The world's most mysterious book hasn't been deciphered in 600 years — and this may be why

Researchers propose a new explanation for why the Voynich manuscript has remained undeciphered for 600 years: the pages may have been bound in the wrong order. The study, which used statistical analysis, found similarities between distant pages and a lack of continuity between adjacent ones, pointing to a possible binding error from the 15th century.

The Voynich manuscript, an ancient book about 600 years old containing unknown symbols and strange illustrations, has remained undeciphered despite centuries of attempts. Now, two researchers offer a surprising explanation for the ongoing failure: the manuscript's pages may have been bound in the wrong order. The researchers, Lisa Fagin Davis, a medieval manuscript expert, and Colin Layfield, an information systems researcher from the University of Malta, published their study in the journal Digital Medievalist. They argue that the book originally consisted of folded parchment sheets placed on top of each other, rather than the interleaved quires that were standard. At some point in the 15th century, a person who could not read the text bound the pages using the standard method, thereby altering their order. The researchers used latent semantic analysis to identify patterns between distant pages and found similarities in word patterns between non-adjacent pages. Davis also raises the possibility that the book was not created by a single author but was a collection of pamphlets used by a group to transmit knowledge, perhaps in the fields of women's medicine and herbal remedies. However, the researchers emphasize that this is not a decipherment but a proposal for a new way to examine the book's structure.