Scientists shrug their shoulders: TOP-5 books of antiquity, shrouded in mystery

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

From time immemorial, the book has been the main source of information and knowledge for people. Throughout its history, mankind has created billions of various encyclopedias, reference books, novels and lyric poems. However, there are those whose secrets, despite many years of study, are still not possible for modern man to learn. Here are 5 of the most mysterious and impressive books that have come down to us from the past.

Ripley's scrolls

Perhaps this book keeps as many secrets as unknown pages to this day remain in the annals of the life of its author - the famous 15th century British alchemist George Ripley. In total, twenty-five volumes on alchemy were written by this mysterious figure of English medieval history.

The life of George Ripley turned out to be shrouded in a mystical halo almost during his lifetime. Indeed, until now, some historians adhere to the point of view that he drew his enormous wealth using the now lost knowledge in alchemy. And the English chemist had a lot: according to Novate.ru, he annually financed the Order of Malta with impressive sums.

Being a very educated person - Ripley studied chemistry and other natural sciences for more than twenty years - he created works whose secrets are still unsolved, despite the many years of efforts of dozens of eminent scientists. At least one line of research of the alchemist is known for certain - he studied theories of human cloning.

Prophecies of Master Michel Nostradamus

Michel Nostradamus, better known as Nostradamus, has been considered the "main prophet of the world" for more than one century. His predictions continue to be cited today. First of all, thanks to his work “Prophecies of Master Michel Nostradamus”.

Interesting fact:today there is another name for the work - "Centuries".

This book, in a limited form, was first published in the city of Lyon in 1555. The full text of the rhymed prophecies was published three years later. The book contains 942 quatrains, covering the events of ten centuries. These poems, concealing the secrets of the past and the future, have not yet been solved.

Of the total number of quatrains in the work, there is only one that did not contain rhyme. A number of researchers believe that it was written so on purpose, as it is the key to decrypting the rest. But, despite these guesses, the mysterious book of Nostradamus still keeps its secrets from us.

Serafini's Code

It is interesting that the author of this work is not a research scientist, but an Italian artist. We are talking about the costumer of the La Scala Theater Luigi Serafini. And from others his book is distinguished by a comparative "youth" - it was written in the 1970s.

The work consists of 360 pages of cipher text, divided into 11 sections: architecture, biology and sexuality, bipedal creatures, machines, history and religions, languages, customs, entertainment, physics and chemistry, flora, fauna.

Presumably, the book encodes the existence of a parallel world, which is only at first glance almost identical to ours. However, neither the approximate content, nor the language in which the code was written, could not be deciphered.

Interesting fact: the author of the work is still alive, but continues to hide the secrets of his book. The only thing he mentioned in his cover letter to the publisher is that the code is an encyclopedia of an imaginary world.

Voynich manuscript

The history of this strange and mysterious book is about five hundred years old, but only this year scientists were able to take the first step towards deciphering it. Absolutely nothing is known about it: neither the author, nor the exact time of creation, nor the content, nor even the language in which it was written.

Interesting fact: its current name - the Voynich manuscript - the mysterious book received after the name of the first known owner, who acquired it in 1912 and presented it to the public.

The book consists of 240 pages, on which you can find text in a language that is similar to several existing ones at once, and hundreds of illustrations. It was from the images that the researchers of the manuscript concluded that the content of the book reflects some knowledge in the field of astronomy, biology, pharmaceuticals and even cosmology.

Only in 2019 did British scientists take a small step towards unraveling the mysteries of the Voynich manuscript, which can rightly be considered a breakthrough after decades of unsuccessful research. Several pages of the book were deciphered, which carry information about plants, and the language in which the text was written was identified as closely related to Latin.

Chronicle of wonderful and significant events

This book with a rather tempting title, authored by Konrad Lykosthenes, was published in Basel in 1557. It is a unique illustrated publication that, with its images, puzzles most modern historians.

The fact is that a number of pictures depicting animals are made with an amazing accuracy for the Renaissance. And we are not talking about their quality, but about the detailing of the animals themselves. For example, page 17 contains an image of a Canadian elk that was officially unveiled just a couple of years before the book was written. But on page 31 there is a drawing of a dodo bird, which, according to modern historians, Europeans saw only 40 years after the publication of the Chronicle …

In addition, a number of animals depicted in the book still remain unknown to science. In addition to fauna, the Chronicle of Wonderful and Significant Events contains many illustrations of natural disasters and astronomical phenomena. Among the engravings one can even find an image of a spaceship - perhaps it was seen in Arabia in 1497.