Emily Chan
It was written in an unknown language that is now referred to as “Voynichese.” Drawings of people bathing and mythical creatures like dragons are scattered among illustrations of astrological symbols and fictitious plants.
Over the years, there have been numerous speculations about what the Voynich Manuscript might mean. One expert stated that it was a women’s health manual. Others believe that Voynich created it as a hoax. Some theories suggest that the manuscript might’ve come from an entirely different world.
A physicist named Andreas Schinner analyzed the manuscript, attempting to unlock its secrets. His examinations led him to the conclusion that the text was just a random string of letters and had no meaning, supporting the idea that it was created as a hoax.
However, other studies claim that it was written in a new language that had never been discovered before. Alternatively, the language was also likened to a version of Latin, Hebrew, or Turkish.
In 2020, Yale University uploaded the entire manuscript to its online digital library, allowing anyone in the world to access it. Hopefully, the widespread availability to the public will lead to the mystery of the Voynich Manuscript being solved.
So far, the only new information about the document was gleaned in 2023. A researcher named Stefan Guzy managed to trace the ownership of the Voynich Manuscript back.
After analyzing imperial accounts of all book-related transactions, he found a letter from Johannes Marcus Marci, a 17th-century royal doctor who received the manuscript from the alchemist Georg Baresch.
Before that, it had once belonged to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The emperor had bought the manuscript from the physician Carl Widemann for 600 gold coins between 1576 and 1612.
Widemann sold books to the emperor that he had inherited from botanist Leonard Rauwolf. And that’s where the trail ends. The identity of the original creator and owner of the book is still unclear. Perhaps we may never know.
