How Many Glyphs and How Many Scribes? Digital Paleography and the Voynich Manuscript

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Penn collection
Manuscript Studies
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
paleography
codicology
Voynich manuscript
cryptology
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Manuscript Studies
Digital Humanities
Medieval Studies
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Contributor
Abstract

It can be safely claimed that there is no medieval script that has been seen, analyzed, and debated more than that of the mysterious and as-yet-unread Voynich Manuscript (Beinecke MS 408). For centuries, bibliophiles, linguists, codicologists, art historians, and amateur cryptologists have pored over the manuscript, examining it from every angle, debating every wormhole, arguing over every stain and crease. Some things we know: the invented script is comprised of carefully-written glyphs without precedent or obvious model; forensic material evidence has determined that the parchment, ink, and pigments date from the early 15th century; the provenance trail is nearly unbroken from the seventeenth century to today. But we still don’t know how to read it, in spite of new theories flying across the internet on a near-weekly basis. “Voynichologists” disagree as to some of the most important and basic questions about the manuscript. How many letterforms are there? How many scribes can be identified? Are there ligatures, majuscules, abbreviations, and other scribal conventions? These questions have never been satisfactorily answered. Using digital paleographic methodologies including the Archetype (DigiPal) application and other annotation tools, this project will revisit the paleographic analyses of the Voynich glyphs to propose answers to some of these questions and discuss how these answers open avenues for further research.

Advisor
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Publication date
2021-04-20
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation
Collection