Ancient, Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Soon to be Translated

The Voynich Manuscript, called “the world’s most mysterious manuscript”, is a 15th century ‘encyclopedia’ featuring strange drawings of plants, astronomical charts, and humans bathing in what many believe to be ‘the fountain of youth’. Its pages are filled with a complex code language. Researchers who recently decoded the Copiale Cipher, another antiquated and coded document, are applying the same code breaking formulas to the Voynich Manuscript.


The Copiale Cipher, an 18th century manuscript, turned out to be a secret society’s detailing of underground initiation ceremonies. It filled 105 pages and spins a silly tale — the member to be initiated would attempt to read a blank paper, fail, re-try while wearing glasses, fail again, re-try after cleaning said classes, fail, and then have a single eyebrow hair plucked.

The Voynich Manuscript only gets its name from Wilfrid Voynich, the man who discovered the book in 1912. The name has nothing to do with its contents.

One of the people working on cracking this code posted his work on Reddit and can be found here. It’s a work in progress, but the mystery makes it even more interesting. That’s how it usually is.