“What could be so scandalous, so dangerous, or so important to be written in such an uncrackable cipher?”

 

Perhaps NOTHING? Perhaps it is just a bunch of nonsensical drivel? Or, perhaps, according to this new take on the manuscript, it is something relatively mundane (and even rather disappointing) written in a sort of homemade shorthand?

 

We like to think that the mystery remains unsolved and that this little book is still alive with the possibility of being remarkable. Many critics of this new research agree with us…

 

Voynich Manuscript Public Domain

 

From The Atlantic,

 

Has a Mysterious Medieval Code Really Been Solved?
Experts say no.

by Sarah Zhang

 

“The Voynich manuscript is not an especially glamorous physical object. It is slightly larger than a modern paperback, bound in “limp vellum” as is the technical term. But its pages are full of astrological charts, strange plants, naked ladies bathing in green liquid, and, most famously, an indecipherable script that has eluded cryptographers to this day.

 

What could be so scandalous, so dangerous, or so important to be written in such an uncrackable cipher?

 

This week, the venerable Times Literary Supplement published as its cover story a “solution” for the Voynich manuscript. The article by Nicholas Gibbs suggests the manuscript is a medieval women’s-health manual copied from several older sources. And the cipher is no cipher at all, but simply abbreviations that, once decoded, turn out to be medicinal recipes.

 

The solution should be seismic news in the Voynich world…”

 

For the rest, click here.

 

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