deciphering the most mysterious manuscript in the world

7/23/2019 DECIPHERING the Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World

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DECIPHERING

"THE MOST MYSTERIOUS

MANUSCRIPT IN THE WORLD"THE FINAL WORD?

by Michael Therou

This article is dedicated to Riley Crabb, for his interest in the

subject, and the library he left behind, for without it I may never

have happened upon the means to put it all together.

The intelligent reader will judge for himself. Without

eamining the facts fully and fairly, there is no way of

!nowing whether vo populi is really vo dei, or merely

vo asinorum."

C!ru H# Gor$o%, from Riddles in History

INTRODUCTION

Contemporary and #ot $o Contemporary Cryptography

It is always unfortunate to find another science which has fallenprey to the whims of the so-called schools of thought.

Unfortunately, it would appear that the science of Cryptography

has become their latest ictim, and seems to be directly lin!ed to

the introduction of the computer, and the use of its ability toperform comple" calculations. #et us not forget, that the science

of Cryptography is not a science of numbers, but one of words$.

symbols. %ritten language is cryptography in its purest sense. It

follows no laws or rules as does the science of mathematics. It is
https://borderlandsciences.org/journal/vol/50/n02/Theroux_on_Voynich_Manuscript.html#Gordon-Riddles-refhttps://borderlandsciences.org/journal/vol/50/n02/Theroux_on_Voynich_Manuscript.html#Gordon-Riddles-ref


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creatie and spontaneous. &he ancient scribes with their acrostic-

telestic inscriptions, anagrams, and bi-literal ciphers 'to name but

a few methods used( reali)ed that the purest cipher was one that

was not reealed as a cipher. &hese ancient scribes were certainlyas intelligent if not more so than we consider ourseles today, and

manipulated language so deftly that it often ta!es modern scholars

a long time to grasp the presence, let alone all the subtleties, of

ancient riddles. &hese ancient steganographers utili)ed their

creatie art to conceal the messages of their day.

&oday*s encryption schemes with all their lifeless

algorithms are not the engines of ingenuity they claim to be, butare merely simplistic number scramblers. &hey may hae their

purpose in the transmission of data, but the messages they render

unintelligible disclose the fact that they contain concealed

information, and hold no alue aesthetically as far as

cryptographic writing is concerned. &here simply is no ision in

creating machines that spew forth deluges of riffled characters. +f

course, the cryptographic orthodo"y would reel at this statement

as they try eer harder to find the perfect algorithm, or struggle

with the endless factoring of streams of numbers. &heir iew is

toward unification and adoption of standards in the cryptographic

sciences, thus putting to rest any sense of creatie ision.

&he true art of teganography 'a method by which a

message can be disguised by ma!ing it appear to read or be

something else( is one such creatie form of cryptography that has

been lost 'some methods still e"ist( and seems to hae gone the

way of most secrets of ancient !nowledge. classic e"ample of this

lac! of ision by the authorities in cryptography is their

detraction of %illiam Romaine ewbold*s decipherment of the

/oynich 0anuscript. &here are many reasons, which will be


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detailed here, why many had derogated ewbold*s findings. 1or

instance, if ewbold*s assertions were correct, scientific history

would hae to be re-written. uch is the importance of this most

incredible document. In the following pages I shall not only gie adetailed history of what has been referred to as the most

mysterious manuscript in the world, but will show that ewbold

most li!ely did sole the cipher of the /oynich manuscript, and

was probably the only one of his day 2ualified to do so.

HISTORY OF THE &OYNICH MANUSCRIPT

In order to understand the nature of this underta!ing it is

necessary to describe the /oynich manuscript 'hereinafterreferred to as 0( and detail its most curious history. &he

/oynich 0 is so named after %ilfrid 0. /oynich, a well !nown

bibliophile from ew 3or!. In 4546, during one of 0r. /oynich*s

many isits to 7urope in 2uest of old and rare boo!s, he came

across a remar!able collection of precious manuscripts. &hese

olumes had been buried in a chest and remained hidden inside a

castle in outhern Italy for decades. %hile he was perusing the

manuscripts for purchase, his attention was particularly drawn to

one odd, out of place loo!ing bundle. 7"amination reealed the

0 to be written entirely in cipher. 7en a brief inspection of the

ellum upon which it was written, the calligraphy, the drawings,

and the pigments suggested its date of origin as the latter part of

the thirteenth century. It was not until some time after 0r.

