Page 138 - Active Skills for Reading Intro Book

In 1912, book dealer Wilfrid Voynich bought
a number of books in Italy. He bought so many
that he didn't look very closely at the books he

was purchasing. When he got home, he
5 discovered he had bought a very strange
handwritten manuscript. It was written in a
language he had never seen before. It was also
full of pictures of plants.

Since then,the book-now known as the
10 Voynich Manuscript-has become known as
the world's most mysterious manuscript. It
has been studied by many people, including
professors, codebreakers, and language

experts. However, no one has ever discovered
15 its meaning or author

There are many ideas about who wrote it and
why. Some people say that a famous scientist like
Francis Bacon wrote it. Other people think it could

be a religious text. Some other people think the
2
20 manuscript is a great hoax and doesn't mean
anything at all.

Scientists have learned that the manuscript was
made between 1404 and 1438. However, this

only tells us how old the paper is, not wben the
25 book was written. But there's still hope that the
manuscript is real and that there's meaning to

its words.
The Voynich Manuscript remains a mystery today,

but the pages are on the Internet if you would like
30 to try to crack the code.

1 A manuscript is an unprinted book.
2 A religious text is a book about a god or gods.

A Mysterious Book 137