What is the Voynich manuscript?
Quick Answer
The Voynich manuscript is a 15th-century illustrated book written in an unknown script that no one has convincingly deciphered.
The Full Story
The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-born book dealer who acquired it in 1912. Radiocarbon dating in 2009 showed its vellum dates from the early 15th century, roughly 1404 to 1438. Its roughly 240 surviving pages contain an unknown writing system alongside drawings of unidentified plants, astronomical diagrams and bathing figures. Cryptographers, linguists and codebreakers, including WWII experts, have tried and failed to read it. It is kept at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library as MS 408.
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