WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The Voynich Manuscript 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:10.760 Thinking Sideways. I don't know. I'm not you never know 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:21.480 what stories of things we simply don't know the answer to. Hi, everybody, 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:26.119 welcome to Thinking Sideways. I'm Steve as always, I'm joined 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.760 by my co host Devon and Joe, and once again 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.839 we're gonna look into a kind of a big mystery 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.400 and we're going to solve it. Yeah. I don't know 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.240 about that, but we've gotten a lot of listener requests 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.879 for this particular story and we finally gave in, we're 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.360 gonna do it. We've also gotten a lot of listener 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.960 requests for longer shows, so just keep in mind, this 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.800 is what you asked for. It is going to be 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.960 a long one because ladies and gentlemen, what we're gonna 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:57.800 talk about today is we're gonna talk about the Voyage Manuscript. 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.600 And a lot of people have probably heard of the manuscript, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.600 but we're gonna we're gonna go through all of the 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.199 details and you're gonna be really surprised at how much 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.040 there is. Uh To give it a basic overviews, the 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.119 Voyage Manuscript is a book which is written in an 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.480 unknown language and it's full of illustrations or maybe a 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.200 known language, but we don't know what it is, but 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:28.480 an unknown alphabet, that's possible. That's possible. Sorry, that's okay, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:33.840 let's strange code. Let's start with the history and talk 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.400 about the book first. Probably the simplest place is probably 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.360 the beginning, the best place, Okay, the book itself. It's 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:45.560 called the Voytage Manuscript because it was purchased by a 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:51.360 man named Wilfred Voynage in nineve But it's been around 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.400 for several hundred years, and we know some of the history, 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.320 or people guests at some of the history, and well, 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:04.320 I'll just dive right into the history. Somewhere between sixteen 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:08.040 hundred to sixteen ten, it's believed that the book was 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:12.560 owned by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second. And 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:14.920 this this would by the way, be well over a 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.200 hundred years after it was created. Well, according to the 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.120 theories that of the age of creation. Yes, so this 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.800 is this is a partial history passed through a lot 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.320 of famous hands. It has. From there it left the 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:33.840 Emperor Rudolph the Second's hand and was owned but theoretically 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:40.400 by his imperial distiller Um banned by the name of 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:46.480 Jacobus two Pensk's, which is an easy namesake. It ends 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.080 in a seas, so I think I I nailed that 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:55.960 between sixteen thirty to sixteen forty five. They think that 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:01.720 a German Bohemian alchemist named Joey George Barresh owned it. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:09.560 Sixteen sixty five, it's believed that it was owned by 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:15.240 Johannus Marcus Marci of kron Land. Yeah, wherever that is. Yeah, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.840 I tried to that that might actually be a store 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.320 or not a country. Yeah, I went to the local 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:26.760 chron Land. Yeah, yeah, he actually it was I read 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.200 about this. He was friends with George Barresh, and when 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.959 Bresh died he willed the book to Marcy of kron Land. Yeah, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:38.320 and apparently he was friends with with Mr Kirscher, and 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.520 Borresch had actually been in correspondence with Kersher because he thought, 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.600 you felt that Kersher had had he had the smarts 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.520 to actually decipher break this code. You're right, I remember 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:55.120 reading that Kersher he was a very bright guy anyway. 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.200 But but so he actually he actually hand copied sections 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.960 of the books of the book and wrote to alan 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:06.440 As Kersher twice with these and asking him for his input. 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.680 And Kersher wanted the book itself so you can look 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.240 at it and and but Rash was never willing to 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.840 do that. But then when he died, he willed it 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.440 to his friend Johanness marci And of kron Land the store, 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.880 and he willed to him, who almost immediately gave it 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.720 to Kirsher because he felt like Kirscher was the only 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:27.560 guy who would be able to make hatcher tails out 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:29.800 of it. That's okay. That that explains the gaps that 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.080 I couldn't couldn't quite pin down Kirsher, Yeah, and wound 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.720 up and wind with it. I guess it was destiny. Yeah, 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.040 destiny For the next couple of centuries. We're talking two 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.640 d fifty plus years. We don't know where it was. