Astroarchaeology

The astrological cycles identified as the basis for the Voynich text in my recent investigations are not, in themselves, esoteric. 

They are the commonplace cycles of the sun. 

To recap: at the heart of Voynichese, I propose, are the gallows glyphs marking the solstices and the equinoxes and the midpoints between them.

We find these points of the year, and the cycles of the sun, represented in various forms throughout the world (up until the rise of modernity, at which point their symbolism becomes unintelligible.) 

They are acknowledged as a pervasive preoccupation of astroarcheology since neolithic times at least.  

Arguably, this is what we see in early standing stone structures found throughout the world. We probably do not misconstrue such structures as 'observatories' largely mapping the yearly cycles of the sun. 

Most famously there is Stonehenge, the site apparently aligned in the direction of the solstices (and perhaps especially related to the winter solstice?) 

But Voynichese, it seems, is a case of these structures rendered as TEXT. 

There is no question that this symbolism is found throughout the world and is exceedingly ancient. Here we find it in our manuscript. 

This is the point at which Voynich fringe theories begin. Ancient civilizations. Secret traditions. Atlantis. The Illuminati.

In reality, this solar symbolism is accesible to any half-wit who can stand still and look up long enough. It takes little more than a stick and a piece of string to work it all out. 

Alas, we live in an age when half-wits are on the move and no one looks up from their phones long enough to even notice the sky, and so it all seems mysterious and unfamiliar and occult.

It is not at all surprising that it is universal and ancient. This is only to say that different people at different times and places have watched the movements of the sun and drawn much the same conclusions. 

(Just as it is not surprising Africans and Indians both have myths about elephants.)

If someone were to say: 'The Voynich text has the same structures as Stonehenge', the proper response is: So what? 

Both seem based on the simple movements of the Sun. That is the only connection between them: the simple and obvious movements of the Sun. 

Two people, remote in time and place, see the same cycles. Neolithic man observed the solstices? So what? 

In some respects we can date astro-cosmologies.

Before these solar cosmologies were even more ancient polar cosmologies, and after them are more elaborate planetary systems. 

What is surprising is that someone should embed this system of solar symbolism into a system of writing, a text. 

* * *

Astroarcheology is a minefield, but we cannot avoid it altogether. Let us proceed with caution. 

All that needs to be said, in the first instance, is that these neolithic standing stone structures are essentially like astrolabes. 

How do they work? The observer stands in the centre of concentric circles of carefully placed stones and then watches the movements of the heavens relative to those markers. 

(I'm not going to argue about the precise purpose and uses of Stonehenge, but this is a generally accepted proposal as far as it goes.)

Here is an entirely ahistorical reconstruction of the Stonehenge system that stylizes this idea:

Now, let us suppose - ahistorically - that each of these stone markers is ascribed a glyph, a letter of an alphabet, according to a carefully designed scheme. 

The celestial movements can now be recorded as text, or at least as strings and groups of glyphs. 

Of course, Stonehenge is from a preliterate age, and the Voynich ms. from a highly literate age, but the idea is straightforward. 

It is more or less what we see on f57v in the Voynich ms: a system of circles marked with glyphs and people (observers) standing in the centre looking in the four directions. 

* * *

There is no need to reach into prehistory, though. By my account of it, the Voynich system has its direct inspiration in the Helios illustration of the Canones of Ptolemy. 

The Voynich author has extracted solar symbolism from that work and then transposed it into a system of glyphs. (I characterize this as a type of astrological notation.) 

The source is Hellenic, ancient Greek. Not Stonehenge or the Pyramids or Gobekli Tepi or the temples of the Incas. 

Those places arguably display the same or similar symbolism, but again: so what? 

Why be amazed that people throughout history aligned their buildings, temples and sacred sites to the Sun? 

There is no Secret Brotherhood or Lost Civilization necessary to explain it. 

What we find in the Voynich ms. is the early Renaissance reception of an ancient Hellenic solar symbolism. In itself, that symbolism is not arcane or esoteric: it is commplace, even ubiquitous. 

* * *

I do, however, entertain a distinctly fringe theory at this point. 

I have argued, from the outset, that the herbal traditions of the Dolomite mountains - among the people now identified as the 'Ladin' - might be reflected and recorded in the Voynich manuscript. 

This tradition is exceedingly ancient. Ethnobotanical studies trace it to the ice age, the age of the Ortzi Man. 

The language of the Ladin, moreover, has elements of pre-Roman Rhaetic, with ancient Celtic roots underneath its 'vulgar Latin'. 

The mythology and oral folklore of the Ladin is considered exceedingly ancient too. Its totemism, certain themes, lack of deities and other features are typical of very early mythopaeic forms. 

The claim of the Ladin is that their culture, isolated in the valleys of the Dolomites, has preserved traditions ultimately extending back many thousands of years.

In any case, it is not an idle claim that their herbal tradition extends back into prehistory.

(I regard it as remarkable that this herbal tradition - an indigenous tradition in Northern Italy - has received so little attention in the course of modern Voynich research.) 

Might not this ancient solar symbolism also be part of this tradition? Why not? 

A scenario emerges:

The ancient Rhaetic/Celtic people of the north Italian Alps had a thorough knowledge of the solar cycles. 

They did not build stone circles like Stonehenge, but the solar cycles were the matrix of their herbal tradition, an intact oral tradition preserved from very ancient times deep into the Middle Ages.

Under the provocation of the Helios minature in Ptolemy's Canones, someone familiar with the Ladin herbal tradition has devised a system of notation expressing the ancient knowledge of the cycles. 

That is, the doctrine of the Helios miniature has been matched to the solar-based (exceedingly ancient) herbal tradition of the Dolomites and the Rosengarten Mountains. 

Two things converge: ancient Greek Helios solarism and an even more ancient Rhaetic layer of connections. 

On this reading, it is not untoward to say that the Voynich preserves a body of ancient knowledge; a very, very old solar herbalism. 

R.B.