/oynich purchased the 0 that he read the document attached to

the front coer bearing the date4889 'or 4888(. It is a letter from:oannes 0arcus 0arci, rector of the Uniersity of ;rague, to

thanasius


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RE&EREND AND DISTINGUISHED SIR' FATHER

IN CHRIST(

&his boo!, be2ueathed to me by an intimate friend, I

destined for you, my ery dear thanasius, as soon as it

came into my possession, for I was coninced it could be

read by no one e"cept yourself.

&he former owner of this boo! as!ed your opinion

by letter, copying and sending you a portion of the boo!

from which he belieed you would be able to read theremainder, but he at that time refused to send the boo!

itself. &o its deciphering he deoted unflagging toil, as is

apparent from attempts of his which I send you herewith,

and he relin2uished hope only with his life. But his toil was

in ain, for such phin"es as these obey no one but their

master,


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:+7 0RCU 0RCI,

of Cronland.

;RGU7, 45th ugust, 4889 'or 4888(.

&he !ey, here, is that the un-named bearer belieed the

author was Roger Bacon, the 4>th century 1ranciscan mon!,

philosopher, magician, and alchemist. Bacon had been persecuted

for his writings and scientific discoeries, and referred in his

wor!s to the necessity of hiding his great secrets in cipher. &his

emphasis on Roger Bacon*s authorship will become clear in laterdeelopment. +ne should not confuse Roger Bacon with the

Renaissance figure 1rancis Bacon '1. Bacon was also 2uite prolific

on ciphering techni2ues( &he testimony in the letter of r.

Raphael, that the 0 was once in the possession of 7mperor

Rudolph is fairly determinatie. &he signature of :acobus de

&epenec) found inside the 0 confirms the fact that the 0 found

its way to the 7mperor*s court, as de &epenec) was ennobled and

befriended by the 7mperor in 48D, and lied at his palace.

1urther inestigation by 0r. /oynich reealed that the 0

had been in the possession of r. :ohn ee, the 48th century

astrologer and magician. ee had spent the years between 49

and49 at Rudolph*s court as a secret agent of Jueen 7li)abeth I,

and probably brought the 0 to ;rague. ee was an admirer of

Bacon and collected many of his wor!s 'a catalogue of ee*s

library prepared in 49> enumerates thirty-seen wor!s of Bacon(.

ir &homas Browne, the inentor of the 7nglish word

Kcryptography*, claimed that ee*s son rthur had spo!en to him

about a Kboo! containing nothing but hieroglyphi!s, which boo!


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his father bestowed much time upon, but I could not hear that he

could ma!e it out*.

If we are to go bac! any further we might speculate that ee

obtained a good portion of his Bacon collection from the

orthumberland family. It is !nown that ee was closely

associated with the uchess of orthumberland, and that the

u!e of orthumberland receied the spoils from the dissolution

of monasteries that began around 49>. It is presumed that from

these spoils, the u!e 'or more li!ely the uchess( of

orthumberland presented ee with the 0.

A )RIEF S*ETCH OF THE CONTENTS OF THE&OYNICH MS

&he /oynich 0 is a small 2uarto aeraging about 8 by

5inches. &he 0 now contains the e2uialent of 68 2uarto pages,

but may hae originally contained not less than 686 pages. >>

pages contain te"t only, 646 with te"t and drawings, and the last

page contains the


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&OYNICH AND NEW)OLD


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fter considerable historical research, 0r. /oynich

submitted the 0 to seeral cryptographers. %hen the symbols in

the 0 had been copied and classified, their appearance and

fre2uency were found to be consistent throughout, and seemed tohae been composed in a single-alphabet substitution cipher. But,

this did not appear to be the case, much to the dismay of the

cryptographers, and they could not e"tract an intelligible message

in any language from the te"t. &he 0 was then surrendered to

seeral botanists and astronomers 'due to the nature of the

drawings( and to many e"perts in ancient languagesL all to no

aail. Reali)ing the possibility that the 0 might re2uire the

interpretation of someone ersed in cabalistic lore 'Roger Baconwas no stranger to this( /oynich finally turned oer the 0 to r.

%illiam Romaine ewbold, of the Uniersity of ;ennsylania, and

one of the greatest students of medieal philosophy and science.

ewbold possessed the adantage that he was familiar with

medieal methods of thought, was ersed in occult sciences, and,

he was also a cryptographer. ewbold started wor! on deciphering

the /oynich 0 in 4545.

