VMs: Recycled Vellum

["Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@xxxxxxxx>]

Mart Vabar noted/asked,

>>Former erased documents are probably quite common on vellum?<<

Yes.  These are called palimpsests, and were used because of the scarcity
of writing materials.  Frequently, the scrubbed-off writing was as or
more important than what was written afterwards.  As recently as the
early 1900s -- 1908 springs to mind -- the original text of one of these
proved to have been written by the great Archemedes of Syracuse.  It was
one of his mathematical writings previously thought to have been lost.

With the advent of printing, cheaper forms of paper were manufactured,
and vellum was mostly relegated to tambourines.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

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