Voynich Manuscript

The Voynich Manuscript is a book handwritten in the early 15th century. It has been described as the "world's most mysterious manuscript". The tome consists of 240 vellum pages, written in a cypher that has defied all attempts at decrypting it.

The book was recovered by the Polish-Lithuanian-American book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich in 1912. It is speculated that the original book had 272 pages, some of which were already missing when Voynich got his hands on the artifact. There is also evidence of someone reordering of the pages after its initial construction. The book has been divided into six sections according to the change in illustrations: Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Cosmological, Pharmaceutical and Recipes.

The book is currently owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, and is formally referred to as "Beinecke MS 408".

Huolongjing

While the Chinese are widely known as the inventors of gunpowder, there are some surprisingly early innovations that are more obscure. These are catalogued in the early Ming dynasty book Huolongjing (Fire Dragon Manual in English) written in the 14th century.

The book showcases various gunpowder-powered devices ranging from flamethrowers to grenades to mines, both land and naval. It even has an explanation of the evolution of the 10th century exploding fire-arrow into a winged rocket. It also includes descriptions of various proto-firearms such as the fire lance, which fires flaming shrapnel like some sort of firey shotgun. There's also cannons complete with exploding cannonballs.

Although the western world surpassed the Chinese in terms of gunpowder technology in the 15th century, Huolongjing shows us what had been done with it for centuries before westerners ever laid eyes upon the destructive powder.