of Manuscripts: Mine and Yours

A quick post before I head off to Baltimore for the trade show and for a special visit/detour I've set up to see some folks about particular manuscript at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. It seems a portion of my reproduction sampler includes a script very like that on a certain antique document. The document was found in 1921 by Wilfrid Voynich, but it dates back centuries before that. Voynich found it *probably* in Parma, Italy, but there is much mystery surrounding the whole thing. Nobody has been able to figure out the document - read it, or guess it's origins, as it is all in this wacky script. Voynich thought perhaps it was written by Roger Bacon in some code, but again many varying theories exist. It's simply referred to as the Voynich Manuscript - you can read more about it here or on Wikipedia.

Little Alien Schoolgirl. Note the circled area.

Here is a snip of the Voynich manuscript.

Speaking of Manuscripts, A few years back I put out a chart for an illustrated manuscript called the Book of Ink Circles, which some stitchers coined the title BoInk.  Admittedly, this one I totally made up, although I encouraged folks to select colors on their own and to personalize the initials block.

Here is Julia's (@mizzelle)  version, made with HDF silks. She's been working on it off and on for a long time, so this happy dance has been long and coming. Congrats, Julia!

Julia's BoInk

And another version with a special story behind it.  John sent me this photo of his Book of Ink Circles. He started it around the beginning of the year when he started undergoing radiation treatments for cancer.  He commented that each small block was a mini victory and he loved how bright and cheery the colors were. I think this adds up to a very special major victory for John.  I'm wishing him good health and continued stitching success.

John's BoInk

Manuscripts and Malibus

I'm back today from an exciting trip to the East Coast. I'll say a bit about the Baltimore trade show in a bit, but starting at the beginning of the trip I will tell first you about my trip to the Yale Library. I got in by plane, but rented a car to get around and then to take me down to Baltimore.  When presented the rental options, those of you who have watched Repo Man will understand why the obvious choice was the Chevy Malibu.

Those of you who have not watched Repo Men, are assigned to go do so. Due to re-designs of the model since the 1964 version, the trunk may have still been big enough to hold the bodies of four dead aliens, but it was not able to hold three big suitcases. I'm glad it was just my son and myself, such that the third could go in the backseat.

It was fabulous to hook up some of the staff there at the Yale library, particulary Dr. Ann Manisana,  and see the Voynich manuscript in person.  We were in strong agreement that the first large script in the Little Alien Schoolgirl Sampler was indeed a match to the script in the manuscript. We were unable to use the sampler in any way that would shed additional light into decrypting the manuscript.  Scholars there have been able to date the manuscript to before 1550 in our current time line, which only confuses attempts to date the sampler.

Dr. Manisana was also wonderfully helpful in being able to help put some context to another of the central motifs in the sampler. There is some shared imagery in various ancient cultures.  The Babylonian Tree of Life is pictured sometimes like:

This tree is sometimes flanked by creatures, ranging from the pair Adam and Eve, to these bird-like gods (shown below "fertilizing" the tree,) to fish-headed Assyrian gods. In different contexts, the tree was also referred to as a portal, or "door of life."

The six-legged beasts that I had thought simply were specimens of the native fauna, may actually be guardians of the portal or tree.  There is a world of difference between a domesticated six-legged reindeer or bull that might be a source of dinner and a guardian of the Door of Life!  Given such historical wealth of symbolism, I am concluding they are guardians. Whether they offer any fertilizer or not, is debatable.

On a similar topic of historic ancient manuscripts, I wanted to share a bit of purchasing I recently did.  A fellow historian, Nancy Spies, has published two volumes of motifs charted from ancient manuscripts.  These are wonderfully rich and so well researched. I had them on my wish list for several years and finally saw them in person on a visit to my friend Tasha.  I think they are going/gone out of print and are becoming scarcer to find. Amazon wanted $80 each for a copy.  I was able to get copies at the Scarlet Letter for the list price of $30 (no affiliation, just a pleased customer) and these were waiting for me upon my trip back home.  Rooting around to see if Nancy had been up to anything recently I came across a copy of an earlier work on historical cardweaving that I found intriguing and had to get.  So, if you are intrigued by these ancient manuscripts and historical context, I invite you to check out her work.

So many wonderful things to be rediscovered!  I like the thought of the ancient (and the future) images being perpetuated through the use of motifs in modern handworks.

