Rohonc Codex: Top ten crypto mystery solved (part 1 of 2)

Von Klaus Schmeh / 3. Juni 2018 / 15 Kommentare

The Rohonc Codex, one of the world’s most famous crypto mysteries, appears to have been solved. And yes, I believe this solution is correct.

The Rohonc Codex is a handwritten and hand-illustrated book with about 450 pages. It’s a unique piece. The special thing about it: The Rohonc Codex is written in a mysterious script. All attempts to decipher the text in the codex or to make any other sense of it have failed for at least 150 years. The Rohonc Codex is therefore considered the second most important unsolved book cryptogram after the Voynich Manuscript.

The Rohonc Codex is, of course, contained in my (now outdated) top 25 list of unsolved cryptograms. In addition, it is number 00002 on my Encrypted Book List. The Rohonc Codex could undoubtedly be a world-famous, much-discussed crypto mystery – if the world-famous, much discussed Voynich Manuscript did not exist.

Earlier this week, I received a mail that informed me about a new article in Cryptologia (published on May 28, 2018).

According to this article, the Rohonc Codex has now been solved. And this solution doesn’t look like nonsense.

Today, I am going to present an FAQ about the Rohonc Codex and the recently published solution. In a later post, I will address the solution in detail.

Who wrote the Rohonc Codex?

The author of the Rohonc Codex is unknown. In contrast to the Voynich manuscript, there is not even much speculation on this subject.

Where was the Rohonc Codex created?

The Rohonc Codex most likely originates from Central or Eastern Europe. The place of origin cannot be narrowed down much more precisely.

What do the pictures of the Rohonc Codex show?

While the illustrations of the Voynich manuscript leave much room for interpretation, to say the least, the motives of most of the images in the Rohonc Codex can be identified. Almost all of them show scenes from the Bible – for example, Jesus on the cross or Moses on Mount Sinai.

What was the purpose of the Rohonc Codex?

It is completely unclear what the intended purpose of the Rohonc Codex was. The Christian images suggest a religious use. Perhaps a religious dissenter wanted to hide his heretical doctrine from the church by encryption. On the other hand, the pictures could just be a cover to distract from the actual content of the book. It is also conceivable that the author chose a religious text to demonstrate a writing system he had invented (like Johannes Gutenberg, who demonstrated the printing technology he had invented using a religious text, namely the Bible). After all, it is also possible that someone created the Rohonc Codex just to sell it to a collector for a lot of money.

What are the most important theories about the text in the Rohonc Codex?

The text of Rohonc Codex could be …

… ordinary text written in a script that is no longer known today
… encrypted text
… a hoax

The same is true for the Voynich Manuscript.

Are the pages of the Rohonc Codex available as scans on the Internet?

Yes, here they are: https://www.dacia.org/codex/original/original.html

Where can I find more information about the Rohonc Codex?

While there are stacks of literature on the Voynich manuscript, much less has been published about the Rohonc Codex. To get started, I recommend an article I wrote for the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (German/English). There is also a chapter about the Rohonc Codex in my book Nicht zu Knacken. The most detailed source is the article Why don’t we decipher an outdated cipher system? The Codex of Rohonc, which was published in 2010 in Cryptologia. The author of this excellent work is Benedek Láng from Hungary.

Is there a good TV documentary about Rohonc Codex?

I wouldn’t know. All I found was a Romanian TV documentary. The fact that Viorica Enăchiuc appears in this program does not exactly speak for its quality. Viorica Enăchiuc claims to have solved the Rohonc Codex. All serious experts consider her “solution” as crap.

How old is the Rohonc Codex?

The paper used for the Rohonc Codex was probably made in northern Italy in the 16th century. This can be deduced from a watermark. It has not yet been possible to determine when the text was written.

How long has the existence of Rohonc Codex been documented?

The Rohonc Codex originally belonged to the Hungarian book collectot Gusztáv Batthyány (1803-1883), who kept it in the then West Hungarian town of Rohonc (now Rechnitz in Austria). The book is named for this place. Batthyány bequeathed the codex 1838 to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Nothing is known about the history of Rohonc Codex before 1838 except that it belonged to Batthyány for a while.

Where is the Rohonc Codex located today?

The Rohonc Codex has been owned by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest since 1838. This institution kindly provided me with the scans on this page. In contrast to the Voynich Manuscript, for which permission is rarely granted, the Rohonc Codex can easily be viewed after prior registration. It is, however, not allowed to take pictures of it. Therefore I created a facsimile, which can be seen on the following picture.

