The Voynich Manuscript, a 15th-century text filled with unknown language and illustrations, has been claimed to be decoded by history researcher Nicholas Gibbs. His assertion, published in the Times Literary Supplement, suggests the manuscript serves as a guide to women's health, largely plagiarized from existing texts. However, experts have dismissed Gibbs' claims as unsubstantiated and lacking definitive proof, indicating that the mystery of the manuscript remains unresolved. The discussion highlights concerns about Gibbs' motives, suggesting a potential intention to promote a television screenplay rather than contribute to genuine historical scholarship.
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Since its discovery in 1969, the 15th century Voynich Manuscript has been a mystery and a cult phenomenon. Full of handwriting in an unknown language or code, the book is heavily illustrated with weird pictures of alien plants, naked women, strange objects, and zodiac symbols. Now, history researcher and television writer Nicholas Gibbs appears to have cracked the code, discovering that the book is actually a guide to women's health that's mostly plagiarized from other guides of the era.
Last week, a history researcher and television writer named Nicholas Gibbs published a long article in the Times Literary Supplement about how he'd cracked the code on the mysterious Voynich Manuscript. Unfortunately, say experts, his analysis was a mix of stuff we already knew and stuff he couldn't possibly prove.
Gibbs said in the TLS article that he did his research for an unnamed "television network." Given that Gibbs' main claim to fame before this article was a series of books about how to write and sell television screenplays, it seems that his goal in this research was probably to sell a television screenplay of his own. In 2015, https://scriptangel.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/screenwriter-interview-nicholas-gibbs/ where he said that in five years, "I would like to think I could have a returnable series up and running." Considering the dubious accuracyof many History Channel "documentaries," he might just get his wish.