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WonderLiterary fact

The Voynich manuscript is a hand-written, illustrated book from the early 1400s, filled with drawings of unknown plants and pages of text in a script that no one has been able to read.

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It is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who bought it in 1912. In 2009 researchers at the University of Arizona used radiocarbon dating, which measures slowly decaying carbon, to date its calfskin pages to between 1404 and 1438, making a modern forgery very unlikely. About 240 pages survive, with sections on plants, stars, bathing women and medicines. A letter written in 1665 or 1666 claims that the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II once paid 600 ducats for it. The text runs left to right in 20 to 25 recurring characters, and some of its patterns resemble those of real languages, yet leading codebreakers, including William and Elizebeth Friedman, failed to read it. Suggestions range from an unknown language or a cipher to an elaborate hoax; none has been proven. Since 1969 it has been kept at Yale University, which has put every page online.

Türkçe oku
Voynich el yazması, 1400'lerin başından kalma, elle yazılmış resimli bir kitaptır. Sayfaları kimsenin tanıyamadığı bitkilerin çizimleriyle ve bugüne kadar kimsenin okuyamadığı bir yazıyla doludur.

Adını, 1912'de kitabı satın alan Polonyalı kitapçı Wilfrid Voynich'ten alır. 2009'da Arizona Üniversitesi'ndeki araştırmacılar, yavaşça bozunan karbonu ölçen radyokarbon yöntemiyle dana derisinden yapılmış sayfaları 1404–1438 arasına tarihlendirdi; böylece yakın zamanda yapılmış bir sahte olma olasılığı çok zayıfladı. Bugüne yaklaşık 240 sayfası ulaştı; bitkiler, yıldızlar, yıkanan kadınlar ve ilaçlar üzerine bölümleri vardır. 1665 ya da 1666'da yazılmış bir mektuba göre Kutsal Roma Germen İmparatoru II. Rudolf bir zamanlar kitap için 600 duka altını ödemişti. Metin soldan sağa, sürekli tekrar eden 20-25 kadar harfle yazılmıştır ve bazı özellikleri gerçek dillerinkine benzer. Yine de aralarında William ve Elizebeth Friedman'ın da bulunduğu ünlü şifre çözücüler onu okuyamadı. Bilinmeyen bir dilden şifreye, ustaca bir aldatmacaya kadar pek çok görüş öne sürüldü; hiçbiri kanıtlanamadı. El yazması 1969'dan beri Yale Üniversitesi'nde saklanıyor ve bütün sayfaları internette yayımlandı.

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Background reading: Voynich manuscript
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