Voynich

The most baffling and enigmatic manuscript in the world. So rare is it that not even the greatest minds in cryptography or linguistics have managed to decipher it yet. And they've been trying for 600 years! Why, not even today, with the help of artificial intelligence, can we read a single word? Is it a joke? The hallucinations of a visionary? A deception perpetrated by a genius? Does it come from this Earth? From another planet?

The book is a real headache. To begin with, no one knows who wrote it or why. Nor do we know its language or its alphabet. And the title "Voynich" comes from the Lithuanian bookseller who discovered it in 1912. We don't even know what it means. Its 234 pages feature illustrations that seem to make no sense: possible zodiac constellations and surreal mandalas, maps of unknown places, naked women emerging from cisterns connected to pipes or tied to stars, imaginary plants, medicinal remedies... and what looks like a sewer plan!

But the mystery doesn't end there, because the incomprehensible, somewhat childish and rudimentary drawings are accompanied by some 30,000 letters, all in lowercase, without punctuation marks, and in regular calligraphy. Although we say "letters" for lack of a better word, of course, because these symbols that form supposed words do not resemble any ever used by any human being. Some relate it to variants of Sanskrit, Glagolitic, Rongorongo, or extinct Nahuatl dialects; others to an experiment similar to Esperanto, or to an encrypted language. Even the CIA itself has tried to decipher its content in vain!

What could the Voynich Manuscript be? An invented botany manual? A cosmological treatise? An esoteric work? An elven code? A cabalistic book? A catalog of potions? A contraceptive solution for medieval women? Perhaps an alien's diary? What secrets do its pages hide?

Faced with so much uncertainty, what could we do? The usual thing in these cases: dive into our ball pit to figure something out. And it worked. Oh, did it work! Because apparently, through a wormhole hidden at the bottom, we ended up in another dimension. Where were we? Could it be the world of the Voynich? What had been improbable illustrations moments before now came to life before us. There were its unclassifiable plants, the women from the cisterns running around smiling, the stars occupying a precise place in the sky. We even spoke fluent Voynichese!

What had happened? Had we instantly resolved all the questions? Was the enigma finally solved? One last doubt assailed us: why had we appeared there? For what reason? Could it be to witness our next collection live? The mere possibility was fascinating! If so, we would transform the stars and spirals of its firmament into amazing earrings, necklaces, and crowns. The plants into exuberant accessories, and the accessories into the secret of the manuscript finally revealed. And all of this with fresh colors, fresher and more magical than ever! Red, pink, blue, gold, and white, carefully chosen one by one, loaded with soul and energy.

Meanwhile, the Voynich continues to slumber on the shelves of the Beinecke Library, waiting for someone to unravel its mystery. Could it be because our pieces haven't been uploaded?