The Rohonc Codex.
The Rohonc Codex is an ancient Hungarian manuscript that was discovered in Hungary and has led to more than 200 years of attempts to determine who authored it and to decipher its contents.
Overview[]
Many scholars have studied the text, known as the Rohonc Codex, in an effort to understand its meaning and to determine who wrote it and when it was drafted. However, these efforts have been futile to date, as the meaning and origin of the text still remain a mystery.
The Rohonc Codex was discovered in Hungary in the 1800s. It is believed to have been part of the personal library of Count Gusztáv Batthyány, before he donated his entire personal library to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. When the Codex surfaced, it initially appeared to be from medieval times. However, the text, which appears to resemble Old Hungarian script, was completely indecipherable. The mysterious text led many to wonder what the writings meant, who wrote it, and what purpose it served. Many of these questions remain to be answered, as the author has not been identified, and the text has yet to be translated.
Description[]
In total, the Rohonc Codex contains 448 pages of indecipherable text, which is similar to Old Hungarian script, as they are both written with a right-to-left orientation, and have similar combinations of straight and rounded characters. Scholars have asserted that in reality, the writing could be anything from Hindi to Old Hungarian, although it lacks features from each of those written languages. The number of different symbols used is considered to be extremely high, with ten times more symbols than are found in any known alphabet.
The paper within the Codex has the unique characteristic of being watermarked. Each page contains the watermark, which has the appearance of an anchor, which is within a circle, which is within a six-rayed star. The watermark itself appears to date to 1529-1540 AD, although the actual Codex appears to have been written much earlier than that. This discrepancy makes it difficult to determine exactly when the text was written, although it is possible that the book was transcribed after its initial creation.
The Codex contains more than just written text, for it is also accompanied by 87 illustrations depicting military battles, landscapes, and religious icons, which are said to hint at several different religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Some have interpreted this to show that whichever culture was responsible for creating the text was one within which the three religions coexisted.