Voynich Manuscript (209 works)

5 October 2012

4 486

The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious book written about 600 years ago by an unknown author in an unknown language using an unknown alphabet.

Based on the results of radiocarbon analysis of four samples of the manuscript, it was established that the manuscript was created between 1404 and 1438. The manuscript contains only one realistic image of the city, which shows a fortress wall with dovetail battlements. At the beginning of the 15th century, such teeth were found only in Northern Italy (later they became more common).

They have tried to decipher the Voynich manuscript many times, but so far without any success. The only important conclusion that the experts made was that the text was written in an artificial language that has a clear logical structure. It has become the “Holy Grail” of cryptography, but it is not at all impossible that the manuscript is just a hoax, an incoherent set of symbols.

The book is named after the bibliophile from Kaunas, Wilfried Voynich (husband of the famous writer Ethel Lilian Voynich, author of The Gadfly), who acquired it in 1912. It is now housed in the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University.