Has the world's most mysterious text finally been cracked? Experts claim 600-year-old Voynich manuscript contains medieval SEX secrets

The Voynich Manuscript has baffled cryptographers and historians alike for 600 years. 

Its strange drawings and coded text have led some to claim it contains magic spells or even alien secrets. 

But now, experts say the world's most mysterious text actually contains medieval sex secrets deemed too dangerous to read. 

Lead author Dr Keagan Brewer of Macquarie University says this encrypted text actually holds censored information on sex, contraception, and gynaecology. 

Dr Brewer told MailOnline: 'The Voynich manuscript is fundamentally all about restricting specific information considered dangerous to an elect reader or readers.' 

Experts say they may have cracked the Voynich manuscript, the world's most mysterious book. The researchers claim that the book actually contains medieval sex secrets

Researchers believe that illustrations of nude women holding objects are a clear sign that the text concerns reproductive health and gynaecology 

While many of the manuscript's illustrations represent plants, animals, or people, one in particular caught the eye of the researchers. 

These illustrations show nude women holding various objects next to or pointing towards their genitalia. 

The researchers say these drawings are a clear sign that the manuscript contains information about gynaecology and sexual health.  

Dr Brewer told MailOnline: 'I cannot fathom why it would be about anything else given that there are plants (which means it's a medical manuscript) and women pointing objects towards their vaginas.

'Many commentators on the manuscript ignore the latter fact, but they're right there for everyone to see.'

The manuscript's coded references may be a product of the censorship of women's health information by male authors who believed it would be dangerous if women could read it 

'Women's secrets', as women's health was called in the 15th century, was the subject of extensive study and writing by medieval authors. 

Although a lot of the medical writing on sex and birth from this time has survived, much was also subject to intense censorship. 

Dr Brewer explains: 'The patriarchal culture of late-medieval Europe included multifaceted male fears of women's bodies and their natural  processes, and this was closely interwoven with medical culture.' 

One 15th-century physician, Johannes Hartlieb, even recommended that doctors use 'secret letters' to hide information that could result in contraception or abortion. 

Hartlieb's concern was that increasingly literate women might be able to read his writings and use them to have premarital sex. 

The researchers say that the manuscript's most complicated diagram, the Rosettes (pictured), is a representation of the late medieval understanding of reproduction and contraception 

Coded texts from other manuscripts translated by the authors revealed various recipes and formulas with gynaecological uses.  

Looking at the manuscript as an example of coded sexual information, the researchers say that we can start to make sense of the bizarre illustrations.

The largest and most elaborate illustration, known as the Rosettes, may actually represent a late-medieval understanding of sex and contraception. 

Late medieval physicians believed the uterus had seven chambers, and that the vagina had two openings - one internal and one external.

The researchers propose that the nine circles of the rosettes represent these.

Dr Brewer writes in an article for The Conversation: 'The eight outer circles have smooth edges since they represent internal anatomy, while the central circle has a shaped edge since it represents external anatomy.'

And, following this logic, several otherwise strange details begin to make sense.  

For example, in the top left circle, the five lines running to the centre could represent the five veins believed to exist in the vaginas of virgins. 

The five pillars on the top right circle (pictured) could represent the five veins that some medieval authors thought existed in the vaginas of virgins 

The spikes on the top and bottom right circle represent the 'horns' which were believed to be on the uterus 

The spikes on the top and bottom right circles are believed to be the 'horns' that medieval physicians thought were on the uterus. 

Dr Brewer writes: 'The castles and town walls may represent wordplay on the German term schloss, which had meanings including "castle", "lock", "female genitalia" and "female pelvis". 

'And the two suns in the far top-left and bottom-right likely reflect Aristotle's belief that the Sun provides natural heat to the embryo during its early development.' 

Even stranger, medieval doctors actually believed that women received sexual pleasure from 'the motion of the two sperms in the uterus'.

Dr Brewer and his co-author propose that the lines and patterns which cover the rosettes represent this motion. 

The sun likely represents the Aristotelian belief that the heat from the sun gave warmth to the embryo during its early development 

While the researchers admit that many other illustrations need to be explained, this is not the first time a sexual health interpretation has been suggested.

In 2017, Nicholas Gibbs, who is an expert on medieval medical manuscripts claimed that the text was a health manual for a 'well-to-do' lady looking to treat gynaecological conditions.

Despite captivating researchers for hundreds of years, much of the manuscript's origins remain shrouded in mystery. 

Carbon dating gives a 95 per cent chance that the animals whose skins were used to make the pages died between 1404 and 1438.

The castle could be a result of word play on the German term 'Schloss' which could mean castle but also 'female genitalia' 

However, the text's first known owner, an associate of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, was not even born until over 100 years later in 1552.

This makes it difficult to determine who it was written for or why, but Dr Brewer suggests that it was probably made for an aristocrat somewhere around the European Alps. 

Experts believe that it is the work of five different scribes, but nothing has yet been proven about what the text might actually mean. 

