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MYS08HTEHX052AX · mystery · click to copyMVoynich Manuscript/Research sessions/SES0D8B8QS022BX
SES0D8B8QS022BX · session · click to copy

Session 5: Re-analysis from the transliteration; book v1.0

2026-10-22 · ledger S-002 · describe · Kyle Prier, Claude (Anthropic)

The project was found to hold no machine-readable text: the spring findings were a language model's descriptions of images. Every claim was tested against the ZL3b, IT2a and CD2a transliterations, and none of the lexical readings exists in the manuscript. The earlier draft was archived. Structure, statistics, slot grammar, line effects, the A/B difference, labels, repetition and one-to-one decipherment were rebuilt from the data, with controls, and the book was written again from them: Reading Without a Key, v1.0.

Decisions

  • Format F2 (10 x 10 in, coffee-table) and figure style V1 (Atlas) (Kyle).

Left open

4
Kyle's read-through and edits
Higher-resolution plates for print
Keep Appendix D's account of the earlier draft?
Send chapter 4 to Davis and Layfield for comment?

Questions raised

17
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed What is the object, and who made it? QST08JFXN6R2VQ6
Answered: One answer is accepted When was the parchment made? QST08JFY3VG0S0J
Answered: One answer is accepted What order were the leaves in? QST08JFYJG87ZFD
Answered: One answer is accepted How many scribes wrote it? QST08JFZ1503NFG
No evidence yet: Nothing has been tested yet Where was it made, and in what milieu? QST08JFZFSR4N4A
No evidence yet: Nothing has been tested yet Are there records outside the text? QST08JFZYEG65Q4
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed What kind of text is it? QST08JG1S1G6D9T
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed Is it a natural language? QST08JG27P80HMJ
Open: No answer is ahead yet Is it meaningless text from a procedure? QST08JG34ZR1MPK
Open: No answer is ahead yet Is it a constructed or notational language? QST08JG3KMG29DW
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed How was the text produced on the page? QST08JG6BH02GE7
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed What did the line and page add? QST08JG78TG4W5X
No evidence yet: Nothing has been tested yet What is the book about? QST08JGAY0G20KQ
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed What do the illustrations show? QST08JGBCN851BR
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed How do text and pictures relate? QST08JGBVA05HF4
Open: No answer is ahead yet Who would have made and used it? QST08JGC9YR02C0
Not settled: One answer is ahead but not confirmed Do earlier readings survive the evidence? QST08JGGDSG1RR0

Answers taken up again

8
Ruled out: The evidence contradicts it Zodiac labels spell the names of the signs ANS08JGB4BM2SMD
Ruled out: The evidence contradicts it Pharmacy labels carry planet roots ANS08JGB4KE0JFS
Ruled out: The evidence contradicts it The zodiac names recur as section headers in the recipe section (ff. 103-116), confirming… ANS08JGB4V80K6K
Still possible: Not tested enough to call either way qo- (Currier 4o) is a definite article or nominal prefix. ANS08JGB5324BA4
Likely: Best supported so far, not yet confirmed A gallows glyph (t/k, Currier P/F) opens each entry as a discourse particle. ANS08JGB5AW71JF
Still possible: Not tested enough to call either way Currier A and B are two registers of one language, not two languages or dialects. ANS08JGB5JP7JTC
Ruled out: The evidence contradicts it The rosette fold-out is a six-zone world map in al-Idrisi's climate tradition. ANS08JGB5TG6NTV
Ruled out: The evidence contradicts it The 180-220 labelled bathers of ff. 80-84 are the 360 degrees or decans of a zodiacal… ANS08JGB62A6HFS

Evidence found

18
Calfskin parchment, radiocarbon-dated 1404–1438 EVD0D8GDH702FH0
102 of an original 116 leaves survive, in 18 quires EVD0D8GDHET5NBC
Five scribes wrote the text EVD0D8GDHPM3VVE
The leaves are not in their maker's order EVD0D8GDHYE7WJP
Documented ownership begins in Prague, c. 1610 EVD0D8GDJ680V83
Each glyph has a fixed place in the word EVD0D8GDJE21VNB
Words are of nearly uniform length (mean 5.1 EVA letters, s.d. 1.9). EVD0D8GDJNW3WT8
The line is a unit: gallows open lines, -m closes them EVD0D8GDJXP1XTB
Labels differ from running text: under 3 % q-initial against 15.5 %, over half o-initial. EVD0D8GDK5G5D5Z
Glyph entropy is lower than in any of 103 languages EVD0D8GDKDA0QEB
Adjacent identical and near-identical words are common EVD0D8GDKN465TE
Vocabulary clusters by section, not by scribe EVD0D8GDKWY3R6B
The illustrations form a medical and natural-philosophical compendium: herbal, zodiac… EVD0D8GDT8245K0
Zodiac labels drift from ot- to ok- across the cycle but carry no sign-specific marker;… EVD0D8GDTFW4MSC
The rosette fold-out has nine circles. EVD0D8GDTQP1NKD
Bather labels in the biological section number 64 tokens. EVD0D8GDTZG6WQ9
None of the v0.1 readings occurs in any transliteration EVD0D8GDV7A1Y6Q
Currier A and B differ in vocabulary (25 % of tokens in skewed words) and are confounded… EVD0D8GDVF40968

Methods used

2
Codex structure and statistics (entropy, Zipf, word length, slot grammar, line effects, A/B keyness, labels) MTH08JFX6ST70NE
One-to-one substitution search with controls; vowel-less; near-twin profile MTH08JFX71M4KD3

What it produced

2
Reading Without a Key SRC0D8NJAWT22V4
Assessment of prior findings against the transcription SRC0D8NJB4M65M7

The session's log

Date: 2026-10-22

  • Found that the project held no machine-readable text; the spring-2026 findings were image "readings" by a language model. Tested each against ZL3b/IT2a/CD2a: none exist in the manuscript (ASSESSMENT-2026-10.md). Earlier draft moved to archive/.
  • Obtained ZL3b (13 May 2025), IT2a, CD2a and the IVTFF 2.0 spec from voynich.nu; built a reader and analysis suite (data/analysis/); five equal-length reference corpora (Vulgate, Pliny, KJV, German and Italian Bibles).
  • Re-ran codex structure, basic statistics, entropy, Zipf, word length, glyph positions, slot grammar, line/paragraph effects, A/B keyness, per-page B-score, group similarity, controlled contrasts, labels, repetition, transcription agreement; decipherment experiments (substitution search with controls, vowel-less, three-level entropy, near-twin distance profile, label structure).
  • Literature verified directly: Layfield & Davis, Digital Medievalist 19 (19 Oct 2026, "singulion" structure) answers the page-order question; Davis 2020 and 2025 codicology; Greshko 2025 Naibbe cipher; Bowern & Lindemann 2021 (our entropies match theirs); Zandbergen's quire/paint/order arguments.
  • Design: format mockups F1/F2/F3 and figure-style variants V1/V2/V3 produced; Kyle chose F2 (10×10 coffee-table) and V1 (Atlas). Built vizkit (measured layout + lint) and all figures at final widths.
  • Fetched Yale's full image set (IIIF, 2,000 px; fold-outs full size). Wrote the book (prologue, 19 chapters, 4 appendices, bibliography) and compiled: 105 pp.
  • Open items: Kyle's read-through and edits; higher-resolution plates for print (full-size downloads for all folios); decide whether to keep Appendix D's account of the earlier draft; consider sending chapter 4 to Davis/Layfield for comment.