End of the World

As we know it, and I feel fine (so far.) Regarding the Little Alien Schoolgirl sampler, I believe I've got this top corner figured out now and I'm sorry to report that it's a little ominous.  The long blue thingy with legs is obviously a sandworm. If you watch any of those outer space documentaries (Dune, Return of the Jedi, Tremors, etc.) you are aware that space is rife with them.

In doing some research, I found that other scientists had been trying to make some taxonomical comparisons between different types of sandworms, but it's all pretty sketchy. The exact breed/species of this one is unknown. (Graph courtesy of Neato.com)

Oh to know if the series of bars underneath is tied to the sandworm motif or was just placed in tragic arbitrary proximity. In attempts to decipher this motif, I started with the very simple idea that there were only two shapes used - a single vertical bar and a double horizontal bar. Given how many numbering systems use a similar one potato/two potato symbol, I substituted a number 1 for the single vertical and the "2" for the pair. So it could read: 2  1  1  2  1  2, or perhaps as paired numbers: 21/12/12.  This sequence of numbers might not have any immediate fear factor for those living in the United States, where we list our calendar dates with the month code first.  But most other places, including Central America (home of the Maya Civilization,) use the more logical "smallest division/bigger division/biggest division" method.

You've all heard about the Mayan calendar (not to be confused with the Aztec calendar that looks like circle upon circle of intricate symbols with a centrally placed God Dude sticking out his tongue) and that coincidentally (or not) it goes up to 21 December, 2012.

So was this sampler sent back in time to warn us that sandworms would be our ultimate undoing, and that the Mayans were privy to the date?  Judging from the date on the sampler, an awful lot of years ending in "12" have passed by the time of its stitching. I am actually somewhat embarrassed for Ms. Dala. Did we not learn ANYTHING from Y2K?  At some point in the future do we stupidly revert back to using two year date codes?

It's just like an odometer rolling around. Is it the end of the old pickup truck automatically one mile past 99,999? That's all that happens this December with the Mayan calendar. Our katuns and baktuns and the other Mayan calendar divisors all roll over. Are we so frightened that we start seeing coincidences everywhere? At what point do they stop being coincidences and become part of some larger conspiracy? Yeah, I'm sure those gold and green blocks must mean something else.




Not much time - you'd better get stitching.

Cracked!

You guys are really smart, but you knew that already.  I've had several fans diligently assisting me in deciphering that Little Alien Schoolgirl sampler unearthed earlier this year. I'm happy to say that with their help, a new section has shed the veil of mystery.

Alert stitchers realized this snippet of text was featured in a multi-part documentary called Futurama about a 30th century civilization. The future glimpse of society in New New York at the turn of the next millennium offered many previews of technology and culture. For those who question the veracity of this source, I offer that this acclaimed documentary has received seven Annies and five Emmy Awards and an Environmental Media Award!

Only after watching hours of recorded installments, pausing at each scene that included this mysterious script, were we able to provide enough text samples to input into the same computer system that linguists used to crack a 250-year old code by the Oculists.  (You MUST learn more about that, as it is the best win for the codebreakers in the last century - there is a great article in the current Wired Magazine, or you can see some stuff here. For real.)

With this key in hand and using the letters that Ms. Dala started with, I was able to piece together the missing symbols.  So, the good news for stitchers making reproductions of this sampler is that you now have an option to encrypt your very own message in this spot. It would be a great place for your name and date, or perhaps to say that YOU rock.  Of course, reproduction purists will want to stitch the sampler exactly as it will be made in the original.  Here is a pdf to the charted alphabet.

Watching this documentary, the viewer is also introduced to indefinite life extension technology wherein the head is maintained in a jar. Upon closer examination of the jarred heads in this sampler, I've concluded that these are more likely to be preserved specimen heads, rather than living heads of the sort seen in Futurama.

On signing off, I leave you with a link to the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Oliver Messiaen. If you don't know the connection, you need to watch more documentaries.

Little Alien Schoolgirl

Imagine my delight when I got a call from one of old Navy buddies saying she had come across something that I absolutely NEEDED to see.  She had gone off to work in the civilian sector in Nevada, but had apparently been brought in on this project in New Mexico.  She couldn't really tell me too much on the phone, and in fact, stated that I needed to have my security clearance reinstated/reviewed for specific limited access then show up in person.  It took nearly two months to get the the paperwork cleared (I HATE bureaucracy!) It was a stroke of luck that my Hazardous Waster Worker certs were still up to date (from my current position at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,) as she hadn't mentioned needing it until two days before my flight down there.

