Talk:Wax tablet

Middle Ages

wax tablets were also used in the middle ages (see the book Latin Palaeography in the Middle Ages by Bischoff). Any objections to adding this?

No objection. I've heard the same. T@nn 09:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Link it to your Bischoff reference. --Wetman 18:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

non sequitur in the Illiad paragraph

The first appearance of writing tablets in written Greek appears in Homer … The written tablets are an anachronism in a narrative meant to have transpired generations before the Trojan War, …

In the current form of the paragraph it seems that they are logically related, which they are not.

The first claim requires that we know, independently from the second claim, the chronological order of the ancient texts; and conclude thence that the Homeric texts are the oldest of those that refer to writing tablets. The second claim requires that we know, independently from the first claim, that writing tablets did not exist before trojan war; and conclude thence that mention of pre-Trojan-War writing tablets is an anachronism.

we do not know certainly the dates of the homeric texts or the trojan war, if homer or tojan war really existed or the texts really orignated from homer. if homer and trojan war really existed and he really authored the texts at all they are likely at least several centuries apart so the two claims are unrelated. and the flow and logic of the paragraph is very defective. the two claims should be mentioned in seperate paragraphs, with seperate justifications and citations. --Calm 13:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Theseus

I don't understand what Theseus making an inscription on a column has to do with anything. Was the column actually made of wax? If not, why mention it? I can't understand the meaning of the inscription (it just sounds like a signpost) - does it have some meaning to do with wax tablets? The part about the "forged love letter" is presumably relevant, at least, because the letter was presumably written on a wax tablet - but even this isn't explicitly stated. The whole section about Theseus is very unclear.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:04, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Dubious unsourced "technology" paragraph

I removed the following material:

Technology and applications .. Writing by engraving in wax required the application of much more pressure and traction than would be necessary with ink on parchment or papyrus,[* footnote: Paper, a Chinese invention, did not reach the West until the Middle Ages: see history of paper.] and the scribe had to lift the stylus in order to change the direction of the stroke. Therefore, the stylus could not be applied with the same degree of dexterity as a pen. ... [the spatula was used] in a razor-like fashion [...] The entire tablet could be erased for reuse by warming it to about 50 °C and smoothing the softened wax surface.

This unsourced description of how the tablet was used seems to be just hypotheses conceived by the editor, not based on any original accounts. It is probably quite wrong too. The editor apparently assumed that writing was done by cutting through the whole wax layer to expose the wood underneath. In fact one can write quite legibly on dark-colored wax by just lightly scratching the surface of the wax. That does not require much more force than writing on paper -- not enough to be an inconveniece. Anyway, there is no need to lift the stylus in order to change direction. The flattened end of the stylus could have been used like a spatula, to smooth the surface by pressing down on it, rather than as a razor to scrape wax away. While the wax might have had to be restored from time to time, it would not have required warming the whole tablet itself; and that cetainly was not needed just to reuse the tablet: one could just smooth out the surface with the spatula.
Maybe I am wrong and the description is right; but it definitely needs a source if that is the case.
--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 22:12, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Nah he's correct. The pressure required in the stroke is why wax tablet writing evolved, a very different almost cursive script that minimised the requisite need to lift and place the stylus, distorting many letters and numbers to minimise the effort. And the spatula end of the stylus was an eraser used to press the wax back together rather than scraping away a layer - so they're definitely wrong using the term 'razor like fashion' unless they're thinking of shaving with a safety razor perhaps?

Although the REAL dubious aspect is the usual "China did it first." claim. Wikipedia is rife with it though. Any Chinese academic will tell you--as I am now--but it will go ignored - for almost a century now our government only funds academics if we write China did it first papers. It doesn't matter what we claim we did first, and no westerner will dig through the reference material to find out if we're lying. But if we wanted to eat we had to write papers on how glorious China and the Chinese people are. This is the real reason it appears China did everything first. Not because we did - but because if we don't make a convincing argument to wow westerners we're back in the rice paddy or factory instead of a cushy job in academia. It's one of the main reasons most academically inclined of us attempt to flee China unless we're happy being propagandists for the rest of our lives. But Wikipedia is run by communists now anyway so it's not like anything will ever change. Hell, they consider circular sourced copy paste articles by Buzzfeed to be primary sources, many yellow journalism media use this weakness of Wikipedia to slander political dissidents and critics by circular sourcing to push claims of racism, sexism, etc, and turn allegations into fact by mere repetition. Sorry for the tl;dr got a free period between classes and this topic gave me such a titty twister. :P 121.210.33.50 (talk) 03:07, 2 June 2019 (UTC)