![]() ![]() "Gibbs said in the TLS article that he did his research for an unnamed 'television network,'" Newitz wrote. Gibbs' motives were also questionable, as Annalee Newitz reported for Ars at the time. If they had simply sent to it to the Beinecke Library, they would have rebutted it in a heartbeat." "Frankly I’m a little surprised the TLS published it. It doesn’t result in Latin that makes sense," she told The Atlantic at the time. Gibbs' most vocal critic was Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America. "They’re not grammatically correct. Unfortunately, said the experts, his analysis was a mix of stuff we already knew and stuff he couldn't possibly prove. ![]() He provided two lines of translation from the text to "prove" his point. Gibbs claimed that he had figured out that the Voynich Manuscript was a women's health manual whose odd script was actually just a bunch of Latin abbreviations describing medicinal recipes. Both professional and amateur cryptographers (including codebreakers in both World Wars) have pored over the text, hoping to crack the puzzle.Īmong the most dubious is a 2017 claim by a history researcher and television writer named Nicholas Gibbs, who published a long article in the Times Literary Supplement about how he had cracked the code. There are so many competing theories about what the Voynich manuscript is-most likely a compendium of herbal remedies and astrological readings, based on the bits reliably decoded thus far-and so many claims to have deciphered the text, that it's practically its own subfield of medieval studies. Possible authors include Roger Bacon, Elizabethan astrologer/alchemist John Dee, or even Voynich himself, possibly as a hoax. It's currently kept at Yale University's Beinecke Library of rare books and manuscripts. Along with the strange handwriting in an unknown language or code, the book is heavily illustrated with bizarre pictures of alien plants, naked women, strange objects, and zodiac symbols. What is this mysterious manuscript that has everyone so excited? It's a 15th century medieval handwritten text dated between 14, purchased in 1912 by a Polish book dealer and antiquarian named Wilfrid M. None of them have proved convincing to date, and medievalists are justly skeptical of Cheshire's conclusions as well. There's a long, checkered history of people making similar claims. So case closed, right? After all, headlines are already trumpeting that the "Voynich manuscript is solved," decoded by a "UK genius." Not so fast. Apparently it took him all of two weeks to accomplish a feat that has eluded our most brilliant scholars for at least a century. Cheshire identifies the mysterious writing as a "calligraphic proto-Romance" language, and he thinks the manuscript was put together by a Dominican nun as a reference source on behalf of Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon. ![]() Now, Gerard Cheshire, a University of Bristol academic, has announced his own solution to the conundrum in a new paper in the journal Romance Studies. The Voynich manuscript is a famous medieval text written in a mysterious language that so far has proven to be undecipherable. We leave it to the reader to ponder how an honorary research associate is a member of the university's academic community, but his controversial research paper is not affiliated with the university in any way.] We take such concerns very seriously and have therefore removed the story regarding this research from our website to seek further validation and allow further discussions both internally and with the journal concerned. ![]() Following media coverage, concerns have been raised about the validity of this research from academics in the fields of linguistics and medieval studies. If they are, the team will communicate the research to the media and on our University website. When a member of our academic community has a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, the University’s Media Team will determine whether the findings are of public interest. This research was entirely the author's own work and is not affiliated with the University of Bristol, the Faculty of Arts or the Centre for Medieval Studies. Yesterday the University of Bristol published a story about research on the Voynich manuscript by an honorary research associate. [Update May 17, 2019: The University of Bristol released a statement today retracting its press release claiming one of their researchers had successfully cracked the code of the Voynich manuscript: Photo12/UIG/Getty Images reader comments 158 with ![]()
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