The World's Most Mysterious Manuscript
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The Voynich manuscript, an illustrated manuscript written in an unknown language in the 15th or 16th century, has never been decoded
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The manuscript was named after Wilfrid Voynich, a dealer of rare books, who found the pages in the early 20th century at Villa Mondragone near Rome
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He claimed that the manuscript had once belonged to the 16th-century Habsburg emperor Rudolf II, but carbon dating revealed that it had been written on a 15th-century parchment
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Scholars and scientists have since tried to decipher the text, but centuries-old quest has failed so far
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According to a report, the book contains about 250,000 completely unfamiliar characters. The enduring mystery has inspired many books
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Peculiar handwriting surrounds elaborate images of unidentifiable plants, astrological symbols, and complex pipe networks
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Historians divided the manuscript's content into six sections - plants, astronomy and astrology, health and bathing, cosmology, medicines, and recipes
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The results showed that the unique and indecipherable text beneath the illustrations was not just scribbled but might have represented a real language hidden in the symbols
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Researchers say despite its unmistakable medieval codex look, the origin, purpose, and contents of the manuscript remain a deep mystery
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