The Voynich manuscript: Symbol roles revisited

PLoS One. 2022 Jan 27;17(1):e0260948. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260948. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

In this article, we employ simple descriptive methods in order to explore the peculiar behavior of the symbols in the Voynich Manuscript. Such an analysis reveals a group of symbols which are further analyzed for the possibility of being compounds (or ligatures), using a specifically developed method. The results suggest the possibility that the alphabet of the manuscript is a lot smaller, and steganographic type of encoding is proposed to explain the newly revealed properties.

Publication types

  • Historical Article

MeSH terms

  • History, Ancient
  • Manuscripts as Topic / history*
  • Semantics*

Grants and funding

Vladimír Matlach and Barbora Anna Janečková were funded by grant "Digital Humanities – theory and applications" No. "IGA_FF_2021_046, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, msmt.cz. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Daniel Dostál received no specific funding for this work.