Deep inside Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library lies the only copy of a 240-page tome. Recently carbon dated to around 1420, its vellum pages features looping handwriting and hand-drawn images seemingly stolen from a dream. Real and imaginary plants, floating castles, bathing women, astrology diagrams, zodiac rings, and suns and moons with faces accompany the text. This 24x16 centimeter book is called the Voynich manuscript, and its one of history's biggest unsolved mysteries. The reason why? No one can figure out what it says. The name comes from Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish bookseller who came across the document at a Jesuit college in Italy in 1912. He was puzzled. Who wrote it? Where was it made? What do these bizarre words and vibrant drawings represent? What secrets do its pages contain? He purchased the manuscript from the cash-strapped priest at the college, and eventually brought it to the U.S., where experts have continued to puzzle over it for more than a century. Cryptologists say the writing has all the characteristics of a real language, just one that no one's ever seen before. What makes it seem real is that in actual languages, letters and groups of letters appear with consistent frequencies, and the language in the Voynich manuscript has patterns you wouldn't find from a random letter generator. Other than that, we know little more than what we can see. The letters are varied in style and height. Some are borrowed from other scripts, but many are unique. The taller letters have been named gallows characters. The manuscript is highly decorated throughout with scroll-like embellishments. It appears to be written by two or more hands, with the painting done by yet another party. Over the years, three main theories about the manuscript's text have emerged. The first is that it's written in cypher, a secret code deliberately designed to hide secret meaning. The second is that the document is a hoax written in gibberish to make money off a gullible buyer. Some speculate the author was a medieval con man. Others, that it was Voynich himself. The third theory is that the manuscript is written in an actual language, but in an unknown script. Perhaps medieval scholars were attempting to create an alphabet for a language that was spoken but not yet written. In that case, the Voynich manuscript might be like the rongorongo script invented on Easter Island, now unreadable after the culture that made it collapsed. Though no one can read the Voynich manuscript, that hasn't stopped people from guessing what it might say. Those who believe the manuscript was an attempt to create a new form of written language speculate that it might be an encyclopedia containing the knowledge of the culture that produced it. Others believe it was written by the 13th century philosopher Roger Bacon, who attempted to understand the universal laws of grammar, or in the 16th century by the Elizabethan mystic John Dee, who practiced alchemy and divination. More fringe theories that the book was written by a coven of Italian witches, or even by Martians. After 100 years of frustration, scientists have recently shed a little light on the mystery. The first breakthrough was the carbon dating. Also, contemporary historians have traced the provenance of the manuscript back through Rome and Prague to as early as 1612, when it was perhaps passed from Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to his physician, Jacobus Sinapius. In addition to these historical breakthroughs, linguistic researchers recently proposed the provisional identification of a few of the manuscript's words. Could the letters beside these seven stars spell Tauran, a name for Taurus, a constellation that includes the seven stars called the Pleiades? Could this word be Centaurun for the Centaurea plant in the picture? Perhaps, but progress is slow. If we can crack its code, what might we find? The dream journal of a 15th-century illustrator? A bunch of nonsense? Or the lost knowledge of a forgotten culture? What do you think it is?
U srcu Knjižnice rijetkih knjiga i rukopisa Beinecke Sveučilišta Yale nalazi se jedini primjerak sveska od 240 stranica. Nedavno je metodom 14C utvrđeno da je iz oko 1420., a na stranicama od veluma ističu se vijugavi rukopis i ručno oslikani prizori kao iz sna. Stvarne i izmišljene biljke, lebdeći dvorci, kupačice, astrološki dijagrami, zodijački prsteni te sunca i mjeseci s licima prate tekst. Ta knjiga dimenzija 24 x 16 cm naziva se Voynichevim rukopisom i jedan je od najvećih neriješenih misterija u povijesti. Zašto? Zato što nitko ne zna o čemu govori. Ime je dobila po Wilfridu Voynichu, poljskome knjižaru koji je nabasao na nju na isusovačkom koledžu u Italiji 1912. Bio je zbunjen. Tko ju je napisao? Gdje je sastavljena? Što te bizarne riječi i živopisni crteži predstavljaju? Kakve tajne kriju njezine stranice? Kupio je rukopis od svećenika s koledža kojemu je trebao novac i naposljetku ga donio u SAD, gdje više od stoljeća zbunjuje stručnjake. Kriptolozi kažu da pismo ima sve značajke pravog jezika, ali ni jednog dosad viđenog. Stvarnim se čini zato što se u stvarnim jezicima slova i skupine slova pojavljuju dosljednom učestalošću, a jezik iz Voynicheva rukopisa sadržava obrasce kakve ne može stvoriti nasumičan generator slova. Osim toga, ne znamo puno više od očitog. Slova se razlikuju po stilu i veličini. Neka su posuđena iz drugih pisama, no mnogo ih je jedinstvenih. Viša slova prozvana su "vješalima". Cijeli je rukopis ukrašen vijugavim ukrasima. Čini se da su ga pisala barem dvojica autora, a oslikao ga je netko treći. S vremenom su se pojavile tri glavne teorije o tekstu rukopisa. Prema prvoj, riječ je o šifri, tajnom kodu namjerno osmišljenom da prikrije tajno značenje. Prema drugoj, dokument je prijevara, besmislica namijenjena izvlačenju novca od lakovjernog kupca. Neki nagađaju da je autor srednjovjekovni prevarant. Drugi, da je to sam Voynich. Prema trećoj teoriji rukopis je napisan na stvarnom jeziku, ali nepoznatim pismom. Možda su srednjovjekovni učenjaci pokušavali stvoriti abecedu za govorni jezik koji još nije imao pismo. U tom bi slučaju Voynichev rukopis mogao biti poput pisma rongorongo izmišljenog na Uskršnjem otoku, koje je postalo nerazumljivo nakon propasti kulture koja ga je stvorila. Iako nitko ne može pročitati Voynichev rukopis, to nije spriječilo nagađanja o njegovu sadržaju. Oni koji rukopis smatraju pokušajem stvaranja novog oblika pisanog jezika nagađaju da bi mogao biti enciklopedija koja sadržava znanja kulture iz koje potječe. Drugi vjeruju da ga je napisao Roger Bacon, filozof iz 13. stoljeća koji je pokušao shvatiti univerzalne zakone gramatike, ili elizabetinski mistik iz 16. stoljeća John Dee, koji se bavio alkemijom i vračanjem. Prema nekonvencionalnijim teorijama knjigu je napisao koven talijanskih vještica ili čak Marsovci. Nakon stogodišnjeg neuspjeha znanstvenici su nedavno barem malo rasvijetlili taj misterij. Prvi pomak bilo je datiranje metodom 14C. Usto su suvremeni povjesničari pratili put rukopisa preko Rima i Praga unatrag sve do 1612., kada je možda prešao iz ruku cara Svetog Rimskog Carstva Rudolfa II. u ruke njegova liječnika Jacobusa Sinapiusa. Uz ta povijesna otkrića, lingvisti su nedavno predložili privremenu identifikaciju nekoliko riječi iz rukopisa. Ispisuju li slova uz ovih sedam zvijezda možda riječ Tauran, naziv za Bika (Taurus) tj. zviježđe u kojem je sedam zvijezda po imenu Plejade? Je li ova riječ možda Centaurun za biljku različak (Centaurea) na slici? Možda, ali napredak je spor. Razbijemo li šifru, što bismo mogli otkriti? Dnevnik snova ilustratora iz 15. stoljeća? Gomilu besmislica? Ili izgubljeno znanje zaboravljene kulture? Što vi mislite?