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Secret of Voynich Manuscript, an Ancient Book Written in 'Alien' Code, Partly Revealed
FoxNews.com ^ | 2/11/11

Posted on 02/12/2011 2:01:35 PM PST by FTJM

Part of the mystery behind an 'alien' book no one can read has at last been unraveled.

Found in a chest of books outside Rome by a dealer in antique books, the Voynich manuscript is among literature's great mysteries. The book of aging parchment is written in alien characters, some resembling Latin letters, others unlike anything used in any known language, and arranged into what appear to be words and sentences -- except they don't resemble anything written or read by human beings.

And for decades, the manuscript has mystified scientists.

"Is it a code, a cipher of some kind?" asked Greg Hodgins, a physicist with the University of Arizona. "People are doing statistical analysis of letter use and word use -- the tools that have been used for code breaking. But they still haven't figured it out," Hodgins said.

The DaVinci Code was fiction. The Voynich manuscript is real -- and its code remains one of history's biggest mysteries. But at least Hodgins has solved part of the mystery behind the book: it's age.

Because the parchment pages of the Voynich manuscript were made from animal skin, they can be radiocarbon-dated. Hodgins, a chemist and archaeological scientist, used radiocarbon dating on tiny bits of the pages extracted with a scalpel to determine that the book dates back to the early 15th century, making it a century older than scholars had previously thought.

Carbon-14 dating places the book's creation to between 1404 and 1438, in the early Renaissance. It's not the oldest book in the world -- that would be The Diamond Sutra, a seven-page scroll printed with wood blocks on paper in China around 1,300 years ago. But it's older than the Gutenberg bible, the first book printed with modern presses, which rolled off the line in 1453.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cipher; code; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; hoax; secretwriting; voynich; voynichmanuscript
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1 posted on 02/12/2011 2:01:39 PM PST by FTJM
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To: FTJM; SunkenCiv

Older than moveable type presses.

hhhmmmm


2 posted on 02/12/2011 2:04:14 PM PST by GeronL (http://www.stink-eye.net/forum/index.php for FR backup site!)
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To: FTJM

Klingon? Elvish?


3 posted on 02/12/2011 2:06:14 PM PST by Argus
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To: FTJM

Possible the thing might be in old Prussian or some other Baltic language??


4 posted on 02/12/2011 2:06:14 PM PST by wendy1946
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To: FTJM

5 posted on 02/12/2011 2:06:25 PM PST by bmwcyle (It is Satan's fault)
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To: FTJM
Just another cookbook.
6 posted on 02/12/2011 2:07:36 PM PST by traderrob6
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To: FTJM
The article's definition of "the oldest book" is a bit schizoid.

It says that the Voynich - which is a manuscript - is not the "oldest book" but that the Diamond Sutra - which is a printed work - is the oldest.

The Diamond Sutra is a very young book if we're talking both printed and manuscript works.

7 posted on 02/12/2011 2:07:43 PM PST by wideawake
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To: bmwcyle

IT’S A COOKBOOK!!


8 posted on 02/12/2011 2:08:13 PM PST by OKSooner (Obama confessed "his muslim faith" on the George Stephanopolous show on September 7th, 2008.)
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To: FTJM

You have to read it in a mirror. The code is decipherable then. It says Obama Sucks.


9 posted on 02/12/2011 2:08:39 PM PST by screaminsunshine (34 States)
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To: FTJM
Photobucket
10 posted on 02/12/2011 2:08:44 PM PST by mikrofon (We're Cooked)
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To: bmwcyle

Let Michelle have a look at it. It might be Wookiee.
( apologies to the Wookiee race, I couldn’t resist)


11 posted on 02/12/2011 2:09:09 PM PST by ClearBlueSky (Whenever someone says it's not about Islam-it's about Islam. Jesus loves you, Allah wants you dead!)
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To: GeronL

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach ·
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·

 
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Thanks GeronL!

Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
 

· History topic · history keyword · archaeology keyword · paleontology keyword ·
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·


12 posted on 02/12/2011 2:18:14 PM PST by SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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To: wendy1946
How a single person on the face of the earth would know a written language that was, at one time or another, in wide use seems incredible in the truest sense of that word.

It seems a 500 year old PRACTICAL JOKE at worse, or a product of a delusional or otherwise unusual mind at best.

Someone did go through a lot of trouble and effort, though.

13 posted on 02/12/2011 2:20:11 PM PST by Huebolt (It's not over until there is not ONE DEMOCRAT HOLDING OFFICE ANYWHERE. Not even a dog catcher!)
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To: Argus

http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/

Vulcan Language Dictionary


14 posted on 02/12/2011 2:20:40 PM PST by machogirl (First they came for my tagline)
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To: FTJM

Also this dating only shows when the pages were made
not when the book was written/printed.


15 posted on 02/12/2011 2:21:07 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: FTJM

It’s Hamlet in the original Klingon, right?


16 posted on 02/12/2011 2:26:53 PM PST by GeronL (http://www.stink-eye.net/forum/index.php for FR backup site!)
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To: FTJM

There are some really strange drawings in this old book.

http://www.google.com/images?rls=ig&hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1680&bih=873&q=Voynich+Manuscript&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=


17 posted on 02/12/2011 2:27:16 PM PST by Bobalu ( "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." ..Moshe Dayan:)
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To: FTJM
The overall impression given by a review of the Voynich Manuscripts is that someone was trying to 'document' the birth cycle, especially as to the relationship between human and plant life.

I think the 'author' was trying to impress young ladies with his knowledge and 'fancies' and had the means to procure the right drawing equipment to record it all on paper.

It was all made up. But then, that's how everything we know started.

18 posted on 02/12/2011 2:34:33 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post.)
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To: Bobalu

The reason we can’t ‘translate’ it is because the author was just writing gibberish around the pictures, to impress the ladies who listened to his fanciful tales about what he had drawn and written in the book. It is very likely none of them could read anyway.


19 posted on 02/12/2011 2:39:01 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post.)
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To: FTJM

The Book of Kells is much older than A.D. 1400. The earliest manuscripts of the Bible in “codex” form (in the form of a book rather than a scroll) date from the fourth and fifth centuries. There are papyrus scraps of ancient Greek authors that date back much earlier than that, and Egyptian papyrus texts that are much older. Some may date back to the second or third millennium B.C., I’m not sure.


20 posted on 02/12/2011 2:41:06 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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