NEW)OLD+S DECIPHERMENT WITH SOMECONCLUSIONS

%hen ewbold first attac!ed the 0 for decipherment, he

reali)ed that he needed to find a !ey which would allow him to

understand how the 0 was enciphered. +n the last page of the

0 was written a single sentenceA

michiton oladabas multos te tccr cerc portas

isregarding the obious nulls used in the sentence 'ton ola

tetccr cerc( and e"changing the o in multos for a, the

intelligible #atin sentence emergesA


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=>@

michi dabas multas portas

translating into 7nglish, &o me thou gaest many gates.

Counting the number of letters in the sentence reeals it to

be66. ewbold then adapted the #atin alphabet to it omitting the

letter !, replacing " with and produced the first form of the

cipher alphabet used by BaconA

m i c h i d a b a s m u l t a s p o r t

a s

a b c d e f g h i l m n o p q r s t u v

y z

Here is what ma!es ewbold*s 2ualifications for

decipherment of the 0 so felicitous. ewbold understood that a

maEor clue was to be found in the word portas, in that its

interpreted cabalistic meaning of gates would be the secret to

the clarification of the 4 biliteral

combinations of the Hebrew letters 'doubles omittedF 6>4

permutated pairs added by later writers(F they represent

the primary combinations of the highest manifestations of

the diine Being which are at once the forces which ma!e


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other things, the material of which they are made, and the

channels through which the diine energy streams forth

into the lower world. single 2uotation from the epher

3e)irah, will sufficeA

He combined 'the #etters(, weighed them,

e"changed them, leph with all and all with leph, Beth

with all and all with Beth, and they go 'each( all the way

around 'the lphabet(. nd they are found 'comprised( in

6>4 gates, and eerything formed and eerything uttered is

found to proceed from one ame.

&hus, gates not only implies a cipher of many steps, but it

reeals that the gates are the channels through which alphabetic

alues are coneyed from


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students. +n this point the entire body of scientific men hae been

agreed from the outset, and by many methods hae concealed

from the ulgar all secrets of science. 1or some hae concealed

many things by magic figures and spells, others by mysterious andsymbolic words. 1or e"ample, ristotle in the'oo! of $ecretssays

to le"ander, K+ le"ander, I wish to show you the greatest secret

of secretsF may the iine ;ower help you to conceal the mystery

and to accomplish your aim. &a!e therefore the stone which is not

a stone and is in eery human being and in eery place and at

eery time, and it is called the 7gg of the ;hilosophers, and

&erminus of the 7gg.* Innumerable e"amples of the !ind are to be

found in many boo!s and diers sciences, eiled in suchterminology that they cannot be understood at all without a

teacher. &he third method of concealment which they hae

employed is that of writing in different ways, for e"ample, by

consonants alone, so that no one can read it unless he !nows the

words and their meanings. In this way the Hebrews and the

Chaldaeans and yrians and rabs write their secrets. Indeed, as a

general thing, they write almost eerything in this way, and

therefore among them, and especially among the Hebrews.

Important scientific !nowledge lies hidden. 1or ristotle in the

boo! aboe mentioned says that God gae them all scientific

!nowledge before there were any philosophers, and that from the

Hebrews all nations receied the first elements of philosophy . . .

In the fourth place, concealment is effected by commingling letters

of arious !indsF it is in this way that 7thicus the astronomer

concealed his scientific !nowledge by writing it in Hebrew, Gree!,and #atin letters in the same written line. In the fifth place, certain

persons hae achieed concealment by means of letters not then

used by their own race or others but arbitrarily =>5@inented by

themselesF this is the greatest obstacle of all, and rtephius has

employed it in his boo! (n the $ecrets of #ature. In the si"th


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place, people inent not characters li!e letters, but geometrical

figures which ac2uire the significance of letters by means of points

and mar!s differently arrangedF these li!ewise rtephius has used

in his science. In the seenth place, the greatest deice forconcealment is that of shorthand, which is a method of noting and

writing down as briefly as we please and as rapidly as we desireF

by this method many secrets are written in the boo!s of the #atin-

using peoples. I hae thought fit to touch upon these methods of

concealment because I may perhaps, by reason of the importance

of my secrets, employ some of these methods,and it is my desire

to aid in this way, at least you, to the e"tent of my ability.


