Editing Palimpsest

[[Image:Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus.JPG|250px|right|thumb|''[[Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus]]'' from [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]]]

A '''palimpsest''' is a [[manuscript]] page from a [[scroll (parchment)|scroll]] or [[book]] that has been scraped off and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through [[Latin]] from [[Greek language|Greek]] παλιν + ψαω = (''palin'' "again" + ''psao'' "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] wrote on [[Wax tablet|wax-coated tablets]] that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the rather bookish term "palimpsest" by [[Cicero]] seems to refer to this practice.

The term has come to be used in similar context in a variety of disciplines, notably architectural archaeology. 

== Development ==
[[Image:Georgian paliphsest V-VI cc.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A [[Georgian language|Georgian]] palimpsest of the 5th/6th century.]]

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 sixth century.  Also, where [[papyrus]] was in common use, reuse of writing media was less common because papyrus was cheaper and more expendable than costly parchment. But some papyrus palimpsests do survive, and Romans referred to this custom of washing papyrus,<sup>[1]</sup> although the reed from which it was made did not grow in [[Italy]].  

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.  In the later [[Middle Ages]] the surface of the vellum was usually scraped away with powdered [[pumice]], irretrievably losing the writing, hence the most valuable palimpsests are those that were overwritten in the early Middle Ages.

Medieval [[codex|codices]] are constructed in "gathers" which are folded (compare "[[folio]]", "leaf, page" [[ablative case]] of [[Latin]] folium), then stacked together like a newspaper and sewn together at the fold. Prepared parchment sheets retained their original central fold, so each was ordinarily cut in half, making a [[quarto]] volume of the original folio, with the overwritten text running perpendicular to the effaced text.

== Modern decipherment ==
Faint legible remains were read by eye before 20th-century techniques helped make lost texts readable. Scholars of the 19th century used chemical means to read palimpsests that were sometimes very destructive, using [[tincture]] of [[gall]] or later, [[ammonium bisulfate]]. Modern methods of reading palimpsests using [[ultraviolet]] light and photography are less damaging. Superexposed photographs exposed in various light spectra, a technique called "multispectral filming," can increase the contrast of faded ink on parchment that is too indistinct to be read by eye in normal light. Innovative [[Digitization|digitized image]]s aid scholars in deciphering unreadable palimpsests. [[Multispectral imaging]], undertaken by researchers at the [[Rochester Institute of Technology]] and [[Johns Hopkins University]], retrieved some four-fifths of the text of the [[Archimedes Palimpsest]]. More recently, at the Walters Art Museum where the palimpsest is now conserved, the project has focused on experimental techniques to retrieve the remaining fifth. One of the most successful of these techniques has proved to be [[x-ray]] [[fluorescence]] imaging, through which the iron in the ink is revealed, even under a forged overpainting.

== As a form of destruction ==
A number of ancient works have survived only as palimpsests.<sup>[2]</sup> Vellum manuscripts were over-written on purpose mostly due to the dearth or cost of the material. In the case of Greek manuscripts, the consumption of old [[codex|codices]] for the sake of the material was so great that a synodal decree of the year [[691]] forbade the destruction of manuscripts of the [[Scriptures]] or the [[church father]]s, except for imperfect or injured volumes. Such a decree put added pressure on retrieving the vellum on which secular manuscripts were written. The decline of the vellum trade with the introduction of paper exacerbated the scarcity, increasing pressure to reuse material. 

Cultural considerations also motivated the creation of palimpsests. The demand for new texts might outstrip the availability of parchment in some centers, yet the existence of cleaned parchment that was never overwritten suggests that there was also a spiritual motivation, to sanctify pagan text by overlaying it with the word of God, somewhat as pagan sites were overlaid with Christian churches to hallow pagan ground. Or the pagan texts may have merely appeared irrelevant. Texts most susceptible to being overwritten included obsolete legal and liturgical ones, sometimes of intense interest to the historian. Early Latin translations of Scripture were rendered obsolete by Jerome's [[Vulgate]]. Texts might be in foreign languages or written in unfamiliar scripts that had become illegible over time. The codices themselves might be already damaged or incomplete.  [[Christian heresy|Heretical]] texts were dangerous to harbor: there were compelling political and religious reasons to destroy texts viewed as heresy, and to reuse the media was less wasteful than simply to burn the books.

