The Voynich Manuscript

When I was a middle schooler I was fascinated with the idea of Egyptian hieroglyphs.  How lovely to imagine an ancient civilization creating its own language so unique it took centuries to break the code.   For the longest time I thought this was the last "unknown" language to be discovered.  But I was wrong.

Some time during the early sixteenth century, there was a manuscript written in an unknown script and in an unknown language, which to date, has STILL not been cracked.  Named after the gentleman who purchased the book in 1912, scholars studying the document believe it might have come from northern Italy during medieval times.  

Some of the pages are missing and there are a lot of illustrations without rhyme or reason.  There has been debates throughout the years over who wrote the actual script and for what purpose.  It is suggested that the book was broken into six parts.  Those parts include herbal, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical, and recipes.  Top code breakers in the US during both World War I and World War II tried their hand at cracking the code with little success.  Finally in 1969, the Voynich manuscript was donated to the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University.

I wonder who took the time all those centuries ago to create such a book?  Here I am, working so hard to create a little mystery of my own, and here's one practically right under my nose!