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.080 It's believed that the Jesuits had it and that they 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.000 moved it around Europe from place to place. Why or 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:56.000 how is unknown. Well, they're pretty good at keeping records 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.200 at saying we don't know if this is important or not, 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:00.880 but it looks like might be, so we're going to 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:03.120 just hang on to it. I just put in the 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:04.840 back corner. Yeah, that's one of those thing. I can 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.200 imagine myself just rooting around my basement two boxes and like, oh, 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.159 there is it. Wouldn't believe I was. I was down 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.360 in my basement the other day this last weekend doing 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.520 a little house cleaning and getting and going to stuff, 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.880 and I found stuff I'd totally forgotten I ever owned. Yeah, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.159 it's like, oh wow, that's the joy of having a basement. Yeah, 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:28.040 let's see from there. As we said, nineteen twelve, Wilfred 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.400 Voyage purchases the book. We don't know where he gets 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:34.880 it from, or I don't know. I know he purchased it, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.280 but I don't remember exactly where. I believe he bought 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.200 it in Italy, did he? Yeah, I'll run with that 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.080 because I can't remember exactly where. When he died he 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.320 gave it to He I believe, willed it to his 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.640 wife Ethel, who then gave it to a woman named 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:56.120 an Nil, who then sold it in nineteen sixty one 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.200 to a man by the name of HP Krause. In 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:04.440 nineteen s the Nine Crowds donated to Yale University's Binicky 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.680 Rare Book and Manuscript Library. So Yale has it. So 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.800 Yale has it today. They still have it today for now. Yeah. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.200 So that's and that's where it is. That's where they're 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.360 they've done a great job of getting good photos of 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.560 it and making it available to everybody. But it's a 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.800 several year old, hundred year old text, so we don't 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.040 want everybody leafing through it kind of but it is. 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.240 But I think it is available if you go in 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.320 and your researcher of any kind. I know they've made 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.960 it available to certain forensic scientists. They have you've got 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.160 to have the credentials to prove that you can get 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.000 to it. You and I couldn't just walk in there 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.440 and we have the credentials. The thing about it, I've 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:48.400 looked at their photographs of the book online and it's 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.560 very clear and you know, you can really great. Yeah, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:54.960 they've done a really good job, high detail and everything. Yeah, 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:56.919 it's good. Yeah. All right. So we've talked about the 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.240 history that we think we know that we're fairly that 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.040 we yeah, we're fairly sure. People believe they figured it out. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.320 Folks have tried to pinpoint where it might have and 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.680 when it might have been made, and some of that 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:15.160 they've done based on characteristics that are in the text itself. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.960 Let me just run through some of that. Uh. So, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.640 it has what they referred to as a upright handwriting 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:28.240 style that's reminiscent of Carolinian minuscule, which evidently was in 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.480 use from eight hundred to twel hundred. Or it's uh, there, 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:37.400 there's another it's it's Italian. How do you say that? Show? Okay, 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.080 which I guess is called the Humanist hand, which was 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:46.680 from fourteen to fifteen hundred, and the radio the carbon 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.280 dating kind of puts it in that range as well. 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.440 People have also said that the drawings have parallel hatching, 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.840 and hatching is when you you draw a series of 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.440 lines to infer shading, which is similar to you know, 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:03.880 one of the first guys that really did a lot 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:05.520 of that is Da Vinci. If you look at a 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.640 lot of old drawings, that's how he gave depth and shadows. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.880 You cross hatch in there. So people think that it 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.960 could have been from his arrow, which would have been 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.280 if it was made in Germany or that style came out, 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.840 it would have been in Germany and around fourteen ten. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.960 If it was made in Florence it would have been 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:31.080 fourteen forty, or if it was after fourteen fifty, then 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.600 it could have been anywhere, because that style had gone 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.520 across Europe. It had gone viral. Yes, but so that's 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.360 a pretty good solid like you know, sixty year seven 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.160 year old window, right. Yeah. For for the cross hatching, yes, 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.720 and for that that uh kind of matches with the 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.839 hands for the Italian Yeah, for the Italian hands handwriting style, yes, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.720 it does. But we've also got some things some people 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.920 who have owned the book have made notes on it 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.240 and in the margin, and that handwriting seems to be 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.559 done in the style of the fifteenth century. So we're 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:12.680 looking at the four hundreds and there's some of the 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.200 other notes that are written on it, and this is 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.640 primarily notes that are in the zodiac section. That style 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.360 of handwriting. People have pointed to say is from the 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.800 southwest of France, so there's a lot of different places 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.600 that it could have been just based on basic facts. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.960 So it's it's kind of hard to figure out. So 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.559 it's a it's a it's a manuscript, and so it's 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.600 like a book, yes, right, And it's um nine point 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:43.920 three inches by six point four inches by two inches, right, 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.360 so it's two inches thick thick, so not a big 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:49.920 book though that's like a huge but it's not like 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.280 one of those massive things you think about from life, 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:54.800 which is because you look at the pictures and they 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.319 look really big. They do, Yeah, exactly, it's kind of 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.440 blown up, but it's a little book, but it's it's 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:04.120 hundreds of vellum pages, and vellum's pretty thin paper material. 