Episode Details

Egyptian hieroglyphics confounded Egyptologists for centuries until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

The Voynich Manuscript is another old text that has perplexed experts since its discovery about 600 years ago.

Watch this episode on YouTube to see nonstop images of the book itself!

Dr. Robert H. Edwards specializes in investigating the biggest mysteries of the 20th century. I interviewed him on the 100th anniversary of George Mallory's death. I interviewed him again after we found Mallory's climbing partner's foot. Spoiler: We still don't know whether they reached Everest's summit.

The other mystery Edwards investigated was D. B. Cooper, who stole $200,000 and disappeared after skydiving.

Now, Edwards turns his analytical brain to the world's most mysterious manuscript: the Voynich Manuscript.

Voynich Reconsidered: The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World is Dr. Edwards's attempt at decoding this headache-producing document. If you think James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is hard to decipher, try the Voynich Manuscript!  

Here is my interview about the Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Edwards:

Video

Excerpts from Voynich Reconsidered

The parchment for these four folios was most probably produced sometime in the first half of the fourteenth century.

Who wrote the Voynich Manuscript? 

Nobody knows. Edwards debunks the idea that Roger Bacon authored it:

D’Imperio devoted considerable effort to the study of the supposed link between the manuscript and Roger Bacon. She could not have known that the Voynich parchment would eventually be submitted to radiocarbon technology and that the samples would be dated, with up to 92 percent probability, to periods ranging between 1308 and 1458. Therefore, she could not have known that Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century, would be excluded as the author of the manuscript, or at least as its producer or as one of its scribes.

Is the Voynich Manuscript a hoax?

Before we embark on our own voyage of investigation of the Voynich manuscript, we must consider the alarming possibility that it is a journey to nowhere. That is to say: it may be that the manuscript cannot be translated or deciphered because it has no intrinsic meaning. For want of better words, we must consider that the manuscript could be a hoax or a forgery.

What's the Voynich Manuscript about?

There is an “herbal” section, consisting of 129 pages and thereby comprising more than half of the book.

The astronomical, cosmological, and astrological sections are short. Edwards is "tempted to group them together into a 'cosmic' theme, occupying thirty-one pages."

The Voynich manuscript invites, for those who are so disposed, the insertion of a preconceived narrative. In this respect, it bears comparison with the notorious proliferation of narratives relating to the man who came to be known as D.B. Cooper, and his hijacking of Northwest Airlines Flight 305 on November 24, 1971.

Do we know what the Voynich Manuscript's message is?

For many years, the mission controllers at NASA resisted demands for another photographic targeting of the “Face. ” Finally, they relented. In 2001, the Mars Glob