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?
Duboko unutar biblioteke Bajneke za retke knjige i rukopise Univerziteta Jejl, nalazi se jedini primerak toma od 240 stranica. Nedavno je utvrđeno pomoću ugljenika da potiče iz oko 1420, njegove stranice od veluma sadrže kukast rukopis i ručno nacrtane prizore koji kao da su otrgnuti iz sna. Stvarne i izmišljene biljke, lebdeći zamkovi, kupačice, astrološki dijagrami, prstenovi zodijaka, kao i sunca i mesece s licima, sve to prati tekst. Ova knjiga od 24x16 centimetara se naziva Vojničevim rukopisom i to je jedna od najvećih istorijskih nerešenih misterija. Zbog čega? Niko ne može da razume o čemu govori. Ime potiče od Vilfrida Vojniča, poljskog prodavca knjiga koji je naišao na dokument na jezuitskom fakultetu u Italiji 1912. Bio je zbunjen. Ko ga je napisao? Gde je sastavljen? Šta ove bizarne reči i šarenoliki crteži predstavljaju? Kakve tajne njegove stranice sadrže? Kupio je rukopis od sveštenika sa fakulteta, koji je bio u oskudici, i na kraju ga je doneo u SAD, gde zbunjuje stručnjake više od jednog veka. Kriptolozi kažu da rukopis ima sve karakteristike stvarnog jezika, samo nekog koga niko ranije nije video. Stvarnim ga čini to što se u stvarnim jezicima slova i slovne grupe pojavljuju s doslednom učestalošću, a jezik iz Vojničevog rukopisa ima obrasce koji se ne zatiču kod nasumičnog generatora slova. Mimo toga, znamo malo više od onog što je očito. Slova se razlikuju u stilu i veličini. Neka su pozajmljena iz drugih spisa, ali mnoga su jedinstvena. Veća slova su nazvana "vešalima". Rukopis je do kraja ukrašen vijugavim ukrasima. Izgleda kao da su ga napisale dve ili više ruku, a da je slike napravio neko treći. Vremenom su se pojavile tri glavne teorije o tekstu rukopisa. Prva glasi da je napisan šifrovano, kao tajna šifra namerno osmišljena da sakrije tajno značenje. Druga glasi da je dokument prevara, napisan kao besmislica kako bi od naivnog kupca izmamio novac. Neki nagađaju da je autor srednjovekovni prevarant. Drugi da se radi lično o Vojniču. Treća teorija je da je rukopis napisan na stvarnom jeziku, ali na nepoznatom pismu. Možda su srednjovekovni učenjaci pokušavali da naprave alfabet za govorni jezik, koji još uvek nije imao pismo. U tom slučaju, Vojničev rukopis bi mogao da bude poput rongorongo pisma, izumljenog na Uskršnjim ostrvima, koje nije više čitljivo jer je nestala kultura koja ga je sastavila. Iako niko ne može da čita Vojničev rukopis, to nije sprečilo ljude da nagađaju o čemu govori. Oni koji veruju da je rukopis bio pokušaj stvaranja novog oblika pisanog jezika, nagađaju da bi moglo da se radi o enciklopediji koja sadrži znanje o kulturi iz koje je potekla. Drugi veruju da ga je napisao filozof iz XIII veka, Rodžer Bejkon, koji je pokušavao da razume univerzalne zakone gramatike; ili da ga je napisao u XVI veku elizabetanski mistik Džon Di, koji je vežbao alhemiju i vračanje. Nekonvencionalnije teorije tvrde da je knjigu napisao skup italijanskih veštica ili čak Marsovci. Nakon 100 godina nerviranja, naučnicu su nedavno bar malo osvetlili misteriju. Prvi pomak je bio utvrđivanje datuma putem ugljenika. Takođe, savremeni istoričari su otkrili putovanje rukopisa nazad kroz Rim i Prag sve do 1612. kada je možda prešao od Svetog rimskog cara Rudolfa II do njegovog lekara, Jakobusa Sinapiusa. Uz ova istorijska otkrića, istraživači lingvisti su nedavno predložili privremenu identifikaciju nekoliko reči iz rukopisa. Da li slova pored ovih sedam zvezda ispisuju Tauran, naziv za Taurus, sazvežđe koje uključuje sedam zvezda po imenu Plejade? Da li bi ova reč mogla da bude Centaurun za biljku centareu na slici? Možda, ali napredak je spor. Kad bismo mogli da ga dešifrujemo, šta bismo otkrili? Dnevnik snova ilustratora iz XV veka? Gomilu besmislica? Ili izgubljeno znanje o zaboravljenoj kulturi? Šta vi mislite o čemu se radi?