| Object: | Voynich manuscript |
| Date: | c. 16th century |
| Medium: | Vellum |
| Where to find: | Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library |
What to know: The Voynich manuscript is sometimes called the world’s most mysterious manuscript. Written in a unique script, by an unknown author, the manuscript is just as perplexing now as when it resurfaced in a Jesuit library in Rome in the early 20th century. In 1912 it was purchased by a Polish bibliophile by the name of Wilfrid Voynich, and it has excited the speculation of scholars ever since.
Pages from the Voynich manuscript
From the expert: “The Voynich manuscript looks like it should be easy to read and straightforward to understand,” says Claire Bowern, professor of linguistics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “It contains familiar topics, such as stars and plants, presented in very unfamiliar ways. It’s very hard to work with because there are so many unknowns: any theory relies on so many assumptions that it’s all too easy to get lost in speculation. However, we can still learn a lot: linguistics, for example, tells us about word patterns even if we don’t know what the words mean; paleography lets us identify that five people collaborated on writing the book.”
