palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript scraped clean and written over, the older text still faintly legible beneath. Three texts here share a single page; hover, or use the toggles, to bring each to the front.
the manuscript
And the angel of the LORD spake unto the captain, saying, depart not from this place until the matter be fully accounted; and we found that the cargo was three hundred and twelve measures of olive oil, and seventy of fine flour, and the seal of the master was upon each.
And the captain said, who shall be witness; and they answered, the steward, and the steward's man, and the bookkeeper of the port; and so it was written down, and signed in the year of our Lord 1411, on the seventh day of the second month.
# inventory · 2025-04 · cargo manifest
{"olive_oil_measures": 312, "fine_flour_measures": 70, "seal": "ok"}
witnesses = ["steward", "steward.deputy", "port.bookkeeper"]
signed_at = 1411-02-07T00:00:00Z
checksum = sha256("...")
three hundred and twelve measures
of oil ─ enough for a month
of lamps ─ three hundred and twelve
evenings of reading ─ each evening
a different page ─ each page
a different oil ─ pressed from
the same olive ─ pressed from
the same hill ─
A bill of lading from a real Genoese galley becomes a JSON inventory becomes a poem of accounting. The same facts, three modes — each true, none complete.
note
The ink we use today will fade. Some future reader will scrape the page, write something else over what we wrote, and our own writing will sit beneath theirs as a faint texture in the parchment. That is fine. It is the way of the surface.