word wednesday: palimpsest
i was rereading a book (codex) a couple weeks ago and ran across this word with very little context, and i knew i’d run across it before (not in the initial read), so i looked it up.
“a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.”
i’d read it in ” a discovery of witches!” (which, i might add, i own a signed first copy of ….thanks liz! lol)
it’s greek in origin from the word palin for again and psestos for rubbed smooth.
i’m sure you could call other things palimpsets, but it made sense in pre-gutenburg times when paper was scarce and books were rare.
what are some modern day palimpsets? could old VHS tapes that you recorded TV shows on over and over work? there wasn’t much trace of the old shows, but it was again rubbed smooth.
maybe double-exposure photography would count. chalk or whiteboards definitely – when you can still make out words that have been erased. old hard drives that you think you’ve reformatted but someone steals and is able to pull all your old data from?