Welcome to TabulaRasa !
This is the blog and website of the ERC-funded project TabulaRasa. It aims to present and disseminate the project’s activities and results, and to offer a venue for exchange and discussion for everyone interested in the fascinating topic of the recycling of written surfaces, and in particular of the writing techniques connected with clay and wax tablets, approached from a multi- and interdisciplinary perspective. We hope you will enjoy this space and contribute to it!
Recycling written surfaces has played a crucial role in many fields, including education, note-taking, literary creation and bookkeeping. Inventions such as clay and wax tablets allowed inkless writing and easy erasability, enabling unlimited revisions as far back as the third millennium BCE. The TabulaRasa project will study the pivotal role of erasable writing technologies, specifically clay and wax tablets, from the Ancient Near East to Early Modern Europe by integrating codicology, palaeography, material analysis and experimentation. The project will explore their impact on the palaeographic development of cuneiform and Latin scripts, on memory and on data management, drawing parallels to modern challenges like information overload and sustainability, and ultimately providing a new understanding of rewritability’s enduring significance throughout history. If you want to know more on the project’s objectives and methodology, please visit the About page.
The website includes dedicated sections on the project’s team and partners, publications and mentions, and lab, database, and glossary, as well as a blog section where all posts can be found. Each post is assigned to one or more categories (News, Events, Reports, etc) and is provided with relevant tags. We welcome guest posts on topics related to rewriting practices – please get in touch!
The project TabulaRasa is funded by the European Union (ERC, TabulaRasa, GA 101170566). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.