Has the Rohonc Codex been solved?

For years, there have been rumours about the Rohonc Codex having been solved by the two Hungarian scientists Levente Zoltán Király and Gábor Tokai. I mentioned this alleged solution for the first time in an article published in 2011. Now, seven years later, the two scientists finally present their solution in a Cryptologia paper. This paper was published a few days ago, on May 28, 2018. It’s only available behind a paywall, the price is 42,00 Euros.

Does the solution make sense?

Frequent readers of this blog certainly know that virtually every famous crypto mystery has been “solved” many times. Of course, most of these “solutions” are crap. This is also the case for the Rohonc Codex, for which several solutions have been published. However, I hope and trust that the solution published by Király and Tokai makes sense. It has been proof-read by the leading Rohonc Codex expert Benedek Láng, codebreaking expert Craig Bauer, and others.

How does the solution work?

I will describe the solution in a later post.
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Further reading: The Voynich Manuscript is solved – or is it?

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Kommentare (15)

#1 George Lasry
3. Juni 2018

I read the first paper and it looks sound and scholarly. The decrypted text segments have features that could not be easily created by rubbish pseudo-decryptions, as it is often the case with other claimed decryptions. Looks very promising. Eagerly waiting for the next 3 papers.
#2 Rich SantaColoma
https://proto57.wordpress.com/
4. Juni 2018

Well this is certainly wonderful and historic news! I look forward to seeing the decryption, and finally knowing what is in this book.

I’ve also been aware of many failed attempts on this work, as there have been on the Voynich, and in so many other cases… but with endorsements like Klaus, Benedek, Craig and now George, I am especially hopeful the solution has finally been reached for the Rohonc.
#3 Charlotte Auer
4. Juni 2018

Ganz ehrlich gesagt, finde ich es etwas mehr als voreilig, den Rohonc Codex hier als gelöst zu deklarieren, obwohl es weder eine vollständige Transkription noch eine überzeugende Feststellung der zugrunde liegenden Sprache gibt und die angekündigten Folgeartikel naturgemäß noch auf sich warten lassen. Nur um mal die grundlegenden Mängel zu benennen, vom Rest ganz zu schweigen.
Aus meiner Sicht ist diese Handschrift noch lange nicht schlüssig und unwiderlegbar entziffert. Ganz abgesehen davon, dass ich diesen Ansatz ohnehin nicht für realistisch halte. Was aber nichts daran ändert, dass von einer Lösung bislang nicht die Rede sein kann.
#4 Thomas
4. Juni 2018

Can a solution be reliably judged as long as only its first part is published? Let alone the inconsistencies in the number system of the solution, https://ciphermysteries.com/2018/06/03/kiraly-and-tokais-rohonc-codex-decryption
#5 Michael
4. Juni 2018

“I will describe the solution in a later post.”

Click bait.

Ganz schön frech von Ihnen so aufzutreten.
#6 Peter
5. Juni 2018

Unfortunately, this article doesn’t live up to the expectations its headline fuels. It provides no new information about the codex and no explanation about the alleged solution at all. Disappointing!
#7 Torsten Timm
Dresden
5. Juni 2018

Kiraly and Tokai describe there decipherment as “an extremely heuristic task.” Such a statement in the summary already rises a big red flag. They also say “that one symbol signify one thing” and that there decipherment has “various degrees of certainty”. Such statements sound like the justification for an interpretation.

As far as I understand they have deciphered the text on word level. With other words they assume that a codebook was used to encode the manuscript and that each symbol or combination of symbols stands for a word or an idea.
For deciphering this kind of text the plaintext or the codebook used for encoding the Rohonc Codex is needed. It seems that the authors try to reconstruct the codebook by using the drawings in the manuscript as hints for the plaintext. Since the drawings refer to scenes from the bible it seems logical to use the bible as plain text. If this is indeed the case the problem would be to find some independent confirmation for there interpretation. Since they have used the bible to construct the codebook it would be questionable if the same text is also used to confirm there interpretation.

It would be necessary to demonstrate that there result is much better then for a randomly chosen plaintext. Unfortunately a statement like “various degrees of certainty” already indicates that the bible as plaintext does not always seem to fit very well.
#8 Rich SantaColoma
https://proto57.wordpress.com/
5. Juni 2018

Torsten: Your observations and comments mirror what I thought, too… including your “red flag”.

