http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-26198471
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Like its contents, the history of ownership of the Voynich manuscript is contested and filled with some gaps. The codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon. It is very likely that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English astrologer John Dee (1527-1608). Dee apparently owned the manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October 1586, and his son noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned “a booke…containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it out.” Emperor Rudolph seems to have given the manuscript to Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenecz (d. 1622), an exchange based on the inscription visible only with ultraviolet light on folio 1r which reads: “Jacobi de Tepenecz.” Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) in 1666. In 1912, Wilfred M. Voynich purchased the manuscript from the Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. In 1969, the codex was given to the Beinecke Library by H. P. Kraus, who had purchased it from the estate of Ethel Voynich, Wilfrid Voynich’s widow.
February 20, 2014 at 9:16 AM
Makes one think of the journeys that some books take..that’s a great story in itself. Kind of like the movie The Red Violin. Cheers!
p.s.; how ’bout that Latvian hockey team! Yeah!
Dr. Karl E. Jirgens, Editor, Rampike Magazine Head, Dept. of English Language, Literature & Creative Writing University of Windsor 401 Sunset Avenue Windsor, Ontario Canada N9B 3P4 PHO: (519) 253-3000 ext. 2310 & ext. 2289 FAX: (519) 971-3676 jirgens@uwindsor.ca
March 14, 2014 at 2:08 PM
My suggestion to decode the Voynich Manuscript is in the fact that each of its individual pages encodes some other information . Encryption is not just a written form . There’s a whole spectrum of gnosis , which, because of the limited capabilities (eg letter runicze – oldest inscriptions are from the second and third century AD, before the Egyptian hieratic writing , etc.) were also encoded in a different form – for example, by means of signs and symbols : see semiotics – from the Greek : ” semasticos ” – significant , ” semasia ” – meaning “,” semeion ” – a sign of ” sema ” – a sign , the image signal . And in such a manner is encoded Voynich manuscript – it is not my task , classic cipher written , only symbolic rebus – ideogram . Below to better illustrate the time- historical continuum in brief , a summary of the earlier descriptions of each manuscript illustration . ( From 1R to 19R ) http://gloriaolivae.pl/
1R – Big Bang and Kolaps – cyclical nature of the universe.
1V – Approximately 4.5 – 5 billion years ago – the formation of the Earth’s crust.
2R – About 3.5 billion years ago – the first organisms .
2V – About a billion years ago – the first single-celled organisms ( eukaryotes ) .
3R – Approximately 900 – 700 million years ago – the first multi-cellular organisms .
3V – approximately 700 – 600 million years ago – the first invertebrates .
4R – 500 million years ago – the first vertebrates .
4V – 400 million years ago – vertebrates came out of the water.
5R – 220 million years ago – the beginning of the reign of the dinosaurs.
5V – 65 million years ago – extinction of the dinosaurs , evolution of mammals .
6R – About 65 – 30 million years ago – carnivores .
6V – About 30 – 7 million years ago – the formation of plants and animals.
7R – About 12 million years ago – the first hominids .
7V – About 7 – 5 million years ago – the appearance of man .
8R – About 100 thousand . years ago – the emergence of modern man .
8V – Approximately 15-12 thousand . years ago – man hiking – “bridge” Bering .
9R – Approximately 11.5 thousand . years ago – the end of the last ice age.
9V – About 10 thousand . years ago – hunter -gatherers , the birth of agriculture.
10R – Around 4000 , the BC – Development of urban community Mesopotamia.
10V – Around 3000 , the BC – The beginnings of civilization of ancient Egypt.
11R – The turn of the second and first millennium BC – Judaism , Jerusalem.
11V – turn of the century – Christianity . Rome .
12R – None. According to me – Ancient Greece .
12 V – None. According to me – the Empire of Alexander the Great .
13R – The Roman Empire .
13V – Persian Empire .
14R – Huns . Mongol Empire .
14V – Byzantine Empire .
15R – The State of the Franks.
15V – The spread of Islam.
16R – Vikings .
16V – Slavs .
17R – The Crusades .
17V – The Hundred Years War .
18R – Ottoman Empire .
18V – War of the Roses .
19R – The Order of the Teutonic Knights .