Two new Voynich Limericks
A nice set of past Voynich limericks are elsewhere on Cipher Mysteries, but I thought (six years on) I’d write a couple of new ones for you: Might Voynichese be Nahuatl? Or incomprehensible prattle? We...
View ArticleThe Book of Soyga, now translated and online…
The story of how two remaining copies of the Book of Soyga (one owned by John Dee) were uncovered in 1994 by Deborah Harkness has become fairly well known – I covered it here back in 2008. Dee had...
View ArticleI’m going to try to separate La Buse posts from Le Butin posts…
When I look at all the different cipher mysteries, the main thing I want to achieve with them is a certain level of clarity. Solving them would be a huge bonus (given that most are from so long ago,...
View ArticleTracking down the Klondyke Company…
Google now has me thoroughly confused. I’ve been trying to track down Captain Russell, presumably arriving in Port Louis in Mauritius in 1926 with a load of technical sensing equipment on a boat from...
View ArticleThe Voynich battle is only just beginning…
Contrary to what some Voynich people like to assert, the point of History is really not to allow a thousand speculative flowers to bloom. Rather, the idea is to work so closely with the available...
View ArticleFranciscan monasteries in Switzerland 1450-1610…
Back in 2012, I got (briefly) excited by the hypothesis that the marginalia on f116v of the Voynich Manuscript might well have been added in the library of a monastery not too far from Lake Constance,...
View ArticleNick Pelling Fortean Voynich talk in London, 25th February 2016
I’ve been persuaded by the lovely people at the London Fortean Society to give a talk next month (25th February 2016, Bell pub in Petticoat Lane, 7.30pm for an 8pm start, £4/£2 concs) on the weird (and...
View ArticleThomas Leonard Keane and the Somerton Man…
Pete Bowes has had some comments left on his Somerton Man blog by a certain ‘Margaret Hookham’ (which, trivia fans, was actually Dame Margot Fonteyn’s real name). In these web-weary days we live in,...
View ArticleVoynich statistics, and why Voynichese is not flat…
You might think I’d be pleased by the appearance of another Voynich statistics study (Voynich Manuscript: word vectors and t-SNE visualization of some patterns), courtesy of those well-known...
View ArticleThe book hidden inside Voynich Quire 20…
Back in August 2010, I posted up some observations on the Voynich Manuscript’s Quire 20, which included: * Tim Tattrie pointed out that ‘x’ appears on every folio of Q20 except the first (f103) and the...
View ArticleQuire 20 and Johannes Alcherius: this is how the book is found…
In a recent post, I discussed a large number of features of the Voynich Manuscript’s Quire 20, to try to get under its vellum skin (so to speak). One thing I’d add is that if you compare the vellum...
View ArticleThe Italian colour recipes research tree…
A “research tree” is the term I like to use to describe a whole group of evidence / artefacts / phenomena / ideas that are linked together in non-chain-like ways. The term is particularly relevant to...
View ArticleThe very social Somerton Man’s suitcase…
There has long been a tendency to frame the Somerton Man as some kind of social outsider, whether as a spy, a loner, a drifter, a criminal, or whatever. The fact that, nearly seventy years on, he...
View ArticleA simple cipher for you to decrypt…
In older writings, it should probably be no surprise that secret recipes and secret writing often go hand in hand. Today I was looking through Trinity College Library MS. 1351 (shelfmark O.7.23), a...
View ArticleJohannes van Heeck’s cipher manuscript…
A few days ago, Rene Zandbergen very kindly pointed me in the direction of Lat. Borg. 898, a cipher manuscript newly digitized by the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. This has 410 pages of handwritten...
View ArticleThe Voynich zodiac section – a block paradigm match…?
Statistical and cryptanalytical analyses tend to assume that ciphers will fit one of a small number of well-known and well-researched pigeonholes (e.g. Vigenère, autokey, etc). Unfortunately, this kind...
View ArticleIntroducing the Paris 7272 Cipher…
I mentioned the manuscript BNF Cod. Fonds Latin 7272 in a recent post, specifically because it contains various books on astronomy and astrology by the 13th century Genoese nobleman Andalò di Negro....
View ArticleLondon Fortean Society Voynich talk 25th February 2016
I’ve blogged before about the Voynich Manuscript talk I’ll be giving to the London Fortean Society this coming Thursday, but I need to make sure that anyone going realises that the venue has changed....
View ArticleA big thank you to the London Fortean Society…
Yes, a positively huge thank you to the London Fortean Society for having me along for one of their evenings. I had a lot of fun covering the Voynich Manuscript and I hope the 100-strong audience...
View ArticleInternet troll policy…
What is an Internet troll? To me, an Internet troll is anyone who puts up posts, pages, or comments (a) unsupported by evidence, (b) openly hateful, and (c) specifically designed to generate an...
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