If they have surmised the correct words, though, I would not necessarily think this would have to point to use of a code and code book. Because there is not yet a revealed cipher system, I don’t think, necessarily demands this conclusion… yet.

Also, although the meaning of the word may be correct, I don’t yet see an assumed language. Considering this, perhaps there is still a system at the character level, which would encipher whatever language this is into the resulting cipher words? I mean, there are meanings of words only, so far, NOT spellings… and perhaps when different languages are tried for those meanings, it will give an insight into some possible cipher. Perhaps this is where the authors are going next, I don’t know.

Certainly, if this is the case, they have worked backwards in deriving word meanings first… but if they did, and it works, that would be an interesting and helpful method to keep in mind for other problems.
#9 Nick Pelling
Surbiton
6. Juni 2018

Hi Klaus, as I blogged, it’s a bit early to shout that the Rohonc Codex has been cracked. It may well be that they have caught sight of a (part of a) Rohonc Rosetta Stone, which alone is well worth reporting, but I think there is still a great deal of work yet to be done.
#10 Rm
India
11. August 2018

Hi everyone, I have been looking up the images of the Rohonc Codex and was highly interested in some of the pictures. I agree most pictures have biblical references, but I feel it looks like a book that tries to combine all kind of beliefs. There is one image where there in the top center is the top portion of the Church depicting the cross(symbol representing Christianity), surrounding on both sides is the half moon that generally is present on top of Mosques(symbol representing Muslim religion), and on the left extreme end there is a flag with a cross sign, like St. George’s cross(representing crusaders or Military power) in the middle and on the right is a flag similar to flags that are on top of Hindu temples(symbol representing Hinduism). Under those institution is the one being who is attended by all the others. Some peculiarities that stand out about the images are the disproportionate limbs of the beings drawn. The reason why I say it is peculiar is because of the fact that in most of the angels that are drawn the wings are drawn pretty accurately with respect to each other including the minute curves on a single wing of each of the angels. Surely if an illustrator is good enough to draw something so precisely, I would not expect him to draw so much imprecise limb structure for humans. Again certain pages have Egyptian symbols in the drawing. There is one where the picture which resembles an angel or heavenly being giving the Pharaoh the scepter on the right hand side of the diagram, and on the left hand side there is image of angel giving a plant to a human, except the fact that these figures are smaller in size. In another image we see the Christian priests coming towards the Noblemen in a friendly manner. Also addition of certain things in certain pictures seem to make this book like a “code book” with hidden information. For example the crucifixion of Christ image has an abrupt stick present in between the Cross and the devotee kneeling in front of Christ. This stick is placed in nearly 120 degrees from the right, and if we look at the stick and the cross it seems like 11’o clock. I was wondering if there was a way that the whole book could be accessed, and I would like to know what you all think about it.
#11 Bobette Douglas
Cobb California
7. Dezember 2018

Good morning !

‘Rohonc’ is all about the Biblical (Chronicles of Matthew, Mark and Luke ) Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.. A very good source of Medieval Christian worship is a book written by Russell Shorto. “Gospel Truth”.

Another fascinating book is “Sahagun and the Transition to Modernity”
bdid1dr
#12 Tom
Not the Bible
24. April 2020

The solution is in the apocryf books of the bible. Not necesary the bible but all the other books that were left outside the canon of the bible.
#13 N-Da-BUnka
Charlotte, NC
28. Mai 2021

So THREE YEARS later and … nothing so it’s pretty obvious that this author was simple klic-bait rather than anything substantial. The FACT that this is hosted on a German forum yet posted in ENGLISH
#14 Stuart Wood
Chelmsford
24. Oktober 2022

First time that I looked upon the script and not any of your own can see the obvious way of reading the book is amazing to me and my hypothesis is a simple minded observation that I am willing to share. Contact me if you are interested in solving the mystery.?
#15 Rafał Miazga
1. Januar 2023

Hello and Happy New Year to everybody!

I decided to make my own attempt at breaking Rohonc Codex.
And I believe I have something

I made some pseudo-article describing my results.
You can see it here:
https://smallpdf.com/result#r=7c4f8656d905840ab346cc87df8ada44&t=share-document

Please have a look and tell me what you think of it. Any comments are welcomed.