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.840 It's kind of see through almost a little bit too. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:08.560 So it's possible for there to be a lot of 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.600 pages in a small amount of space, i e. Like 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.160 old books, old bibles, things like that. You see it 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.880 on a paper like that. Paper is valuable, so you 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.400 gotta you gotta use as much of it as possible. Yeah, 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.040 and you know, make it as condensed as possible. So 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.640 they're collected into eighteen what are called choirs, which are 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:31.120 those little like fold like folded areas. Right. You know, 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.559 when you look at a traditionally bound book, you know, 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:35.120 if you look at it from the top, you notice 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.120 that you have sections. Yeah, and those are folded over 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.720 and stitched together and stitched together in one big book. Yeah. 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.920 Those are the choirs, right, each one of them, each 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.880 one of those sections. Yeah. So depending on how some 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.000 of the pages are folded or things like that, or 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.520 how you count them, I guess it's about two and 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.280 forty pages in total. Um. There's some numbering in the 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.920 right hand corners of the right hand pages is which 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.800 pretty much everybody agrees was done by somebody who owned it. 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:06.640 So this is one of those people who after the 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.600 fact owned Yeah, it wasn't done by the person who 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.640 did it, but who was kind of maybe archiving it. 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:12.960 You know, they owned it. They were like, hey, we 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.199 should probably number these pages. It might be they kept 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.079 dropping the book and all the choirs would fall a 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:22.959 party didn't. Yeah, he started. Yeah, so they are numbered 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:27.000 one through a hundred and sixteen, but there's some number gaps, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.800 so people think that it's it's probably more like two 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.960 hundred and seventy two pages originally altogether. Yeah, because there 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.319 are there are missing pages and we don't know what's 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.000 supposed to be on them, right. And then Wilford Vointage, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.400 as we mentioned before, acquired the manuscript in nineteen twelve, 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.000 and there's there's a lot of strong evidence that all 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.120 all the different choirs have been kind of reordered, rearranging 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.000 it the way they thought it should go. Understanding how 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.079 that that's correct? Yeah, yeah, I mean you know that 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:00.960 or that again. You know, you drop a book and 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.040 you're like, I don't remember where everything goes I'm just 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:04.560 going to shove it back in. You know, it's been 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:06.840 around for so long, it's it's quite possible it's been 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:11.599 rebound several times since kind of fall apart. So interestingly, 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:13.640 know if there's missing stuff, you know, and since it 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:14.880 used to be in the hands of the Pope, it 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.120 would be kind of cool to go through the Vaticans 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.360 all their archives and see if the missing pages are 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:27.559 there of similarities the Vatican. Dear Vatican, this is you've 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.440 heard of us? Surely Pope frances his favorite podcast. Yeah. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:36.560 Um So, anyways, back to the the story, um So, based 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.120 on modern analysis, we pretty much know that it was 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.160 written by a quill pen with iron gall ink for 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.840 the text and the figure outlines, and then colored paint 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.880 kind of like watercolor color paint. It's color was applied 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.160 to the figures. Um And the book has been carbon 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.200 dated to the early fifteenth century, so the early four hundreds. 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.200 So that kind of corresponds with what we were talking 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.080 about with the history I bit as well. Okay, so 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.400 I'm sure you guys want to know about the text itself. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.800 So it's it's clearly written from left to right. Uh, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.560 and so it's got a pretty pretty straight left margin 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.000 and kind of a ragged right margin, which is what 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.040 is to be expected, So that gives it's just probably 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.920 more likely European than Semitic and origin. Some of the 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.360 longer sections are broken into paragraphs, and some of them 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.760 actually have bullet points that they're shaped like stars or flowers, 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.840 and there's no punctuation. And I've noticed as myself going 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.360 through the text, it's like there's no obvious punctuation in 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.080 there unless certain characters represent a period, but then we'd 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.480 be seeing them consistently, and I'm not seeing that pattern. 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.600 There's no indications of errors or corrections, so there's no 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.120 no words that have been crossed out, there's no you 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:45.560 know how you you do that little thing where you 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.760 write the word above and there's a little va pointing 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.760 up to go. None of that going on. And and 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.400 for as long as this text is, that's amazing. But 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.800 I feel like that a lot. It happened a lot 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.120 in those days, but you just like wrote it, and 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:05.199 rewrote it, used the papers like write. I mean, yeah, 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.560 I don't know how quickly Vellum absorbs in either, but 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.959 from modern Vellum sucks inc in pretty quickly. Now, I 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.240 don't know about you know, four years ago, how it was. 