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Center of the ebula rawing, 7nlarged.


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&he other ? shorthand signs of ewbold*s discoery all fit

the same general character of the first 49, and were used by Bacon

to fill out the Gree! shorthand, which was lac!ing e"pression.

ewbold continued by employing the biliteral method to the

conerted shorthand, and found that fre2uency analysis of the

resultant alphabet reealed it to be characteristic of #atin. &he

final stage in the process of decipherment was the anagramming

process. &he process of anagramming te"ts was probably the most

popular method of the day used for concealing messages, and the

necessity of concealment was due to political or ecclesiastical

reasons of the time, ma!ing the information unpropitious forpronouncement. It is !nown that the Cabalists were professed

anagrammatists, and the third part of their art

N themuru'changing( dealt with transposition and recombination

of the letters of words for mystical interpretation. &he fact that it

was also a tradition among the orders can be witnessed in the

wor!s of on Bingen, and certainly in the bbe . e 0ontfaucon

e /illars* Comte e Gabalis ')uod tanto impendio

absconditur etiam solummodo demonstrare destruereestO

&ertullian(. It was een continued with the li!es of Galileo '*aec

immatura a me jam frustra legunturO oy(, &ycho Brahe 'who

also was at the court of Rudolph(, :ohannes


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%hat ewbold discoered in the te"t was absolutely

astonishingL enough to gather a lot of attention from the scientific

community. &he biological drawings in the te"t were described

asseminiferous tubes, the microscopic cells with nuclei, and eenspermato)oa. mong the astronomical drawings were the

descriptions of spiral nebulae, a coronary eclipse, and the comet of

46?>. +ne of the more baffling things about this was that many of

the drawings of plants, and of the gala"ies appeared to hae been

inented. &here was no doubt that if Bacon were the author of

such a te"t, he must hae had some way of obtaining the

information. 1or instance, ewbold*s translation of the caption

near the drawing of the nebula of ndromeda 'which clearlyshows its spiral characteristics(, gae its location by the followingA

In a concave mirror I saw a star in the form of a

snail . . . between the navel of +egasus, the girdle of

ndromeda, and the head of Cassiopea".

ow, Bacon is credited with the inention of the magnifying

glass, but it should be certain that he did not inent the telescopeor the microscope as many at the time of this discoery

conEectured. &he concae mirror is probably the single most

important clue here. 0any of the later prominent Renaissance

figures would not only describe similar isions of trael to distant

places, seeral also included such shewstones as their iewing

apparatus. In the wor!s of ee,


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of mention considering the circumstances. #et us now turn to

some of the obEections to ewbold*s decipherment of the 0.

NEW)OLD+S DETRACTORS , AND HIS &ALIDATION

Initially, upon the announcement of his findings in 4564,

ewbold receied some praise for his wor!. 7en :ohn 0. 0anly,

a military intelligence cryptanalyst, wrote a faourable reiew

in*arper-s &againe. But, this was not to last ery long, and

soon the attac!s proceeded. &he first of such attac!s came from

research chemists who stated that the rough ellum surface upon

which the 0 was written had caused the in! to brea! up into

spots and shadings with age. &his brea! up of characters, theystated, was what=D@ewbold had actually seen when deciphering

the shorthand characters.

&his criticism that the in! had merely bro!en up into spots

and shadings due to age was unfounded due to the fact that many

documents nearly as aged as the /oynich 0, with comparable

in!, do not display crac!ing similar to the indiidual characters in

the 0. lso, if the arrangement of characters was due to thisbrea!ing up of the in!, certainly more than 66 indiidual

shorthand symbols would hae been discoered by ewbold.

&he ne"t attac! was concerned with the biliteral method of

ewbold*s decipherment. Cryptographers stated that by

ewbold*s methods, Bacon could not hae enciphered the te"t to

begin with. But, ewbold clearly detailed the enciphering process,

and reealed that Bacon did not use orthodo" methods of

enciphering to which the cryptographers were accustomed.

ttac!ed most heaily of all was the anagramming process

ewbold used. &hese detractors maintained that one could

anagram any te"t into anything one chose, and that this method


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would not hae followed the 2ualifications of a good cipher, in

that the first 2uality of any good cipher is that it must coney its

message with absolute certainty. ewbold*s anagramming process

did +& use bloc!s of 99 to 44D characters, as had been put forthby these detractors, on the contrary, it can be shown from his own

notes that he was ery careful in his obserationsA

&he only indication that the recomposition is correct is

the regular appearance, at interals of +& more than

three or four words, of letter groups suggesting words

appropriate, in synta" and logic, to the preceding te"t. If

they fail to appear, if one is drien to arbitrary choice inorder to ma!e sense, the recomposition is probably

wrong.

