identified this as a black Gulf Coast jaguarundi (P. yagouaroundi cacomitli). —Janick & Tucker (2018)

First of all, the VMS “Scorpius” drawing is not dark brown or black, it’s tannish-green. The tail is noticeably long, and tapers significantly toward its end and curls in a very un-catlike way. Other hairy or woolly animals are drawn in the VMS with lines to indicate the textured coats, but Scorpius does not appear to be furry. Here is an illustration of a jaguarundi (note the shorter, blunter tail):

Why choose the jaguarundi as an ID for Scorpius when VMS Scorpius resembles other Scorpius drawings much more closely than a New World cat?

If the researchers don’t see this as a reptile, amphibian, or dragon, as in traditional drawings of Scorpius, then why not include a range of animals that more closely match the drawing, like the kinkajou or civet (note that VMS scorpio has a line of dots on its side, a characteristic more strongly associated with amphibians, reptiles, and civets than with the jaguarundi):

Summary

I’ve said this before, but I think it’s unproductive to associate a crude VMS drawing of an animal or plant with a specific species unless there are strong indicators that it is something unique and thus clearly identifiable (or for which there is an unambiguous exemplar). Most of the VMS drawings are vague and recognizable only through context—a table of possibilities makes more sense.

In their recent book, the authors dismissed the opinions of numerous researchers by referring to “non-published internet comments and chatter“, but other researchers, many of whom have excellent credentials, remain unpublished because research is ongoing and they prefer not to assume too much too soon.

Mistakes are inevitable, in a work of this antiquity and design, so no one is going to get it right every time, but there’s a difference between careful research that goes awry, and research built on faulty premises. If you rush to publication before an impulse is thoroughly investigated, you might mistake a drainpipe for a jellyfish.

J.K. Petersen