Silphium and Voynich
You know what I find fascinating? The many losses that have taken place in history, not of men or property though, I mean disappearances from the pages of time. Prime example is the silphium plant. Now granted I don’t really know the first thing about this plant other than it was used in Greece and is said to now be extinct.
These tantalizing mysteries of history are so frustratingly… tantalizing. How could something so widely used disappear? Where did it go? Now I certainly don’t intend to become a silphium expert but at the same time it’s not difficult to imagine why someone would. The search for truth (an obsession with me as I’m sure you’ve guessed) is appealing and it’s powerful. The tug to explore humanity and its doings to get to the bottom of a great mystery.
Speaking of tantalizing mysteries have you heard of the ultra bizarre Voynich manuscript that appeared out of nowhere 500 years ago and…
Update:
It seems there’s a library that scanned the entire Voynich manuscript for your pleasure: Enjoy the Voynich Manuscript
November 12th, 2007 at 06:43
If you like both Silphium and the Voynich manuscript, you might be interested in a 2001 VMS mailing list thread, talking about possible connections between the two. Or you might not. Either way, here’s the link:-
http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2001/10/msg00056.html
November 12th, 2007 at 22:31
Hey thanks. I most certainly am interested in the Voynich manuscript. It never occurred to me there might a connection.
November 25th, 2007 at 18:31
I understand what you mean perfectly well. The Middle Dutch ms of Reynard the Fox starts off mentioning the author of the story as “Willem who made Madoc”. It’s not sure who this Madoc refers to (perhaps the Welsh legendary prince) and it’s entirely unclear who Willem was.
One thing is for sure: we have no ms about anyone called Madoc in Dutch and we have no other writings by this Willem.
Guy writes one of the prime stories in our body of literary works and he’s been erased from history completely.
Tantalizing, fascinating and frustrating. I keep hoping I run into Madoc somewhere on a flea market.
As for Voynich, I’d heard of it. Thanks for reminding me, though. I was going to ask had you heard of the Codex Seraphinus? Then I saw it was mentioned at the bottom of the Wikipedia page you linked to. Have a look at that. It’s not a mystery, but quite interesting too.
I’d love to have that book but it’s been out of print for years and it’d probably cost a fortune if I ever ran into a copy.
July 18th, 2008 at 08:18
[...] the excellent KG Blog (which I discovered through the equally excellent System 13 of course). One post that got my attention was one that talked about the mysterious Voynich [...]