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.880 I know that it pulls it in pretty quick. Yeah, well, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:22.800 the old timing stuff. I was just wondering if the 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:24.800 ink takes a while to soak in, and if you 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.640 have to have a moment to wipe it off, if 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.560 you make a mistake and then rewrite it, you might 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.480 be able to blot it up. But I think you 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.600 see that you'd see the Yeah, books back then were 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.800 all handwritten. They didn't have the printing press writing. And 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.960 I think often you see books that didn't have I mean, 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:45.000 some of them did have mistakes in them, but some 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.160 of them didn't. And I think that's one of the 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:52.520 intriguing things about this manuscript is that, you know, assuming 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.200 that it is a real text, it may be suggests 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:56.800 that there are other versions of it, or there were 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:58.880 other versions. Yeah. I was gonna say, to have written 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.240 it enough time just that you didn't make any errors anymore. 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.640 Back in the day when monks would write the Bibles 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.680 and they would eat, just sit down and make the 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:11.080 same page over and over and over, you had to 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.360 write that thing a lot of times. But here's what 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.840 I'll tell you is that having a job in which 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.560 I often write the same thing over and over and 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.080 over again. It's always like the fiftieth time that you 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.240 make a mistake, right, It's never like the first time, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.320 because you're like on it, you're like the right way, 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.800 you're really paying attention. And then it's like after you 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.280 feel like you've written enough times that you like you 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.400 have it is when you make the mistakes you get comfortable. Yeah, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.760 you can do the cut and paste. Yeah, that's what 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.720 I did in my job, a lot of boiler plate 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.000 in my reports. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, okay, back to 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.040 the text I do to you all the time, so 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.480 no worries. So anyway, no indications of errors or corrections, 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.600 and that might be significant. I'll talk about that later, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.160 but I'll hold you all a suspense for now. We're 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:07.120 gonna talk about that after the commercial. Uh So, they're 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.760 over a hundred and seventy thousand letters in this text. 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.600 They call them lifts that and there are thirty five 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.440 thousand words of varying length in there, from a couple 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.240 of letters to about ten. They're very simple pen strokes 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.640 for the most part, so the words seem to follow 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.320 like a phonological or orthographic law. This is linguistic stuff 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:28.840 that I have a hazy understanding of it, meaning that 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.120 certain characters appear in each word, like vowels. For example. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.480 You can't write an English letter without a word without 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.920 a vowel, so so some vowels are going to just 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.920 have to be there. Uh. Some characters never follow others, 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.240 Some always follow others. There's been a couple of in 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.600 that I've noticed just from perusing the text, and always 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.000 seem to go together. There's like Q in a year. 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.320 There's yeah, exactly in this text there there are two letters. 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.520 Then they might just be a single character too, but 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.800 it looks like an L and an F, and they 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.280 always follow each other, and so probably as it could 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.880 just be a single character. I don't know. But so 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.040 the characters seem fairly simple, though I think you know 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:12.600 right there they they are in one way, but in 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:16.119 not another way. Yes, yeah, so anyway characters. Some characters 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.800 always follow some characters and never follow other characters. Some 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.080 can be doubled or tripled even, but others not. Some 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.000 words only occur in certain sections, and some occur throughout 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:26.960 the manuscript. And I've noticed as too, even though I 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:28.800 haven't read the whole thing. I spotted. I've sort of 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.040 hopped around a little bit and looked at various pages, 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:33.480 and I've noticed some words that appear a lot in 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:37.359 some sections and not in others. So and it maybe 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.439 possibly has something to do with the subject matter of 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.800 the section. I'm not really sure. There aren't a lot 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.800 of repetitions among the labels that are attached to the illustrations. 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.760 The illustrations themselves, even though there's much repetition in the 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.159 text itself, there's not in the labels, which suggests that 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:56.360 they're actually labels. Probably. Yeah, so, and and as Joe 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.439 was kind of saying, there are different sections, they're actually 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.560 six to print sections, and this is what we we've 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.119 defined it as six sections. Yeah, they're fair I think, 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.120 you know, as Joe is saying, there, they are fairly distinct, 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.720 at least with the illustrations. Um. And I think that's 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:15.639 you know, the one thing that we can kind of 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:19.359 know about this manuscript is we don't know what the 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.160 words say anything like that, but we can look and say, oh, 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.800 the drawings in this kind of group are all the same. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.720 So we're going to say this is a section. So 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:33.040 the six sections, there's an herbal section that has drawings 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.280 of plants, uh, most of which are like really unidentifiable 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:42.040 or kind of almost like impressionistic paint drawings of that 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.159 because of the coloring, the way that it's coloring, but 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.880 that they're also kind of straft yeah, stylized. I think 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.040 it's probably the best. Okay, it could be that it 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.680 was they were drawn by somebody who couldn't draw, which 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.879 would be interesting because it would mean there are multiple 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.240 artists because some of the other drawings are like really good, 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.880 really great. Then there's the astronomical section, which has illustrations 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.720 of the sun, moon, stars, and zodiac symbols. The so 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.280 called biological section, which is kind of the most interesting 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:19.480 and fascinating one because it's um got some weird kind 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:25.480 of anatomical drawings with small female human figures populating systems 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.679 of tubes and transporting green liquid from place to place. 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:34.239 They also have a lot of Christian symbology mixed in 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.399 with them, and they look really European. And then we 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:42.920 have the cosmological section, with mostly circular drawings that are 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:46.560 kind of they've they're they're so far they're unexplained to me. 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.639 It looks a lot like video game maps, right, like 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:53.720 different worlds in a video game map, and they're like 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:55.879 there's bridges in between some of them but not others, 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:58.880 and they're all kind of circular and weird. I don't 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:00.960 know if that's just what it looks like to me. Uh. 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.760 There's the pharmaceutical section, which is it's called that because 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.679 it has drawings of containers which often have small plant 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:13.880 parts like leaves or roots next to the containers. And 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.880 recipe section, which consists mostly of like lots of short 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:22.600 paragraphs um that have like weird star drawings in the margin. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:28.040 So it's definitely worth the time to go out and 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.879 take a look at the pictures, indeed, and and they're 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:36.119 they're they're fascinating. I think we might have mentioned this already. 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:41.560 But they believe that the color was added to the 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:47.800 illustrations later on, and the research points out that they 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:52.359 believe that they only had four I think it's four 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.480 colors available, So every time there's a blue, it's the 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:00.280 same blue, whether it's it's thinner or stronger, make it 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.960 lighter or darker, but it's always the same blue or 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.080 the same green. So they didn't have a whole lot 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.080 of colors available, which makes sense because you have to mix. 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.520 You had to mix color by hand at that point, 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.440 the same berries exactly, and it's not easy to make, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.080 so you use all of it and you just make 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.199 as much as you need. You know. One of the 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.560 things about the drawings and everything, it kind of makes 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.960 me wonder is that, as you know, paper was probably 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.399 pretty scarce back in those days. I sort of wonder 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:35.200 if somebody somebody was like making these sketches, somebody else 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:37.840 came along and needed some paper to write on and 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.600 just and just basically rode around these around these drawings. 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.960 It was completely unrelated. And and then you know, somebody 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:47.679 else came along later and did a little color and 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:52.760 treated them like coloring books. I mean, it's always possible. 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.440 Anything is possible when it comes to the voltage manuscribed, 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.000 it really is. And that's one of that, just as 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.399 in the side. You know, we talked about the history before, 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:04.280 but it's amazing how long people have been puzzling over 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.720 this thing. Some of the people that like like Mr 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:09.719 Marcy that we talked about earlier, that wouldn't turn it 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.919 over to what's his name, Mr Kirch, Mr Kirshner or 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.840 Mr Kerscher Uh, he spent twenty years trying to figure 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.919 this thing out. People currently have spent longer. Yeah, and 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:25.240 it is perplexing. And the illustrations are interesting because typically 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:31.679 there's one illustration per page, and as Joe was alluding to, 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.080 it takes up the majority of the page. And if 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.879 if we look at the plant one specifically, it's typically 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:45.080 the entire plant from route to tips. So it's maybe 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.399 they have a flower drawn here there that's kind of 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.520 a highlight section, but most of it is just that 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.280 one plant and then and that's why people believe that 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.960 they're the text is about those plants. Some of the 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:02.439 other the other illustrations of the women that you were 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.560 talking about before, a little more perplexing. I think the 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:12.000 worse the really good explanation for that. I know we're 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.040 going to get to Yes, we got to get to 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:16.720