Random Wednesdays- The Unreadable Manuscript

In 1912, a Polish book seller, Wilfrid Voynich bought an old manuscript, having no idea the questions it would raise. The Voynich Manuscript is written in an unreadable codex. Over the years, many people have studied and studied this manuscript, trying to find some way to learn the language or crack the code. World War 1 and 2 code breakers even puzzled over this ancient book, searching for any way of translation. The book has been carbon-dated to the 15th century, and may have been written in Italy during the renaissance. The words, or code, are written from left to right, and pictures accompany every page. Some of the pictures are less than appropriate, but some seem to be pictures of strange forms of flowers, and other things, which I will post below.

Above is a floral picture from the manuscript. As you can see, the colors are still bright and vibrant after all these years.

These appear to be plants. The first looks roughly like carrots, or turnips.

And these seem to be some form of astronomical charting.

Some people claim the manuscript was done by a child, making up their own language, or a lunatic babbling away on Vellum. But for it's time, this 240 page+ book would have been incredibly expensive to produce, and would have been done very carefully, by someone who had the money to spend. The foldout pages would have been the most rare and expensive to purchase. Some have claimed that this book could hold medicine's, as some of the paintings look a bit like some healing plants we have now. Extremists believe the Voynich is a manuscript left behind for us by aliens. The pictures in this manuscript are very simple, and very complex all at the same time, making it very difficult for anyone to know whether it was a very serious work that was put in code so as to be of the utmost secrecy, or whether it was simply the play of a young, and very rich child. Maybe we will never know, or maybe someday, we will finally be able to reveal the secrets of the Voynich Manuscript.

                                               ~Katie~

Most information gathered from Wikipedia, some from other sources and documentaries.