Depending on your faith, the Shroud of Turin’s legitimacy varies. As a practicing Catholic, Tucker was exposed to arguments about the legitimacy of the Shroud. Few scientists were given exclusive access to the Shroud. Tucker was granted access by the church to study the “where” and “when” of the Shroud by analyzing samples from it. He found the cloth composition and construction consistent with historical descriptions of fabrics and pollen grains consistent with plants that grew in the Middle East.
Adapted from Unraveling the Voynich Codex by Tucker and Janick.
The Voynich Codex has been called the most mysterious book in the world. Its symbolic language has defied translation by eminent cryptologists. Dated to the early 15th century, it contains herbal, pharmaceutical, astrological, and cosmological sections as well as botanical illustrations. It was originally believed to be European; however, based on identification of New World plants and animals, the authors claim it to be a document of colonial New Spain.
The Codex Cruz-Badianus is a translation of an Aztec herbal manuscript, describing 250 plants. It is the first illustrated scientific text of Nahua medicine and botany giving Nahuatl plant names, illustrations, and uses. In 2014, Arthur Tucker and Rexford Talbert published a paper claiming that some of the Voynich plant illustrations match the Codex Cruz-Badianus, suggesting that the Voynich Manuscript originated in the New World.