I hae obsered this misrepresentation of facts of ewbold*s

decipherment in a number of wor!s 'aid 4 :ohn 0anly 'who earlier

gae praise( published a forty-seen page article in$peculum

&againeof what he called a detailed analysis that attempted to

ma!e ewbold*s =4@wor! seem entirely worthless. But many more
https://borderlandsciences.org/journal/vol/50/n02/Theroux_on_Voynich_Manuscript.html#Kahn-Codebreakers-refhttps://borderlandsciences.org/journal/vol/50/n02/Theroux_on_Voynich_Manuscript.html#Kahn-Codebreakers-ref


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would hinge their deprecations on ewbold*s interpretation of the

drawings contained in the 0. 0ost said that the biological

pictures were cabalistic 'they certainly wereP(, symbolical, ague,

and capable of arious interpretations. I must note that Ipersonally hae gien these biological drawings to persons well

credentialed in the field of Biology, and as!ed them to gie me an

e"planation of what they see in them. In eery instance, and

without any prior !nowledge of the 0, they hae gien

descriptions that ery closely resemble the deciphered

interpretations of ewbold.

+ther assailants made particular note of the drawing thatrepresented the nebula ndromeda. Based on the fact that the

spiral nebula in ndromeda lies edge on to earthly obserers,

Bacon would hae had to hae an incredibly powerful telescope to

iew such a thing. But, as we hae noted, no one was really

claiming that he did.

It may be deduced from these painsta!ing onslaughts that

maybe these assailants felt it was necessary to hide the true natureof the wor!. In 0anly*s 45>4 article, he blatantly reeals his real

concerns with the warning to all that, these results 'of ewbold*s(

threaten to falsify to no unimportant degree, the history of human

thought.


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not hae been written before 45>. He obsered that the drawings

in the 0 include the li!es of the common sunflower, and

Capsicum, both plants natie to the mericas which according to

him, were un!nown to 7uropeans before the return of Columbusfrom his second oyage. %e needn*t go into the Columbus

discoery here, as historically it is well !nown that he was hardly

the first to enture to the mericas.

ot long after +*eil*s obserations, r. #eonell trong, a

cancer research scientist and amateur cryptographer, too! on the

proEect of deciphering the 0. 1ancifully boasting that he could

unrael the secret of any cipher, trong said that the solution tothe 0 cipher was a peculiar double system of arithmetical

progressions of a multiple alphabet. 7en here, there was a great

similarity to ewbold*s system, but trong altogether

bombastically stated that the plainte"t reealed the 0 to be

written by the 48th century 7nglish author nthony scham,

whose wor!s include #ittle Herbal, published in 499D. lthough

the 0 does contain one section resembling an herbal, it is

un!nown where the author of #ittle Herbal would hae obtained

such literary and cryptographic !nowledge.

&he speculation of %illiam 1. 1riedmann, another military

cryptographer, was that the 0 was actually a te"t in an artificial

language, and may hae held some merit if it were not for the fact

that he was also responsible, and instrumental in the demolition

of ewbold*s theory 'again, after ewbold*s death(. But, he, too

neer went any further than this simple hypothesis. 0any others

hae inented their own ersions of decipherment of the 0, but

all of them fall short of ma!ing anything intelligible out of the

mysterious characters. &o the cryptographic orthodo"y, the 0 is

still undeciphered. I beliee many hae merely ta!en the


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disparaging words of others as proof that the ewbold solution is

bogus, without actually e"amining the specifics. Had ewbold

been an amateur with nothing but this decipherment for

credentials, it would certainly raise some doubt. But, ewboldindeed practised his techni2ues on similar manuscripts such as

the &ironian signs of the so-called /atican ocument 'which I

won*t detail here as it would necessitate the space of an entire

article in itself( and many others. It is most probable though, that

the /oynich 0 actually cost ewbold his health, both physically

and mentally. In the latter days of his wor! on the 0 he began to

grow weary and would often restructure his entire method without

any sense of reason. till, the heart of ewbold*s inspiration lies inhis initial wor! on the 0, and there has not been anyone since

who has een come close to the original genius of his solution to

the most mysterious manuscript in the world.

