Voynich: A Book That No One Can Read
Can you decipher the mysterious text?
Conspirators!
What if I told you there was a 500 year-old manuscript with no title or author, written in a language that no one knows? What if I told you that it depicts strange botany, weird astrology, and potential pharmacology? What if I told you that people have spent their entire lives trying to decipher and no one has been able to crack it? Well, I did tell you those things (like, literally just now) and they all apply to the book known as “The Voynich manuscript.”
Let’s grab our reading glasses and open this bad boy up.
Could this be the key to the Universe? Or, even more intriguing, the work of a 15th century monk tripping balls??
The Voynich manuscript, named after the Polish book dealer who purchased it from a Jesuit library in Italy in 1912, is currently housed in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The vellum book, which was carbon dated to the 15th century, is over 200 pages long with quite a few foldouts with larger diagrams.
Although the language is unknown, it is likely meant to be read left to right and top to bottom. The text and imagery has been characterized as European in origin. Many believe it was meant to serve as a pharmacopoeia or to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. But between the mysterious language and the wacky drawings, there’s really no telling what the intended purpose was.
It has six Major sections: First, the “herbal” section, with plants that no one has been able to positively identify as native to Earth:
There are two sections that include circular diagrams and drawings that have been deemed “astronomical” or “cosmological” with images like this:
After that we have what could be termed the “bathing” section, featuring well, you guessed it, women bathing in tubs with plants and stuff. Crazy:
Then the manuscript ends with a couple sections of pages that seem to be pharmaceutical or medicinal recipes. Check it out:
Get in loser, we’re deciphering a medieval manuscript
Voynich never cracked the manuscript’s code and, ever since he failed, countless others have tried. It has been studied by professional cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. William F. Friedman, an army cryptographer, and his wife Elizabeth spent over 40 years trying to solve it and even created a Voynich Manuscript Study Group with some colleagues. They failed to figure out what it said.
But it’s not just professionals that want a crack at this thing. Plenty of amateurs have tried. And we all know where to find a slew of amateurs trying to solve an ancient mystery - Reddit. Check out the subReddit dedicated to it for some of their deep dives.
2020 Got you down? Waste more time diving into this nonsense!
With a previously unseen language, odd imagery, and no author to investigate, humanity may not ever decipher the Voynich manuscript. But it sure is fun to try!
The Stuff To Blow Your Mind podcast took the Voynich manuscript on in a 2 part series. Take a listen to Part 1 and Part 2.
The full Voynich Manuscript in PDF form is online. Maybe you can solve it yourself!
Any amateur codebreakers out there? Leave a comment with your thoughts! And don’t forget to subscribe before next week’s Nibble that explores multiple universes and children’s books -- yep, it’s time for the Berenstein Bears Theory...or wait, was it Berenstain?
As always, stay ‘spicious.
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