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Concept
Palimpsest
Summary
In textual studies, a palimpsest (ˈpælɪmpsɛst) is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse, in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so, in the interest of economy, a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture, archaeology and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another; for example, a monumental brass the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved.
The word palimpsest derives from the Latin palimpsestus, which derives from the Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος (palímpsēstos, from παλίν + ψαω = 'again' + 'scrape'), a compound word that describes the process: "The original writing was scraped and washed off, the surface resmoothed, and the new literary material written on the salvaged material." The Ancient Greeks used wax-coated tablets to write on with a stylus, and to erase the writing by smoothing the wax surface and writing again. This practice was adopted by Ancient Romans, who wrote on wax-coated tablets, which were reusable; Cicero's use of the term palimpsest confirms such a practice.
Because parchment prepared from animal hides is far more durable than paper or papyrus, most palimpsests known to modern scholars are parchment, which rose in popularity in Western Europe after the 6th century. Where papyrus was in common use, reuse of writing media was less common because papyrus was cheaper and more expendable than costly parchment. Some papyrus palimpsests do survive, and Romans referred to this custom of washing papyrus.
The writing was washed from parchment or vellum using milk and oat bran. With the passing of time, the faint remains of the former writing would reappear enough so that scholars can discern the text (called the scriptio inferior, the 'underwriting') and decipher it.
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