Comments on: Jamestown slate

By: saesferd

saesferd — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:14:03 +0000

Slates like this, Katherine? It must be nice to keep a little bit of precious family history. I would imagine that many slates got broken and discarded - the school ones were quite thin. I must admit, when I first read the article about the Jamestown slate, I immediately thought of school slates and pencils.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:26:34 +0000

I have slate tablets that belonged to members of my family. These are left over from their years in school. Paper was a luxury so they used these framed slates with a slate “pencil.” One has images scratched in it by some careless child, but the others were well cared for. I like the slate marker better than chalk because it makes a finer mark and isn’t dusty like chalk. These are still in use in some schools in the USA.

By: saesferd

saesferd — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:00:59 +0000

I have not read anywhere any speculation as to why the slate is a palimpsest, pamwalter2. Possibly, in much the same way as Roman wax-coated tablets were written on, then smoothed for reuse, or valuable parchment was scraped and overwritten in the past,a robust slate is recyclable. As the archaeologists suggest that the slate work may have been started in England, resources for making writing materials might have been quite scarce or not a priority for those setting up Jamestown at that time. A piece of slate could have been an economic way of making rough draughts and notes without wasting those valuable resources and time.

By: pamwalter2

pamwalter2 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:11:47 +0000

Any speculation as to why “There were things written over things, written over things,” ? http://www.satisfiedsole.com