An undeciphered manuscript believed to date from the 15th century, composed of an unknown writing system and bizarre botanical illustrations that have baffled cryptographers for over 600 years.
The Voynich Manuscript is a parchment codex of approximately 240 pages written in an unknown script called "Voynichese." Radiocarbon dating has confirmed that the vellum was produced between 1404 and 1438. It was discovered in 1912 by Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-American book dealer, at a Jesuit college in Italy and named after him.
The text is written left to right using approximately 20-25 distinct character symbols. Statistical analysis shows that letter frequency patterns resemble those of natural languages, yet they match no known language. Repetition patterns and vocabulary distribution follow Zipf's law, suggesting the text is not random gibberish.
The manuscript contains drawings of plants, astronomical diagrams, human figures, and pharmaceutical-looking charts. Many botanical illustrations do not match any known plant species and have been interpreted as imaginary organisms. The astronomy section includes circular diagrams resembling zodiac signs and constellations.
