Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries
The Voynich Manuscript – a medieval codex with unusual illustrations and an unreadable script – has resisted every attempt to decipher its secrets for over a century, gaining it the reputation of the world’s most mysterious manuscript. But in recent years, renewed scholarly interest has shed new light on its history, including when and where the manuscript was likely created. Even so, the central mystery still remains: Why was the Voynich Manuscript made and what does it say? Is its unusual writing a complex cipher or an artificial language and script? Or could the manuscript simply be a late-medieval hoax? In this lecture, we’ll see what the latest Voynich research tells us, and explore other cryptic European manuscripts that provide insights into its purpose. Piecing together these various clues, we will reveal why this most mysterious of manuscripts was likely written. This lecture is based on Garry J. Shaw’s book: Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World’s Mysterious Manuscripts (Yale University Press, 2025).
Speaker Bio:
Garry J. Shaw is an author and journalist, covering archaeology, history, world heritage, exhibitions, and travel. He writes on the latest research and breaking news, and has written features on diverse topics, from the world’s most mysterious manuscripts and the Near East after the Bronze Age collapse, to heritage destruction in Yemen and heritage crime in post-revolution Egypt. He has a PhD in Egyptology, and is the author of eight books including Egyptian Mythology: A Traveller’s Guide from Aswan to Alexandria (Thames & Hudson, 2021) and The Story of Tutankhamun: An Intimate Life of the Boy Who Became King (Yale University Press, 2022). His newest book, Cryptic: From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World’s Mysterious Manuscripts (Yale University Press, 2025), is a New Yorker best book of 2025.
Hosted & Curated By:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
