Review of Jorge Luis Borges’ (1962) “Labyrinths”…
The notion that Jorge Luis Borges’ “Labyrinths” – a collection of idiosyncratic short stories, essays, and even parables by the much-acclaimed Argentinian writer, wrangled into English with no little...
View ArticleUpdate on Captain Nave…p
Having now reread Ian Pfennigwerth’s “Man of Intelligence” and gone through various files at the NAA, I now have slightly more solid dates framing what Captain Nave was doing in 1949. Nave’s Career...
View ArticleThe Zodiac Bath Hypothesis…
The Voynich Manuscript’s zodiac roundel section has long frustrated researchers’ efforts to make sense of it at a high level, never mind determining what any specific zodiac nymph’s label means....
View ArticleCod. Sang. 760 and the “Iatromathematisches Hausbuch” Voynich hypothesis…
An interesting-sounding document referred to by Alfred Martin in 1906 (pp.174-175, thanks to Stefan Mathys!) is Cod. Sang. 760, the contents of which the St Gallen archivists describe as follows: This...
View ArticleReview of “The Secret Code-Breakers of Central Bureau”…
Australian writer David Dufty’s just-released (2017) “The Secret Code-Breakers of Central Bureau” attempts to be two things at once: a hard-nosed revisionist cryptologic history of the Second World War...
View ArticleThe Secret History of Typex QQQQQ…
A few years ago, while giving a talk at Westminster Under School on the WW2 pigeon cipher, I mentioned that (a) Typex messages were sent in groups of five letters; and (b) when some German codebreakers...
View ArticleA solved pigeon cipher mystery (from 1952)…
Because Trove holds newspaper articles all the way up to 1954, you occasionally stumble across interesting stories from around the world picked up by Australian newspapers. And because I’ve been raking...
View ArticleBrévart’s “Volkskalender B” family of manuscripts…
A few days ago, when discussing the way that the Sagittarius crossbowman appears in similar fifteenth century manuscripts, I wrote that it was clear to me “that we are looking at a family of...
View ArticleVolkskalender manuscripts and Cisiojanus feast-day mnemonics…
I thought I’d post up a quick thought that came to me just now while looking at Fribourg Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire Ms. L 309 (which is yet another volkskalender, naturally). There, the...
View ArticleA Cisiojanus July Voynich crib?
Following the Volkskalender and Cisiojanus logical train of thought to its next station along, the question comes whether there might be any other information we have about the Voynich zodiac nymphs...
View ArticleSearching and researching…
There are now many people who would happily classify themselves as ‘online researchers’. You don’t usually have to peer too far beyond the end of your mouse to see their forum comments, web pages, blog...
View ArticleDomenico De’ Domenichi (1416-1478) and Vat. Gr. 1291…
Vat. Gr. 1291 is a manuscript that has had a fair amount of Voynich-related attention over the years. A beautifully illustrated copy of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables, its fol.9r contains a circular...
View ArticleWhat’s the point of blogging?
For a long time, the accepted answer has been that “bloggers do things [and document what they do] so that you don’t have to“. In this worldview, bloggers are net-savvy individuals cursed by a craving...
View ArticleVoynich f57v
Just a quick visual idea for you to ponder on with regard to Voynich Manuscript page f57v: it’s something I’ve not seen mentioned elsewhere. Back in 2010, I posted a page here discussing astrolabes,...
View ArticleVoynich labelese…
I posted here a few weeks ago about whether the Cisiojanus mnemonic might be in the Voynich zodiac labels, and also about a possible July Cisiojanus crib to look for. Since then I’ve been thinking...
View ArticleWhat’s wrong with today’s Voynich theory?
A tip of my monkey’s uncle’s Susquehanna hat to Derek Abbott for today’s cipher history link: a new Voynich theory by Nicholas Gibbs in the Times Literary Supplement. Gibbs explains the circumstances...
View ArticlePossible Voynich f17r handwriting match…
In August 2016, I spent a day at the British Library trawling through many of its palaeography books (as I described here). What I was specifically in search of was examples of handwriting that matched...
View ArticleThe death of Wikipedia, but the birth of what?
The appearance of Nicholas Gibbs’ Voynich theory in the current Times Literary Supplement “Autumn Fiction Special” issue (and what deliciously outrageous irony that placement is) has caused all manner...
View ArticleZodiac Killer alive and graffiti-ing in Cyprus…?
Here’s the evidence that the Zodiac Killer is alive and busy with a spray can in Cyprus, visual documentary evidence to which only the most obtuse could possibly object: And if you think that’s the...
View Article“Somerton Beach” by Jerkcurb…
I’ve had a dissatisfying, rubbish day today: but given that every day I’ve previously had that involved some kind of interaction with Stephen Bax had been a bad day, perhaps there should be no element...
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