Wax tablet
2437567
221161668
2008-06-23T08:55:43Z
William Avery
1398
Disambiguate [[Antiquity]] to [[classical antiquity]] using [[:en:Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation_popups|popups]]
[[Image:Wachstafel_rem.jpg|thumb|Roman wax tablet with three styli (modern reproduction)]]
A '''wax tablet''' (''[[Wiktionary:tabula|tabula]]'') is a [[tablet]] made of wood and covered with a layer of [[wax]]. It was used as a reusable and portable [[writing]] surface in [[classical antiquity|Antiquity]] and throughout the [[Middle Ages]]. [[Cicero]]'s letters make passing reference to their use, and some examples of wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged deposits in the [[Roman Britain|Roman]] fort at [[Vindolanda]] on [[Hadrian's Wall]]. Medieval wax tablet books are on display in several European museums.
Writing was performed with a pointed instrument, a [[stylus]]. A straight-edged implement would be used in a razor-like fashion to re-smoothen the surface, before next use. The modern expression, of ''"a clean slate"'' is related to the [[Latin]] expression [[Tabula rasa|''"tabula rasa"'']].
Wax tablets were used for a variety of purposes, from students' or secretaries' notes to recording business accounts. Early forms of [[stenography|shorthand]] were used too.
[[Image:Scribe tomb relief Flavia Solva.jpg|thumb|left|Roman scribe with his stylus and tablets on his tomb stele at [[Flavia Solva]] in [[Noricum]]]]
The first appearance of writing tablets in written Greek appears in [[Homer]]— the single Homeric example in which writing is referred to— in the narrated tale of [[Bellerophon]] (''Iliad'' vi.155–203) which introduces the [[Trope (literature)|trope]] of the "fatal letter", with its message sealed within the folded tablets: "Kill the bearer of this". The written tablets are an [[anachronism]] in a narrative of an event that is meant to have transpired generations before the [[Trojan War]], and incidentally help date the earliest possible [[recension]] of the epic that we read to the mid-eighth century.
The Greeks inherited the folding pair of wax tablets, along with the leather scroll and the [[Phoenician alphabet]], in the mid-eighth century. Their word for the tablet, ''deltos'', has even retained its [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] designation, ''daltu'', which originally signified "door" but was being used for writing tablets in [[Ugarit]] in the thirteenth century BCE (Burkert 1992:30). In [[Hebrew]] the term evolved into ''daleth''. Writing tablets were in use in Mesopotamia as well as Syria and Palestine: "the find of one exemplar in the fourteenth-century wreck at [[Ulu Burun]] near Kaş, Turkey, is considered sensational, even if no trace of the writing for which it was used is preserved." (Burkert 1992:30) Writing tablets of ivory have appeared in the ruins of [[Sargon]]'s palace in [[Nimrud]] and were also in use in medieval times, as a sort of practical luxury articles.
A remarkable example of a wax tablet book are the servitude records which the hospital of Austria's oldest city, [[Enns (city)|Enns]], established in [[1500]]. Ten wooden plates, sized 375 x 207 mm and arranged in a 90 mm stack, are each divided into two halves along their long axis. The annual payables due are written on parchment or paper glued to the left sides. Payables received were recorded for deduction (and subsequently erased) on the respective right sides, which are covered with brownish-black writing wax. The material is based on [[beeswax]], and contains 5-10% plant oils and carbon pigments; its melting point is about 65 °C. This volume is the continuation of an earlier one, which was begun in [[1447]].
Wax tablets were used for high-volume business records of transient importance until the 19th century. For instance, the salt mining authority at [[Schwäbisch Hall]] employed wax records until [[1812]], and the fish market in [[Rouen]] used them until the 1860s.
==References==
*[[Walter Burkert|Burkert, Walter]], 1992.''The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influences on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age'' (Harvard University Press), pp 29ff.
*Galling, K., 1971. "Tafel, Buch und Blatt" in ''Near Eastern Studies in Honour of [[William F. Albright|W.F. Albright]]'' (Baltimore), pp 207-23.
*Wilflingseder, F., 1964. "Die Urbare des Ennser Bürgerspitals aus den Jahren 1447 und 1500." Biblos 13, 134-45.
*Büll, R., 1977. "Das große Buch vom Wachs." Vol. 2, 785-894
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[[fr:Tablette de cire]]
[[la:tabula]]
[[pl:Wosk pisarski]]
[[ru:Восковые таблички]]
[[Category:Writing media]]