Session 1: Initial analysis of a subset of folios
A first pass from a handful of folio images. Zodiac names were proposed for labels on the zodiac pages, four recurring word-beginnings were named as grammatical elements, a Mercury root was read in the pharmacy labels, the bathers were taken for decan figures and the rosette for an al-Idrisi world map. Working thesis: a cosmo-medical encyclopaedia in a purpose-built constructed language.
About 8 % of the manuscript: ff. 71-89r (astronomical, bathing, cosmological, pharmaceutical).
Every lexical reading from this session was later found not to occur in the manuscript (session 5).
What it claimed, and what became of it
7| Claim | Then | Now |
|---|---|---|
| M-01 qo- (4oll-/foll-) is a definite article The distribution is real (15.5 % of running words begin with q; 97 % of q are followed by o; almost absent from labels), but distribution alone can't show an article. |
H | Open |
| M-02 A gallows glyph (Tor-/For-) opens each entry as a particle 84 % of paragraph-first lines begin with a gallows, against 9 % of other lines; whether it is a particle is not shown. |
H | Partly supported |
| M-03 ol- (oll-) is a celestial classifier ol- is the second commonest word and common everywhere; nothing ties it to celestial content. |
H | Refuted |
| M-04 follan is a bathing-section word (p < 0.001) The string does not occur. |
H | Refuted |
| Z-01..Z-09 Nine zodiac names read from labels on ff. 70-73 Six of the nine strings occur nowhere in any transliteration; the other three never on the page of their sign. Four of the nine (Z-01..Z-04) came in session 2. |
H | Refuted |
| S-04 The rosette is an al-Idrisi six-zone world map The fold-out has nine circles, not six. |
M | Refuted |
| S-05 180-220 bathers are a 360-degree decan system The bather labels number 64 tokens. |
M | Refuted |
Answers proposed
7| Zodiac labels spell the names of the signs | ANS08JGB4BM2SMD | |
| qo- (Currier 4o) is a definite article or nominal prefix. | ANS08JGB5324BA4 | |
| A gallows glyph (t/k, Currier P/F) opens each entry as a discourse particle. | ANS08JGB5AW71JF | |
| The rosette fold-out is a six-zone world map in al-Idrisi's climate tradition. | ANS08JGB5TG6NTV | |
| The 180-220 labelled bathers of ff. 80-84 are the 360 degrees or decans of a zodiacal… | ANS08JGB62A6HFS | |
| A constructed philosophical language (v0.1) | ANS08JGB6A42K76 | |
| An astrological-medical compendium (v0.1) | ANS08JGB6HY13H6 |
Methods used
1| Language-model description of folio images | MTH08JFX6J07VFM |
Datasets used
1| Twelve low-resolution folio images used by the v0.1 draft | DAT08JFZJFP2Q7T |
The session's log
Date: 2026 (prior to compacted transcript)
Coverage: ~8.3% of corpus (ff. 71–89r: astronomical, balneological, cosmological, pharmaceutical sections)
Researchers: Kyle Prier, Claude (Anthropic)
Key outcomes:
- Initial zodiac name identifications:
obecand(Capricorn),nottbas(Taurus),occtird(Libra),olpidag(Sagittarius),Spato(Virgo) - Four morphological elements identified:
4oll-/foll-,Tor-/For-,oll-,follan - Mercury root
Merc-identified in apparatus labels - Decan hypothesis for balneological bather figures (ff. 80–84v)
- Cosmological Rosette: six-circle diagram, al-Idrisi parallels
- Constructed language hypothesis; agglutinative morphology
- Working thesis: cosmo-medical encyclopaedia in purpose-built constructed language