One of the many intriguing things about it is that it's written in a language that uses letters no one--not even modern-day cryptologists, can decipher. The symbols don't form any known language, which, in other cases generally doesn't stop fearless code crackers. For some reason, thoguh, this one just doesn't make sense. It's not just a bunch of jibberish, either. It's an organized manuscript, with sections on various things, repeating words, etc. Clearly someone knew what they were writing.
Another interesting thing is the illustrations--They're quite lovely. However, many of the plants depicted are not reconizable by botanists, and appear to be fantastical, while others are clearly identifyable.
Here is a link to the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale, which has high resolution images of many of the pages online.
1 comment:
I found out about this manuscript years ago, but I keep going back to the various websites about it. You're right, the images are fascinating and compelling. Being a language geek, I also find the letter forms to be intriguing.
The really funky part is that the analysts and code-breakers still can't quite decide if it's carefully designed nonsense or some kind of personal code. What's more, they aren't really sure of the manuscript's origin either.
Thanks for giving me an excuse to look at it again!
Post a Comment