NEW)OLD-S DECIPHERMENT IN DETAIL

&he system of ciphers as used in the /oynich 0 is based

upon two distinct forms. &he first is the shorthand form, and the

second being the #atin form. %e will start by detailing the #atin

form, as it would hae been the first used in encipherment.

The La.i% For/

BaconMs fundamental obEectie in the #atin form was to

construct a cipher which would present no indication of being a

cipher at all, and hence, arouse no curiosity, and prompt no one to

attempt its decipherment. It will be seen that in the eent the

reader would choose to underta!e decipherment, hQshe should be

well e2uipped. good !nowledge of #atin is essential, but one

must be ersed with the styles of mediaeal #atin, as found in

irtually all manuscripts of the period. &he maEority of words were


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neer written out in full, and remaining letters were supplemented

by a complicated system of abbreiation symbols by no means free

from ambiguity. n e"ample of this, ta!en from

BaconMs+erspectiva,=6@

is seen below with the lines translated intofullte"t beneath them.

e isione fracta maiora s..t a. de facili p..et per canones

e isione fiacta maEora suntF nam de facili patet per

canones

supr.d.c.os 2uod ma"ima pos...t apparere m...ma econ..a

I..ge

supradictos, 2uod ma"ima possum apparere minima, et econlra, et longe

distan..a idebu.t.r propi.2..ssime econ..a a.

possumus sic

distantia idebuntur propin2uissime et e conerso. am

possumus sic

fig.rare perspicua tali...r ea ordiari r...... n...ri isus

figurare perspicua, et taliter ea ordinate respectu nostri

isual

rerum 2ua fi)ngetr radii 2.orumcun2uc olu.rimus ut

s.b

et rerum 2uod frangentur radii guorsumcun2ue

oluerimus, ut sub

2uo ider.mus a. distacia n.. facit ad h.ius.... isiones n..i

2uo ideremus, nam distantia non facit ad huEusmodi

isiones nisi, etc.....


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lthough this is not necessarily the order in which the te"t

appears, generally some >D-D percent of letters are indicated by

abbreiations or omissions. 0ediaeal scholars accustomed to this

may hae no difficulty with its translation, but een e"cellentstudents of #atin hae been troubled by this.

#et us now continue with the cipher. %e hae already discussed

the alphabet used earlierA

a b c d e f g h i l m n o p q r s t u v y z

7ach letter is combined with each other letter in the alphabet as

followsA

aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai al am an ao ap aq ar

as at au av ay az

ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bl hm hm bo bp bq br

bs bt bu bv by bz

ca cb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci cl cm cn co cp cq cr

cs ct cu cv cy cz

etc.

and on to ) to form 66 alphabets composed of 66 pairs of letters, a

total of biliteral symbols composing BaconMs primary

alphabet. /ery shortly before ewholdMs death he would include

! in the alphabet, but it only figured rarely, and was not een

really necessary. ow the biliteral alphabet contains all the

possible pairs of letters which occur in the #atin alphabet, and

some that do not such as bg, c), and )f. In typical biliteral fashion,the pairs are now assigned to singular alphabetic alues to build

up other #atin words. &he ne"t step is to strip any two consecutie

pairs of letters in the biliterally composed te"t 'within the same

word(. &he first pair must end with, and the second pair must


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begin with the same letter, and these repeated letters are then

omitted from the biliteral word. 1or e"ampleA

or - ri - it - tu - ur

would be assigned to the alphabetic aluesA

or - ri - it - tu - ur

U N I U S

If the repeated letters are omitted, one has the #atin

erb oriturfor the coerte"t. %hile it may be possible to write two

or more words in proper grammatical relation, it would be

impossible to write continuous te"t of any length that would ma!esense. t this point, many of the biliterals were assigned

additional alues.

