Other proposed authors have included Queen Elizabeth I’s advisor John Dee, an alchemist and occult philosopher, and Franciscan friar and philosopher Roger Bacon, who was renowned as a wizard almost two centuries before the extant Voynich could have been produced.Įvidence for these claims is often tenuous, but the wealth of speculation to which the Voynich has given rise only deepens the mystery of its creation. Wilfred Voynich has often been suspected as the manuscript’s true author, but its materials have been carbon dated to the early 1400s, and its first confirmed owner, an alchemist from Prague named George Baresch, lived in the 17th century. This may say as much about the mysterious Voynich as it does about the niche research area, in which academic linguists, codicologists, and all manner of amateur sleuths try to make a name for themselves as Jean-François Champollions of Voynich studies. No Voynich translation has been definitively accepted by a scholarly consensus, and perhaps none ever will. This year a father and son team convincingly made the case for Old Turkic. Researchers have tried to translate the Voynich language as variant forms Latin, Arabic, and Sino-Tibetan.
#THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTARY CODE#
Is it a lost ancestor tongue? The secret code of a cult? Is it a hoax? Why was it made and by whom? But it’s filled with bizarre illustrations ( see an online version here) and written in a language no one can read. Like many other early 15th century texts, the Voynich seems to combine medicine, alchemy, herbology, botany, zoology, astrology, and other forms of folk knowledge in a compendium.
They live in London.If you’re a regular reader of Open Culture, you know we like to bring you the latest attempts to decipher the legendary Voynich Manuscript, a strange medieval book whose language has baffled scholars for centuries. Both authors were consultants for the BBC/Mentorn Films documentary The Voynich Mystery.
#THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENTARY PROFESSIONAL#
Rob Churchill is a professional writer who has written scripts for many production companies, including the BBC and Thames Television. Gerry Kennedy is a freelance writer and has produced a number of BBC Radio 4 programs, including one on the Voynich Manuscript in 2001.
With the possibility that it may be a lost alchemical text or other esoteric work, this manuscript remains one of the most intriguing yet enigmatic documents ever to have come to light. They trace the speculative history of the manuscript and reveal those who may be connected to it, including Roger Bacon, John Dee, and the Cathars. Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill explore the mystery surrounding the Voynich Manuscript, examining the many existing theories about the possible authors of this work and the information it may contain. Written in an unknown language or an as yet undecipherable code, this medieval manuscript contains hundreds of illustrations of unknown plants, cosmological charts, and inexplicable scenes of naked “nymphs” bathing in a green liquid that some interpret as a symbolic depiction of human reproduction and the joining of the soul with the body. Since its discovery by Wilfrid Voynich in an Italian monastery in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript has baffled scholars and cryptanalysists with its unidentifiable script and bizarre illustrations.
Explains the cryptanalysis methods used in attempts to break the code.Reveals the connections between this work and the Cathars, Roger Bacon, and John Dee.An examination of the many theories surrounding this enigmatic text, apparently written in code
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