Voynich Manuscript: Did Bay Area researchers decipher mysterious medieval book?

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It has mystified scholars for more than a century since a Polish collector acquired the medieval book now known by his name, its parchment pages filled with colorful illustrations of plants, stars and bathing women and elegantly handwritten in an unknown language.

Bay Area researchers this week led by a Foothill College anthropology instructor say they’ve now found the key to translating the Voynich Manuscript‘s cryptic text, a first step they say that will allow medieval language experts to build on their work and unravel the manuscript’s mysteries.

“We’ve now unlocked the door,” said Timothy King, a Foothill instructor who earned a doctorate in anthropological sciences from Stanford University. “We can read it.”

But many others have claimed to have solved the manuscript’s language riddle over the years, most recently a British researcher in May, only to have other scholars dismiss their work. The latest research from King is getting a similar reception.

“I can say without reservation that their proposal is not new to Voynich research, and it cannot possibly be correct,” said Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of The Medieval Academy of America in Cambridge, Mass., after reviewing King’s paper.

The origin and authorship of the peculiar paperback-sized Voynich Manuscript, now kept at a Yale University library of rare books, are unknown. The earliest record of its ownership is a 1639 letter from a Prague scholar to a Jesuit friend in Rome he thought might be able to translate a book he said had been owned by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.

Polish antiquarian book dealer Wilfrid Voynich bought it from the Jesuits in 1912 and took it with him when he moved to the United States before World War I. Its vellum pages were radio-carbon dated in 2011 to the early 15th century.

There have been plenty of theories about the manuscript and claims to have cracked its cryptic writing. Some suggested it was mere gibberish to perpetrate a hoax, others that it is some sort of code to conceal pagan heresies. None has been accepted as definitive.

In January 2018, University of Alberta computer scientists led by language processing expert Greg Kondrak claimed to have decoded the manuscript using artificial intelligence and concluded it was written in a form of Hebrew. Critics assailed their use of Google Translate to interpret some of the text.

In May, Gerard Cheshire, a visiting research associate at the University of Bristol, said in a published paper that he had identified the writing through “ingenuity and lateral thinking” as an extinct “proto-romance” tongue.

But critics pounded Cheshire’s research as well, with Davis calling it “aspirational, circular, self-fulfilling nonsense,” and the University of Bristol quickly withdrew its press release.

King, an archaeologist, linguist, and epigrapher of ancient Mesoamerian cultures, became interested in the Voynich Manuscript two years ago through one of his students, Bryce Beasley, who was fascinated with it.

They were inspired by Stephen Bax, a linguistics professor at the University of Bedfordshire who in 2014 published research claiming to have partially solved the language riddle using methods that deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bax said he identified names for recognizable herbs and stars in the illustrations and determined the book was likely a treatise on nature written in a Near Eastern or Asian language.

King said Bax, who died in 2017, “was right, but not entirely.” He credited Bax as “the first to provide correct readings of Voynich Manuscript writing system characters,” and said his team expanded on Bax’s work.

King said a breakthrough came as he was sounding out what he believed to be words in the text and his multi-lingual Italian girlfriend and co-researcher, Alessandra Andrisani, recognized them as similar to those in old regional Italian dialects rooted in Vulgar Latin.

With an expert in classical Latin, Julian Condo, the team concluded the manuscript’s language is “a Vulgar Latin dialect, likely affected by a contemporary Italian dialect.” But it was unrecognizable because it was written in “a late modified subset of a once widespread shorthand known as Tironian Notes.”

Tiro was the secretary of Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, and King said his shorthand method was developed and used in medieval European monasteries during a time before printing presses and paper when it was crucial to economize writing.

“This is what stumped everybody,” King said. “They took a medieval shorthand system that had been falling out of fashion and cleaned it up and made this brilliant, streamlined writing system. If you spoke the language, you could read it, and it was efficient.”

King said their limited foray into translating the text affirmed earlier theories that it is a late medieval manual on women’s health, including guidance for using the belladonna plant known as deadly nightshade to induce an abortion. In the paper they identify likely locations in Northern Italy of the castles and hot springs depicted in the manuscript.

King said they decided to publish their research online at academia.edu rather than through a peer-reviewed scientific journal because there are few experts in such a niche field.

“Who’s qualified to review this?” King asked. “Our work stands on its own. Qualified people are welcome to look at it.”

Cheshire, the British scholar whose Voynich research was published by Romance Studies in May, waved off the new California competition after reviewing the summary in King’s paper.

“My paper passed blind peer-review with a reputable journal, as it was independently tested and passed by a panel of academics,” Cheshire said. “That is the gold standard for academics. The only reason why doubt was cast over it in the news is because there are many enthusiasts out there for whom the manuscript is their social outlet and pastime, so they didn’t want it solved and they launched a trolling campaign.”

Cheshire’s paper published as King’s team was finalizing its own, and King called it uninformed.

Only time will tell whether the latest research withstands scrutiny or fades into the litany of claims that have failed to gain acceptance. But it may spark new interest in the curious artifact of medieval Europe.

“The book is amazing,” King said. “It’s beautiful.”

King’s team will present their research publicly at 7 p.m. Monday July 15 at the Appreciation Lecture Hall at Foothill College.