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American Botanical Council Publishes Revolutionary Analysis Unlocking Mysteries of 500-Year-Old Manuscript
Authors Propose Unique New World Origins of Obscure Voynich Manuscript
in HerbalGram
(AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 20, 2014) In the 100th
issue of its quarterly, peer-reviewed journal, HerbalGram,
the nonprofit American Botanical Council published a feature that may change
the course of research on an approximately 500-year-old, illuminated text known
as the Voynich Manuscript. Written in a curious language that is yet
un-deciphered, the enigma of the Voynich has puzzled scholars and mystery
enthusiasts since its 1912 discovery by Polish book collector Wilfrid M.
Voynich.
This manuscript, now housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at
Yale University, has elicited enormous interest, resulting in numerous books
and Internet sites with no conclusive resolution on the manuscript’s origin.
Even the US National Security Agency has taken an interest in its cryptic
contents, and doctoral theses have been written on attempts to decipher the
language of the Voynich Manuscript.
HerbalGram’s
feature article by Arthur O. Tucker, PhD, and Rexford H. Talbert, titled “A
Preliminary Analysis of the Botany, Zoology, and Mineralogy of the Voynich
Manuscript,” is based on a unique, investigative approach
to understanding the strange manuscript. Past researchers have attempted to
prove that the manuscript was a product of Europe, mainly because it was
discovered in Italy, but also because they believed a European language to be
hidden in the writing system of the text. Other theorists proposed Asian
origins based on the premise that cloaked Chinese characters existed within
syllabary of the Voynich Manuscript. As with many of humankind’s most enduring
mysteries, aliens have been implicated as well.
Dr. Tucker — botanist, emeritus professor, and co-director of the Claude E. Phillips Herbarium at
Delaware State University — and Mr. Talbert, a retired information technologist
formerly employed by the US Department of Defense and NASA, decided to look
first at the botanical illustrations in the Voynich Manuscript and compare them
to the world’s geographic plant distribution at the time of the manuscript’s
first recorded appearance (ca. 1576-1612). The similarities between a plant
illustrated in the Voynich Manuscript and the soap plant depicted in the 1552 Codex Cruz-Badianus of Mexico — considered the first medical text written in the New
World — propelled the authors down a path leading to the identification of 37
plants, 6 animals, and 1 mineral in the manuscript from the Americas — specifically,
from post-Conquest Nueva España (New Spain) and the surrounding regions.
In identifying the plants, animals, and minerals, the authors of the HerbalGram article
found more compelling evidence to support their theory. They write, “A search
of the surviving codices and manuscripts from Nueva España in the 16th century
reveals the calligraphy of the Voynich Ms. to be similar to the Codex Osuna
(1563-1566, Mexico City). Loan-words for the plant and animal names have been
identified from Classical Nahuatl, Spanish, Taino, and Mixtec” — references to
some of the native languages of Mexico prior to the Spanish Conquest. The
majority of the text, the authors propose, is an extinct dialect, keeping much
of the Voynich Manuscript’s secrets intact…for now.
“Although the Voynich is clearly not the most pressing issue in modern herbal
medicine and phytotherapy, we believed we could not pass up the opportunity to
publish Art Tucker and Rex Talbert’s insightful essay in which they propose a
New World origin for the source and identity of the plants in the Voynich —
possibly providing a breakthrough in this historical conundrum,” wrote Mark
Blumenthal, HerbalGram editor-in-chief and ABC founder and executive director, in his Dear
Reader editorial column in the same issue of HerbalGram.
“Long thought a mystery, written in an untranslatable…cipher,” he continued,
“the Voynich has been the subject of almost countless essays and
investigations, none of which has been able to ‘crack the code.’”
The article has garnered positive responses from several experts in the fields
of botany and ethnobotany.
Wendy Applequist, PhD, the associate curator of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s
William L. Brown Center, said “Numerous failed attempts to crack the code of
the Voynich Manuscript have focused on linguistics and cryptography. Tucker and
Talbert have focused on its botany and, surprisingly but plausibly, identified
many of the plants depicted as New World taxa.
“At minimum,” Dr. Applequist continued, “this offers new leads for decipherment
efforts; ultimately, if text relating to Central American ethnobotany can be
retrieved from the manuscript, its historical significance will be
extraordinary.”
“Dr. Arthur Tucker has made a breakthrough in the interpretation of the Voynich
Manuscript,” stated Jules Janick, PhD, James Troop Distinguished Professor in
Horticulture at Purdue University. “He has demonstrated to my satisfaction that
it contains images based on Mexican flora and fauna. Clearly horticultural
information has provided a smoking gun. The education of the Aztec elite by
various Spanish priests in ‘colleges’ in the 16th century provides a plausible
narrative for the creation of this manuscript.
“While names of various plants have been identified in Nahuatl, the main text
still remains to be deciphered, but I am optimistic,” added Dr. Janick.
As ethnobotanist, author, and Amazon Conservation Team Executive Director Mark
Plotkin, PhD, noted, “Tucker and Talbert have produced an analysis both
intriguing and insightful which solves one of the ultimate ethnobotanical cold
cases!”
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