The Voynich manuscript was thought by experts to have contained codes, magic spells, alien messages and even communist propaganda before it was simply shrugged off as gibberish or nothing more than an elaborate practical joke. Some believed it was a code or riddle never to be solved, despite the great Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing giving it a go. But a linguistics expert from Bristol University is certain the handwritten, illustrated text from the 15th century is written in a long-dead language, called proto-Romance.

Dr Gerard Cheshire believes he has deciphered the meaning of the text by meticulously studying their symbols and had since found it contains information on herbal remedies, therapeutic bathing techniques and astrological readings about sex.

He also claims the fascinating scroll features matters of the female mind and parenting information.

Dr Cheshire said: “I experienced a series of ‘eureka’ moments whilst deciphering the code.’

He said feelings of “disbelief and excitement” swiftly followed having grasped the magnitude of the accomplishment.

He added: “What it reveals is even more amazing than the myths and fantasies it has generated.

“It is also no exaggeration to say this work represents one of the most important developments to date in Romance linguistics.

“The manuscript is written in proto-Romance – ancestral to today’s Romance languages including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, Catalan and Galician.

“The language used was ubiquitous in the Mediterranean during the Medieval period, but it was seldom written in official or important documents because Latin was the language of royalty, church and government.”

He added: “As a result, proto-Romance was lost from the record, until now.”

The doctor is keen to translate the entire manuscript into a lexicon, which he said will require some funding.

He added: “Now the language and writing system have been explained, the pages of the manuscript have been laid open for scholars to explore and reveal, for the first time, its true linguistic and informative content.”

His paper on the subject, The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained, can be found in the Romance Studies journal.

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