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600 year old mystery manuscript decoded

600 year old mystery manuscript decoded

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by: Haybugg Active Indicator LED Icon 4 OP 
~ 10 years ago   Feb 20, '14 2:08pm  
600 year old mystery manuscript decoded by University of Bedfordshire professor
 
Fri 14th February, 2014
AN award-winning professor from the University
has followed in the footsteps of Indiana Jones by cracking the code of a
600 year old manuscript, deemed as ‘the most mysterious’ document in
the world.
 
Stephen Bax, Professor of Applied
Linguistics, has just become the first professional linguist to crack
the code of the Voynich manuscript using an analytical approach.
 
The world-renowned manuscript is full of illustrations of exotic
plants, stars, and mysterious human figures, as well as many pages
written in an unknown text.
 
Up until now the 15th century cryptic work has baffled
scholars, cryptographers and codebreakers who have failed to read a
single letter of the script or any word of the text.
 
Over time it has attained an infamous reputation, even featuring in
the latest hit computer game Assassin’s Creed, as well as in the Indiana
Jones novels, when Indiana decoded the Voynich and used it to find the
‘Philosopher's Stone’.
 
However in reality no one has come close to revealing the Voynich’s true messages.
 
Many grand theories have been proposed. Some suggest it was the work
of Leonardo da Vinci as a boy, or secret Cathars, or the lost tribe of
Israel, or most recently Aztecs … some have even proclaimed it was done
by aliens!
 
Professor Bax however has begun to unlock the mystery meanings of the
Voynich manuscript using his wide knowledge of mediaeval manuscripts
and his familiarity with Semitic languages such as Arabic. Using careful
linguistic analysis he is working on the script letter by letter.
 
“I hit on the idea of identifying proper names in the text, following
historic approaches which successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs
and other mystery scripts, and I then used those names to work out part
of the script,” explained Professor Bax, who is to give his inaugural lecture as a professor at the University later this month.
 
“The manuscript has a lot of illustrations of stars and plants. I was
able to identify some of these, with their names, by looking at
mediaeval herbal manuscripts in Arabic and other languages, and I then
made a start on a decoding, with some exciting results.”
 
Among the words he has identified is the term for Taurus, alongside a
picture of seven stars which seem to be the Pleiades, and also the word
KANTAIRON alongside a picture of the plant Centaury, a known mediaeval
herb, as well as a number of other plants.
 
Although Professor Bax’s decoding is still only partial, it has
generated a lot of excitement in the world of codebreaking and
linguistics because it could prove a crucial breakthrough for an
eventual full decipherment.
 
“My aim in reporting on my findings at this stage is to encourage
other linguists to work with me to decode the whole script using the
same approach, though it still won’t be easy. That way we can finally
understand what the mysterious authors were trying to tell us,” he
added.
 
“But already my research shows conclusively that the manuscript is
not a hoax, as some have claimed, and is probably a treatise on nature,
perhaps in a Near Eastern or Asian language.” 
 
Find out more about his work at the University's Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) and also on his personal website www.stephenbax.net
 
Professor Bax, who was recently awarded the 2014 TESOL International
Distinguished Researcher Award for his work on eye-tracking and reading,
will discuss this and other research at his inaugural professional lecture at the University’s Luton campus on Tuesday 25 February at 6pm. 4951
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fcabanski Active Indicator LED Icon 16
~ 10 years ago   Feb 20, '14 4:23pm  
Taurus!!!???  They had cars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4951
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