Ancient Writings

The Voynich manuscript may be difficult to read for a surprisingly physical reason: its pages could have been assembled in the wrong order. In a new study published in Digital Medievalist, Colin Layfield and Lisa Fagin Davis argue that the famous codex was probably not originally built in the conventional way of the time. Instead, it may have been a collection of separate folded sheets that were later rearranged by someone who could not read the text. The proposal does not decipher the manuscript, but it changes the problem scholars are trying to solve. As Archaeology News Online Magazine reported, a mixed sequence could help explain why the Voynich manuscript has resisted so many attempts at interpretation. It also gives