From Rudi Van Nieuwenhove
Having never heard of the Voynich manuscript
(17 November, p 36),
I was really intrigued and also amused by the various attempts by the world’s best
cryptanalysts to decipher it.
As often happens, clever people tend to seek sophisticated and complex
solutions, but maybe it’s better here to look for simpler methods. The article
mentions that the crudely drawn flowers and plants are unlike anything found in
nature and maybe that hints at a possible solution. Could the drawings
themselves hold the transcription key to decipher the text on each page?
The plants shown in the article reveal leaves and roots that can easily be
counted, and possibly the resulting numbers provide the key to translate the
different pages of the document. Would it not be very ironic if all these years
people have been searching for a key while it was right in front of them all the
time?
Genk, Belgium