Vast destruction of the broad [[quarto]]s of the early centuries of our era took place in the period which followed the [[fall of the Roman Empire]], but palimpsests were also created as new texts were required during the [[Carolingian renaissance]]. The most valuable [[Latin]] palimpsests are found in the codices which were remade from the early large folios in the seventh to the ninth centuries. It has been noticed that no entire work is generally found in any instance in the original text of a palimpsest, but that portions of many works have been taken to make up a single volume. An exception is the Archimedes palimpsest (see below). On the whole, Early Medieval scribes were indiscriminate in supplying themselves with material from any old volumes that happened to be at hand.

== Some famous palimpsests ==
* The ''[[Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus]]'', [[Bibliothèque Nationale de France]], Paris: portions of the Old  and New Testaments in Greek, attributed to the fifth century, are covered with works of [[Ephrem the Syrian|Ephraem the Syrian]] in a hand of the twelfth century  
* Among the Syriac manuscripts obtained from the Nitrian desert in Egypt,  [[British Museum]], London: important Greek texts 
* [[Codex Nitriensis]], a volume containing a work of [[Severus of Antioch]] of the beginning of the ninth century is written on palimpsest leaves taken from sixth century manuscripts of the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the [[Gospel of Luke|Gospel of St Luke]], both of the sixth century, and the ''[[Euclid's Elements]]'' of the seventh or eighth century, British Museum
* A '''double palimpsest''', in which a text of St [[John Chrysostom]], in [[Syriac language|Syriac]], of the ninth or tenth century, covers a Latin grammatical treatise in a cursive hand of the sixth century, which in its turn covers the Latin annals of the historian [[Granius Licinianus]], of the fifth century, British Museum. 
* The only known '''hyper-palimpsest''': the [[Novgorod Codex]], in which maybe hundreds of texts have left their traces on the wooden back wall of a wax tablet
* The Ambrosian [[Plautus]], in rustic capitals, of the fourth or fifth century, re-written with portions of the [[Bible]] in the ninth century, Ambrosian Library
* [[Cicero]], ''[[De republica]]'' in [[uncial]]s, of the fourth century, covered by [[Augustine of Hippo|St Augustine]] on the [[Psalms]], of the seventh century, [[Vatican Library]]
* ''[[Codex Theodosianus]]'' of [[Turin]], of the fifth or sixth century  
* the ''[[Fasti#The Roman official chronicles|Fasti Consulares]]'' of [[Verona]], of 486
* the [[Arian fragment]] of the [[Vatican Library|Vatican]], of the fifth century
* the letters of [[Cornelius Fronto]], overwritten by the Acts of the [[Council of Chalcedon]]
* the ''[[Archimedes Palimpsest]]'', a work of the great Syracusan mathematician copied onto parchment in the tenth century and overwritten by a liturgical text in the twelfth century
* [[Sinaitic Palimpsest]]
* the unique copy of a Greek grammatical text composed by [[Aelius Herodianus|Herodian]] for the emperor [[Marcus Aurelius]] in the second century, preserved in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna
* [[Codex Zacynthius]] &ndash; Greek palimpsest fragments of the gospel of Saint Luke, obtained in the island of [[Zante]], by General [[Colin Macaulay]], deciphered, transcribed and edited by [[Samuel Prideaux Tregelles|Tregelles]]
* [[Codex Dublinensis]] (Codex Z) of St. Matthew's Gospel, at [[Trinity College, Dublin]], also deciphered by Tregelles

; Other palimpsests (New Testament) 

To the present day survived about sixty palimpsest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Uncial codices: 

[[Codex Guelferbytanus A|Guelferbytanus A]], [[Codex Porphyrianus|Porphyrianus]], [[Codex Guelferbytanus B|Guelferbytanus B]], [[Codex Vaticanus 2061|Vaticanus 2061]] (double palimpsest), [[Uncial 064]], [[Uncial 065|065]], [[Uncial 066|066]], [[Uncial 067|067]], [[Uncial 068|068]] (double palimpsest), [[Uncial 072|072]], [[Uncial 078|078]], [[Uncial 079|079]], [[Uncial 086|086]], [[Uncial 088|088]], [[Uncial 093|093]], [[Uncial 094|094]], [[Uncial 096|096]], [[Uncial 097|097]], [[Uncial 098|098]], [[Uncial 0103|0103]], [[Uncial 0104|0104]], [[Uncial 0116|0116]], [[Uncial 0120|0120]], [[Codex Sangallensis 18|0130]], [[Uncial 0132|0132]], [[Uncial 0133|0133]], [[Uncial 0135|0135]]. 

Lectionaries: 

[[Lectionary 1637]].