In 2019, Dr Gerard Cheshire from Bristol University claimed to have translated sections of the text by tracing it back to an ancient 'proto-Romance' language.

The university ultimately distanced itself from Dr Cheshire's claims after he faced serious criticism from other academics.

Given the countless failures, some researchers have even suggested that the manuscript might be nonsense or an elaborate practical joke. 

However, Dr Brewer remains 'an optimist' that the text will one day be translated. 

THE MYSTERIOUS HISTORY OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT

The first confirmed owner of the Voynich manuscript was George Baresch, an alchemist from Prague who had mentioned in a letter that he had found it in his library 'taking up his space'.

He learned that Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, in Rome, had published a Coptic dictionary and claimed to have deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Baresch sent a sample copy of the script to Kircher, asking for clues to reveal what the mysterious manuscript meant. 

It was purchased in 1912 by a Polish-American antiquarian book dealer, named Wilfred Voynich (pictured) (1865–1930), from where it gets its name

His 1639 letter to Kircher is the earliest confirmed mention of the manuscript that has been found to date.

Kircher asked for the book, but Baresch would not yield it as he prized owning it over knowing its true meaning. 

Upon Baresch's death, the manuscript passed to his friend Jan Marek Marci, who worked at Charles University in Prague.

A few years later, Kircher finally got his hands on the book when Marci sent it to him as he was a longtime friend and correspondent.

When Johannes Marcus sent it to Kircher, they found a letter written on August 19, 1665 or 1666 inside the cover.

It claims that the book once belonged to Emperor Rudolph II, (1552-1612) who paid 600 gold ducats (about 4.5 pounds of gold) for it.

The letter was written in Latin and had been translated to English.

The litany list of previous owners trying to unpick its secrets continues even further, as the manuscript embedded itself further into European folklore. 

The manuscript is also thought to have once been in the possession of 'Jacobj aTepen', or Jakub Horcicky of Tepenec, a medical doctor who lived from 1575-1622 and was known far and wide for his herbal medicinal use.

No records of the book for the next 200 years have been found, but in all likelihood, it was stored with the rest of Kircher's correspondence in the library of the Collegio Romeo.

It likely remained there until the troops of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy captured the city in 1870 and annexed the Papal States.

It was purchased in 1912 by a Polish-American antiquarian book dealer, named Wilfred Voynich (1865–1930), from where it gets its name. 

Alan Turing (pictured), the brilliant mind who spearheaded the campaign to crack the Enigma code at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, attempted to understand it, but found it impenetrable

His acquisition of the manuscript is different to its previous owners, from whom it was passed from hand to hand. 

According to folklore, he happened upon a trunk that contained the rare manuscript now known as the Voynich manuscript while on an acquisitions trip.

He had it in his possession until he died, and put it on display to the public for the first time ever in 1915.

It further etched itself into folklore and the mystery surrounding it deepened form this point onward as its uncrackable code attracted the greatest minds for decades - all trying to uncover its meaning.   

Wilfred subsequently relocated from Europe to New York and, following his death, the manuscript's custodian became his wife Ethel Voynich (1864–1960).

Following her death the manuscript found its way into the hands of another dealer named Hans P. Kraus (1907–88), who eventually donated it to the Yale library in 1969.

Alan Turing, the brilliant mind who spearheaded the campaign to crack the Enigma code at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, attempted to understand it, but found it impenetrable. 

Theodore C Peterson, a priest, embarked on the project of making a hand copy of the Voynich manuscript.

He completed it in 1944 and each page of the replica points out unusual features, which may be of interest in trying yo decipher it, such as odd character sequences and frequently used words.

He worked on the Voynich until his death and it helped a Danish botanist and zoologist, Theodore Holm of the Catholic University, totentatively identify 16 plant species in the Voynich.

William  Friedman (1891-1969) is remembered as one of the world's foremost cryptologists and became involved with the Voynich in the early 1920s when he corresponded with its namesake.

During his work, he developed the theory that the Voynich manuscript represented a text in a synthetic language (using or describing inflection).

It took Research Associate Dr Gerard Cheshire, pictured here, two weeks, using a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity, to identify the language and writing system of the famously inscrutable document, he claimed 

John Tiltman was a British intelligence specialist, working in association with William Friedman.

Friedman asked Tiltman for his opinion on the Voynich MS text, and sent him copies of the final quire.

He concluded that the text is far too complicated to be the result of a simple cipher and  be the results of applying a standard cipher to some plain text.

He spent some time discussing the option of a synthetic or 'universal' language as proposed by Friedman.

The FBI also tried during the Cold War, apparently thinking it may have been Communist propaganda.

The US National Securities Agency collaborated with German code-breaker Erich Hüttenhain based on the earlier work of British code-breaker John Tiltman because they had a notion that it might contain communist propaganda.

Ultimately, a consensus emerged: that the manuscript was either impossible to solve or else written in gibberish, as an elaborate practical joke.

Dr Gerard Cheshire, a researcher at the University of Bristol, claimed that it was written in a dead language - proto-Romance - and then by studying symbols and their descriptions he deciphered the meaning of the letters and words.