Subject: Etruscan Origins Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:25:23 -0600 (CST) From: Dennis Stallings To: VMs List Ah, what a superb opportunity to present my great discovery! The Voynich Manuscript is actually in ... Etruscan! In the last decades B.C., the Etruscans were aware that their unique and ancient culture was in danger of dying out. Therefore, they decided to establish a colony in a remote location where they could continue their ancient ways without interference. This colony they did in fact establish in a remote valley in the Alps, in what is now southwestern Switzerland, near the Italian border. A generous endowment by the Roman Emperor Claudius, whose sympathy for and scholarly interest in the Etruscan culture is well known, enabled them to do this successfully. The name of the colony is as yet unknown to us, but we may call it Etruria Nova. Hidden in its remote Alpine valley, the Etruscan colony survived the fall of the Roman Empire and the coming of the Middle Ages in peace. There the Etruscan colonists continued their ancient language and customs. When they set up their colony, the Etruscans successfully transplanted the now-extinct antique Mediterranean contraceptive herb silphium (see Archaeology, Mar/Apr 1994) to their Alpine valley and cultivated it there. They maintained a brisk trade in silphium with their neighbors. Folio f55r shows the silphium plant. The biological folios of what we currently call the Voynich Manuscript show the Etruscan women taking their monthly baths in an infusion of silphium. However, apart from the silphium trade, the Etruscan culture remained isolated from the outside world. Inevitably it grew ingrown and deteriorated. Around 1480, the last two great geniuses of the Etruscan culture attempted a cultural revival. The names of these geniuses are as yet unknown to us, but we may call the first one, a man, A, and the second one, his wife, B. (The Etruscan culture always accorded high status to women, much to the scandal of the ancient Romans.) What A and B wrote was a version of the great traditional epic of Etruscan culture, *The Testament of the Six Patriarchs and the Six Matriarchs of Etruria* However, they attempted to bring in elements of outside European culture to rejuvenate it. A and B abandoned the ancient Etruscan script and invented a new system of writing based on northern Italian scripts of the time. It involved using several choices of two or three characters for each phoneme. They introduced elements of mainstream European art and the nascent European science of the time. Thus they wrote the document we call the Voynich Manuscript, but whose real name is *The Testament of the Six Patriarchs and the Six Matriarchs of Etruria Nova* . A and B shared the work, of course. They also wished to reconcile the two main clans of the Etruscans, so A wrote in the dialect of one moiety of the Etruscan culture and B wrote in the dialect of the other moiety. Thus they set down for the last time the distilled astrological, herbal, and medical lore and knowledge of the sons and daughters of Etruria Nova. However, A and B were the last bright stars of their culture. The colony continued to deteriorate after their deaths. In 1596, Andrei de Kereshtur, the accountant of the notorious "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary, passed through the Etruscan's remote Alpine valley on business. Needing cash, the Etruscans sold de Kereshtur a copy of the *Testament*. In their addled thinking, they believed that no one would ever be able to read their secrets, as their language had never been well known to outsiders. De Kereshtur presented the odd manuscript to Elizabeth Bathory's alchemists. But Bathory's great alchemist Silvestri was gone, having been murdered in 1585, and his pupils were not his equal. They could not make sense of the *Testament*. Therefore in 1597 de Kereshtur, during another business trip to Prague, sold the *Testament* to Rudolph II for a tidy profit. For the Etruscans, the final catastrophe came on August 6, 1602. Swiss mercenaries, returning home from duty as Swiss Guards at the Vatican, passed through the remote Alpine valley of the Etruscan colony. Long deprived of female companionship, they made eager advances to the still-attractive Etruscan maidens. As true daughters of Etruria Nova, they spurned the attentions of these outsiders. In a drunken rage, the Swiss mercenaries fell upon the Etruscans and massacred them all. Thus 2600 years of Etruscan history came to a tragic close. So the task of decipherment of the *Testament* is fairly well- defined. There is even some ready help available: Bilbija, S. S. (Svetislav S.); *The mummy of Zagreb and other Etruscan, Lydian and Lycian written monuments (1st Eng. ed.).