GUEST POST BY BARBARA CASEY
One
of the major themes in The
Cadence of Gypsies
involves the Voynich Manuscript, considered to be the most mysterious
document in the world. Dara, Mackenzie, and Jennifer, the three
teenage orphans who call themselves the FIGs (Females of Intellectual
Genius), travel to Italy to help their teacher, Carolina find out
what the connection is between a letter she received supposedly from
her biological parents on her 18th
birthday and the Voynich Manuscript. That was also when she learned
that she was adopted.
In
reality, the Voynich
Manuscript is believed
to date to the early 15th century, possibly from northern Italy. It
is named after the book dealer Wilfrid
Voynich,
who purchased it in 1912.
The
original manuscript is composed of 240 vellum
pages, most with illustrations which seem to present information
about aliens, and plants and their possible uses for medical
purposes. However, most of the plants do not resemble any known
species. And even though the Voynich Manuscript has been studied by
many professional and amateur cryptographers,
including American and British codebreakers
from both World
War I
and World
War II,
the manuscript's script
and language
has remained unknown and unreadable.
Now,
once again the Voynich Manuscript is in the news as scientists have
attempted to use the power of artificial intelligence to unlock its
ancient secrets. The first stage of the research was working out the
manuscript’s language. The experts used 400 different language
translations from the “Universal
Declaration of Human Rights”
to identify the language used in the text. Initially, it seemed like
the text was written in Arabic, but the researchers’ algorithms
revealed that the manuscript is written in Hebrew. The next step will
be to decipher it using ‘alphagrams’ that use one phrase to
define another in order to build an algorithm to unscramble the text.
Interestingly,
while this is taking place, Viekko Latvala, a businessman from
Finland who professes to be a “profit of god,” says he has
decoded the manuscript, describing the written characters as “sonic
waves and vocal syllables.” He believes the creator of the Voynich
Manuscript was a scientist of plants, pharmacy, astrology, and
astronomy, and that the Voynich Manuscript contains prophesy hundreds
of years ahead of the time it was created.
And
so, the mystery continues…
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