The 240-page Voynich Manuscript is written in an unknown language, sometimes called the “alien” book because no one has been able to read it. Now, thanks to radiocarbon dating, a little less mystery surrounds the artifact.
Fox News reports that a team of physicists at the University of Arizona have dated the vellum manuscript between 1400 and 1438–making it at least twenty-five years older than the Gutenberg Bible.
Research scientist Greg Hodgins led the research team and offered this quote: “Is it a code, a cipher of some kind? People are doing statistical analysis of letter use and word use – the tools that have been used for code breaking. But they still haven’t figured it out.”
While perusing the items on sale from the Society of Jesus in 1912, Wilfrid Voynich discovered the book inside an old chest. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University currently owns the manuscript.
Based on the illustrations, some have theorized that the book was a reference work for creating a drug. (Via The Huffington Post)