* (Chicago, IL: Institute of Etruscan Studies (2800 Lake Shore Dr., Chicago 60657), c1989.) 317 p.; P 1078 B53 1989 In a brillant piece of work rivalling that of Michael Ventris, Bilbija has deciphered the Etruscan Mummy Book. This is obviously an archaic version of the *Testament*. With such brillant work to guide us, and with the aid of my even more brillant EKT Hypothesis, we should be able to quickly decipher A & B's late invented script. Of course, it always helps to have funding. This story suggests a hitherto-unconsidered source of funding for the remaining work of decipherment (as well as for the enrichment of the Third Study Group). The silphium plant may still grow in the remote Alpine valley where the colony of Etruria Nova once existed. If we decipher the *Testament*, it may contain clues to the colony's location. Perhaps a Swiss pharmaceutical company like Ciba-Geigy would underwrite the remaining work in return for exclusive rights to the silphium plant, which might be rediscovered upon completion of the decipherment. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church might pose some opposition to this project. ;-) ;-) ;-) Dennis Subject: Etruscan Origins Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 13:24:17 +0200 From: Rene Zandbergen To: voynich@rand.org To Dennis and all... Dennis writes: > The Voynich Manuscript is actually in ... Etruscan! I like it! :-) > This colony they did in fact establish in a remote valley > in the Alps, in what is now southwestern Switzerland, near > the Italian border. You'll be amazed: this can actually be located a bit more closely. Study of the little castle on f86r6 allowed me to pinpoint the provenance of the VMs with 80% confidence in the Aosta valley, just on the Italian side of the border (current geography of course). The remaining 20% are subdivided over Trentino/Lombardy/Piemont, again in Italy but close to the Swiss border. > The name of the colony is as yet unknown to > us, but we may call it Etruria Nova. Latinized from the (now lost) Etruscan name for convenience. We'd have to look for E.Nova somewhat off the main Aosta valley, higher up in the mountains or just across the mountains. Remains of previously unknown villages are occasionally found, as I have seen on a TV documentary once. > Folio f55r shows the silphium plant. Here I have to be extremely skeptical. :-) How can you be sure it is this one and not any other? Note also that one earlier researcher (Strong?) correctly guessed that the VMs deals with contraceptive, but his translation was rejected. > The names of these geniuses are as yet unknown to us, but we > may call the first one, a man, A, and the second one, his wife, B. You may want to consider the opposite, where the feminine hand is the more careful one and the man's hand more cursive. > De Kereshtur presented the odd manuscript to Elizabeth Bathory's > alchemists. But Bathory's great alchemist Silvestri was gone, having > been murdered in 1585, and his pupils were not his equal. They could > not make sense of the *Testament*. The pictures of the women bathing in liquid that was extracted from other women, misunderstood by Bathory and her staff, may have set her off in her horrible practices. Rather unfortunate but very strong evidence that your theory must be correct. > Thus 2600 years of Etruscan history came to a tragic close Not quite. You may remember Jaques Guy's announcement that I had stumbled on a very mysterious language spoken in only two villages in the South of Italy. This language is apparently of the Francoprovencal group (the same as spoken in the Aosta valley). The language is called 'Faetar'. It has *never* been written down!! It is clear we see here a group of Etruscans that managed to escape the Swiss and fled to S.Italy. It all fits together. Obviously, the current inhabitants are only far descendants of the old Etruscans, and their language seems to have been affected a lot by their stay in Aosta. One more piece of evidence: the first word of the VMs obviously says 'Faetar'. It is not so clear in the transcriptions, but very clear on the Yale copy or Petersen. The capital F, the A to be pronounced as 'ae', the Beneventan T, the 9 which is the normal 'a' and the rounded 'R'. (Oops, maybe I should strike that. There's a bit of backwards logic here, unless the Etruscans named their city in South Italy after some important Etruscan word, the first word of their Testament). I think we have a solid background for Jacques Guy's proposed solution. Cheers, Rene :-) :-)