The initiative ‘On the Trail of the Neverending Manuscript’ by Michele Cammarosano aimed to the preparation of a major research project on the significance of rewritability in manuscript cultures. Rewritability stands at the crossroads of the impermanence of written words and the potential for reusing writing materials. Purposeful destruction of written content rarely aims to impede knowledge transmission. Instead, it often reflects a pragmatic choice driven by the dynamic interplay of means, goals, and material constraints in resource-limited contexts. The obliteration of written text doesn’t necessarily entail the destruction of its material foundation; historical contexts unveil a deliberate convergence of text erasure and the reusability of media. This convergence is particularly evident in educational settings, note-taking, literary and musical composition, administration, and magical practices.

Before the widespread use of graphite pencils, manuscript cultures addressed the challenge of creating technologies for reusing writing surfaces with a plethora of inventive solutions, such as clay and wax tablets, coated boards and sheets, reusable wooden sticks, sand trays, ivory notebooks, and more. Additionally, materials like papyrus, parchment, ceramics, metals, and stone were employed as reusable media to a greater extent than commonly assumed. The adoption of erasable writing technologies has profound implications in both practical and theoretical realms. Notable among these are the influence on palaeographic developments, the acquisition of writing, composition techniques, note-taking practices, and the conceptualization of mental processes. These implications persist into the present, with the digital shift introducing novel methods of erasing and rewriting text and presenting modern iterations of age-old challenges—information overload, data storage, and environmental sustainability.

The initiative is funded by the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’. Below: select output of the initiative, and related projects. Background picture above: Matthias Streckfuss reconstructs a Neo-Assyrian wax diptych, based on the extant ivory leaf excavated in Aššur in 1912, now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin (from Jendritzki, Streckfuss & Cammarosano 2019).