This is a parchment from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped or washed off, and which can be used again. The writing was usually washed using milk and oat bran. With the passing of time, the faint remains of the former writing would reappear enough so that scholars could discern the text (called the scriptio inferior), and decipher its meaning. Geographers really like the analogy of the palimpsest; Graham (2010) Tijdschrift Econ. 101, 4, 422 writes ‘All places are palimpsests. Among other things, places are layers of brick, steel, concrete, memory, history, and legend. The countless layers of any place come together in specific times and spaces and have bearing on the cultural, economic, and political characteristics, interpretations, and meanings of place’. In geomorphology, palimpsest landscapes are composed of a mosaic of active and relict (inactive) landforms of different ages. See Kleman (1992) Geografisk A, 74, 4, 305.