The Voynich Manuscript: Decoded

Abstract

The Voynich Manuscript (VM) is an illustrated codex hand-written in a unique writing system whose pages have been carbon-dated to 1404-1438 CE. The document has been studied by numerous cryptographers, but until this time no one has demonstrably deciphered the text. The Voynich Manuscript has been called "The World's Most Mysterious Manuscript" and "The Book Nobody Can Read.” Sections of the manuscript appear to deal with strange plants and flowers, naked women lounging in pools of water, celestial bodies such as stars, the moon and the Sun, and kitchen spices and herbs. This research shows that the strange Voynich symbols code for Arabic. An equivalency table between Arabic letters and the Voynich characters is developed, and large sections of the Voynich text are translated, including pages picturing flowers, stars, spices and women. A 600-word dictionary of Arabic-Voynich-English was developed. Translation reveals that the text deals exclusively with the Cathars, a religious heresy prominent in the south of France in the 12th – 13th centuries. A hypothesis is developed that the patron funding production of the Voynich Manuscript may have been Alfonso V, king of Aragon/Catalonia and, King of Naples.