e"t, the 66 letters of the ordinary alphabet were reduced to

eleen on purely phonetic principles 'Bacon gies the basis for this

simplification in his (ford /ree! /rammar, pp ft(, and thus

appro"imately doubles the total number of symbols aailable for

representing each indiidual letter. 1our letters only, of this new

alphabet, hae but a single sound, a, t, m, n. +f the

owels, iand yare regarded as a single letter, and oand uare

regarded =>@as a single letterF vis not distinct from uany more

thanjis distinct from i. +f the consonants, the labialspfbare

ta!en as one letterF so also the dentals tdF the gutturals cg!0F the

li2uids lrF and the sibilants s. &he letter his omitted e"cept in

the words mihiand nihil, which are written miniand nicil. Instead

of, as is used inariably. &hus the phonetic alphabet comprisesthe following eleen lettersA

a b-f-p c-g-k-q t-d e i-j-y I-r m n o-u-v sz

&he following table details the alphabet and its total number of

e2uialent symbolsA


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Pho%e.ic Le..er

To.al Nu/0er o1

S!/0ol Ha2i%3

.hi 2alue

' S a( ?; ' S b f p( >5

C ' S c g ! 2( 469

& ' S d t( 89

7 ' S e( 448

I ' S i E y( 4D8

R ' S I r( 4>

0 ' S m( 4>D

' S n( 56U ' S o u ( 4>6

' S s )( ?>

The Scri4. For/

fter the te"t was enciphered using the #atin form, it was

then replaced by a superficial system of seemingly alphabetical

symbolsA

&hese signs are actually made up of the shorthand symbolsdiscussed earlier, and are composed of indiidual stro!es of the

pen. +ne should refer to figure at left for the actual table of

shorthand characters and their alues. ince t is e"pressed by

symbols, and u by 6 symbols, there are a total of 66 indiidual


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signs. %hen reading the characters, one should start at the lower

left, and proceed upward folloring the ductus of the pen.

Su//ar! o1 Ne50ol$- Me.ho$

1or the deciphering of the #atin te"ts, four processes must be

appliedA

6# Syllabification(ouble all but the first and last letters of

each word, and diide the product into biliteral groups or symbols.

7# Translation(&ranslate these symbols into their alphabetic

alues.

8# Reversion(Change the alphabetic alues to the phoneticalues, by the use of the reersion alphabet.

9# Recomposition(Rearrange the letters in order, and thus

recompose the true te"t.

1or the reading of the cryptogram or sharthand te"ts, there are si"

processes in the interpretationA

6# Transliteration(Identify the shorthand characters and

transliterate them in order.

7# Syllabification(ouble all but he first and the last character,

for there is no wordNdiisionF and arrange in biliteral symbols.

8# Commutation(In any symbol where the second letter is a

commuting letter, namely c o n m u t aand0, change the prior

letter by the conersion alphabetF where the first letter is a

commuting letter, change the second by the reersion alphabetF

where both are commuting letters, change both in the ways Eust

stated.

9# Translation(ssign to the commuted symbols their

alphabetic alues.


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:# Reversion(Change alphabetic alues to phonetic alues.

;# Recomposition(Rearrange the letters in order, as with the

cipher #atin.

1or further reading and investigation, the complete folios of the

2oynich &anuscript have been made available in digital, high3

resolution format by the 'einec!e Rare 'oo! 4 &anuscript

5ibrary of the 6ale 7niversity 5ibrary8 http899brbl3

dl.library.yale.edu9vufind9Record9:;

Re1ere%ce

4. &he Cipher of Roger Baconby %illiam Romaine ewbold, edited by

Roland Grubb . &he ecret &eachings of ll gesby 0anly ;almer Hall. ;hilosophical

Research ociety, 45??.

. Cryptography O &he cience of ecret %ritingby #awrence wight

mith. %.%. orton, 45>.

9. +pus 0aEusby Roger Bacon. Complete #atin ersion by Howard R.Bayne, 458.

8. Comte e Gabalisby the bbe . e 0ontfaucon e/illars. ;aris

48?D.

?. &he Incredible Roger Bacon by 0anley 0ills. 1ate, pril 4594, pp 85-

?6.
http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3519597http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3519597http://amzn.to/Naf9ZAhttp://amzn.to/Or8Ph7http://amzn.to/M0dpElhttp://amzn.to/M79bHhhttp://amzn.to/NafknDhttp://amzn.to/Or9kYFhttp://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3519597http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3519597http://amzn.to/Naf9ZAhttp://amzn.to/Or8Ph7http://amzn.to/M0dpElhttp://amzn.to/M79bHhhttp://amzn.to/NafknDhttp://amzn.to/Or9kYF


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. Cipher of the ecret Boo! by Betty 0c

deciphering the most mysterious manuscript in the world

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