Re: what we know about the VMS' creation time

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > So, obviously step 1 cannot be used for the VMS.
    
Right. And steps 1a and 2 have been tried hard, with little success.
The hair/dress style seems to be the strongest clue we have so far...

    > I think that step 3 points to Prague and Rudolph II, isn't it?
    > That should be a strong evidence.
    
Yes, but that was about 100 years after the presumed date of the
manuscript; and manuscripts from all over the world found their way to
Prague in those times, especially in the time of Rudolf and his army
of alchemists. (The Czech National Library owns a substantial
collection of Arabic, Persian and Turkish books, for instance.)

    > Step 4 cannot be applied, but step 4a can (if there's
    > a sunflower painted).

That is only a wild conjecture; the plant could as well be any other
plant with composite flowers (daisy, chamomille, ...)

    > Of course we cannot use phase 3, but it could be interesting to
    > know if such techinques of analysis has been already used on the
    > VMS.

Yes, that would be useful. However the vellum could have been imported
or carried in someone's luggage; and writing ink for vellum was made
according to the same formula, simple but strict, from the 12th to the
20th century. So there is little hope that the analysis would reveal
anything definite. Unless sunflower pollen was found trapped in the writing
ink...

However, comparing the available color images of the VMS with images
of other manuscripts, I have the impression that the VMS ink is rather
pale, the wrong shade of brown, and quite prone to fading. It may be
just an imaging problem, or it may be that the ink is not the standard
formula (which was universaly used precisely because it was
waterproof, scratch-proof, and would not fade with time). If true,
that would be yet another odd feature of this book.

All the best,

--stolfi