"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Monday, 6 April 2009

Palimpsest


A palimpsest was an early form of recycling. It was a manuscript (usually written on papyrus or parchment) on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing often incompletely erased. The first use was scraped off and the papyrus or parchment written on again as an economy measure.
 

3 comments:

  1. Wow! Imagine what you might read in the backround!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. shabby girl, there is a great book about the Archimedes Codex which really goes into a lot of detail about a very important palimpsest and is well worth a read.

    I'm not sure if links will work here but if so then it is this book and if not then it's by Reviel Netz and William Noel and it's ISBN is 0753823721.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting...this fascination towards words:) I'm entranced myself with the evolution of language...am following you:)

    ReplyDelete