I have no photos of the trip.  I wasn't permitted to bring a camera to the facility, or even my phone, as it has a camera. Entertainingly, they weren't concerned about its ability to connect to the internet, as there was so much shielding and signal jamming that reception/transmission were impossible.  I wasn't even able to get cell phone service at the barracks, which were about 20 minutes ride from the site.

After dressing down and a series of debriefings, I was led down into one of the hallways and then into a tunnel.  A thick steel access door at the end of the tunnel had a modest-sized window fitted with the oil-filled glass panes. We have those out at work too, and I hate the way they distorts the viewing, but by the browning and clouding at the edges, I was glad that the glass was in place. All of the walls, ceiling, fixtures, tables etc in the room were plain white no-frills. A long set of manipulator arms extended out over the table, with joystick handles mounted in a box below the window.  I was not allowed to mess with them - apparently it requires more winning the Golden Star Cup in Mario Kart.  Fortunately, the young man who accompanied us was both adept and certified to use the arms.

Looking at all of this stuff on the table, I realized I couldn't really identify any of it.  Blobs of metal with little dials and levers, something that I SWEAR looked like a cube of lime jello with mini-marshmallows in it, a small field notebook that seemed to have no pages or way of opening it. So I turned to Liesl and asked her something along the lines of, "Spill. What gives - why am I here?"  Her face split into a wide grin as she reveled in her, "Ta Da! Take a look at this" moment.  The tech then marionettes the arms over to a copper tube and deftly pulls out what I first took to be a scroll.

He unrolled it with the two hands and used a metal cube to weight down the lower end to keep it from rolling back up. Liesl wiggled anxiously and pointed, "This is why we needed you to come see this. You can help us figure out what all this means."  I had to laugh a little, with the great secrecy of the whole trip and all of the cloak and dagger government facility stuff, and the final plea played out like "Help us Obi Wan, you are our only hope."  It was certainly the most elaborate practical joke she'd ever played on me, and with the travel expenses and the facility access it just didn't make any sense why she would have gone to the trouble.  But then I looked around again and knew I was truly inside a real facility. The detectors and equipment, the contamination clothing, the oil window - they were all genuine.  I was here, looking through the window, seeing these crazy things that I don't even know how to describe, including what appeared to be a stitched sampler.

My first request to Mr. Arms was to flip it over so the right side was facing upward.  N00b. The rad con tech had given us a 60 minute zone time. I have no idea how much of that I used just standing there and looking at the thing without saying a word.

My reproduction of the sampler I saw

Liesl said she would fill me in on as much background info as she knew when got back to her office space, but that it was basically one of the artifacts from a time capsule that had appeared.

I didn't know where to begin in examining it. I knew the colors were somewhat distorted because of the oil-filled window, so taking what I believed to be white table tops and extrapolating from there, I identified a working palette.  The stitching was in remarkably good condition, having been in the inerted environment here, although I don't know where it began its story.  It appeared to be stitched on some evenly woven fabric, but there was nothing on the table to give me an accurate sense of scale.

Some of the motifs appeared to be pictorial, but not of subjects I've seen before on this type of embroidery. I guess I should say I am in no way sure what this type of embroidery even is, although the stitches appeared to be your basic simple cross stitch.  There were a few lines of script and some symbolic text.  Normally I would consider it fortunate that the sampler was named and dates, but the date provides no insight into anything and, to me, has been completely meaningless so far. I was able to go in a total of seven times, the last four even being permitted to have a pencil and a sheet of paper. Six months later with needle and thread, I've done my best to recreate the anomaly I saw before me.

I'm putting out a plea that if anybody has any familiarity with the symbols or can help interpret the text, their help is most welcome. I've been working to decipher parts and will continue to post entries as I figure things out, if I do.

I am so fortunate that the non-disclosure paperwork did granted some license to share "my version" of this finding as long as I didn't mention any of the specifics of the facility or, perhaps more importantly, the other contents of the time capsule. I assume this is largely in part to the unlikelihood of anyone believing a word of it. I wasn't able to get Arms to adjust any of the other artifacts that I might see them more closely or see a hidden face. I image they are suspecting at least a few of them to be weapons or dangerous in some fashion.

And who says stitching is boring?