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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for February 23, 1999
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palimpsest [n. PAL-imp-sest]
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In medieval times, parchment or vellum were sometimes in short supply
or quite expensive. Existing manuscripts were sometimes prepared for
new works by washing or scraping off the old writing.
Such a rewritten manuscript is called a palimpsest. Often, through
modern restoration methods, the older text (which is usually much more
interesting to historians) can be recovered.
Another motivation for some palimpsests was religious: ancient Greek
texts were "converted" by replacing the pagan words with "the word of
God."
The word comes through Latin, from the Greek palimpsestos (scraped
again), a compound of palin (again) with psen (to scrape).
More about palimpsests:
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0243.html
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