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- Title
Stand und Perspektiven der Erforschung ausgewählter Schriftträger: Wachstafeln.
- Authors
WOZNIAK, THOMAS
- Abstract
Wax writing tablets consist of various materials (wood, ivory) with large recessed areas, which were filled with a substance mixed from beeswax, vegetable oils and pigments. Writing or drawings were then carved into this surface with a stylus. By using the broad side of the stylus, the layer could be smoothed over and the wax thus reused. Wax tablets are among the humanity's longest-used media and are therefore of particular importance. In contrast to their longevity, their chances of long-term survival are low, due to the fact that both the form and the writing surface were very flammable and not very durable. The use of wax tablets as a medium for ephemeral writing, such as incidental notes, invoices, drafts and writing exercises, was also not conducive to survival. From archaeological findings and attestations in written sources - particularly illuminating in this respect are the Casus sancti Galli, together with the works of Balderich of Bourgueil and Felix Fabri - their wide distribution and intensive use is indisputable. A total of about 2600 wax tablets are known from antiquity, whereas only around 625 survive from later periods. The extant tablets vary in size: The smallest measure 5 × 3 cm (York); the largest, 49 × 25 cm (Hildesheim) and 92 × 31 cm (Chur). The waxes were commonly coloured black, dark brown, brown, green and red. Styluses of various designs were made sometimes of bone or ivory, but mostly of non-ferrous metals such as bronze, with a pointed end for scratching and a broad end for erasing. The amount of text that could be written or stored on wax tablets varied depending on the writing surface, the tip of the stylus, the type of writing and the skills of the scribe. Surviving wax tablets have a storage density ranging from 3.4 (Novgorod) to 23.2 (Athens) characters per square centimetre. Whether tablet line-length and overall character limits influenced the composition of texts has hardly been investigated. Wax tablets were the central universal storage medium in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Their convenient size and low weight contributed to their widespread use as 'mobile devices'. The poor state of preservation contrasts sharply with the importance of this source-genre for pre-modern Europe.
- Subjects
TABLETS (Paleography); BEESWAX; VEGETABLE oils; PEN-based computers; ARCHAEOLOGICAL finds; FABRI, Felix; ANTIQUITIES
- Publication
Archiv für Diplomatik, Schriftgeschichte, Siegel- und Wappenkunde, 2021, Vol 67, Issue 1, p345
- ISSN
0066-6297
- Publication type
Article