== Extended usages ==
The word palimpsest also refers to a plaque which has been turned around and engraved on what was originally the back.  

In [[Planetary science|planetary astronomy]], ancient lunar [[Impact crater|crater]]s whose relief has disappeared from subsequent volcanic outpourings, leaving only a "ghost" of a rim are also known as ''[[palimpsest (planetology)|palimpsests]]''. Icy surfaces of natural satellites like [[Callisto (moon)|Callisto]] and [[Ganymede (moon)|Ganymede]] preserve hints of their history in these rings, where the crater's relief has been effaced by creep of the icy surface ("viscous relaxation"). They are characterized by fast projectile which penetrates the cold, icy crust. Inward flow of slushy surface causes the surface to retain this upflowing of water from the past.

In medicine it is used to describe an episode of acute [[anterograde amnesia]] without loss of consciousness, brought on by the ingestion of alcohol or other substances: 'alcoholic palimpsest'.

The term is used in [[Forensic science]] or [[Forensic engineering]] to describe objects placed over one another to establish the sequence of events at an accident or [[crime scene]].

Several historians are beginning to use the term as a description of the way people experience times, that is, as a layering of present experiences over faded pasts.

Palimpsest is beginning to be used by Glaciologists to describe contradicting glacial flow indicators, usually consisiting of smaller indicators (ie striae) overprinted upon larger features (ie stoss and lee topography, drumlins, etc).

During the opening credits of the film version[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose_(film)] of [[The Name of the Rose]], it is described as "A palimpsest of the novel by [[Umberto Eco]]".

=== Decipherment in architecture ===
[[Image:toronto-twice-a-house.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Example of an architectural palimpsest in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada]]

Architects imply palimpsest as a ghost —- an image of what once was.  In the built environment, this occurs more than we might think. Whenever spaces are shuffled, rebuilt, or remodeled, [[shadow]]s remain.  Tarred rooflines remain on the sides of a building long after the neighboring structure has been demolished; removed stairs leave a mark where the painted wall surface stopped.  Dust lines remain from a relocated appliance.  Ancient ruins speak volumes of their former wholeness.  Palimpsests can inform us, archaeologically, of the realities of the built past.

Thus architects, archaeologists and design historians sometimes use the word to describe the accumulated iterations of a design or a site, whether in literal layers of archaeological remains, or by the figurative accumulation and reinforcement of design ideas over time. An excellent example of this can be seen at [[The Tower of London]], where construction began in the eleventh century, and the site continues to develop to this day.

Archaeologists in particular use the term to denote a record of material remains that is suspected of having formed during an extended period but that cannot be resolved in such a way that temporally discrete traces can be recognized as such.

[[Egyptologist]]s use the word for texts and representations inscribed in stone that have been scraped away, either completely or partially, often with a plaster filling being applied, and then a new inscription carved on top.

== Notes ==
* 1. According to Suetonius, Augustus, "though he began a tragedy with great zest, becoming dissatisfied with the style, he obliterated the whole; and his friends saying to him, What is your Ajax doing? He answered, My Ajax met with a sponge." (Augustus, 85). Cf. a letter of the future emperor Marcus Aurelius to his friend and teacher Fronto (ad M. Caesarem, 4.5), in which the former, dissatisfied with a piece of his own writing, facetiously exclaims that he will "consecrate it to water (lymphis) or fire (Volcano)," i.e. that he will rub out or burn what he has written. 
* 2. The most accessible overviews of the transmission of texts through the cultural bottleneck are Leighton D. Reynolds (editor), in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, where the texts that survived, fortuitously, only in palimpsest may be enumerated, and in his general introduction to textual transmission, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (with N.G. Wilson).

== External links ==
* [http://www.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/RV/areas.html OPIB Virtual Renaissance Network activities in digitizing European palimpsests]
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20041029014117/www.evellum.com/ductus/demo/engine/ductus/frames/bibliography/lowe_loew1972f.html Brief note on economic and cultural considerations in production of palimpsests]
* [http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/palimpsest_making1.html  Producing the Archimedes Palimpsest]
* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/palimpsest.html PBS NOVA: "The Archimedes Palimpsest"] Click on "What is a Palimpsest?"
* [http://palin.iccu.sbn.it/default.aspx?lang=en-GB Rinascimento virtuale] a project for the census, description, study and digital reproduction of Greek palimpsests

{{Donate}}

[[Category:Manuscripts]]
[[Category:Palimpsests|*]]
[[Category:Writing media]]