Palimpsest

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GS 606 CROSSING BORDERS TERMINOLOGY

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== 51. Palimpsest:
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—a term for a parchment on which several inscriptions had been made after earlier ones had been erased.

The characteristic of the palimpsest is that, despite such erasures, there are always traces of previous inscriptions that have been "overwritten."

Hence the term has become valuable for suggesting the ways in which the traces of earlier "inscriptions" remain as a continual feature of the "text" of culture, giving it its particular density and character.