The Wax Tablet: Recreating An Ancient Note Book
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2024
- Irving Finkel Lecture (on the library of nineveh):
• The Great Library of N...
Dr. Dilly's ancient craft video on must farm wood work:
• Making Must Farm (Pt. ...
artifacts:
assyrian writing tablet from the british museum:
www.britishmuseum.org/collect...
coptic tablet from the met:
www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
1300's religous tablet:
www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...
sun dial tablet:
brill.com/view/journals/esm/2...
For a smoother wax that doesn't flake when you inscribe in it add some olive oil. also its easier to use blocky or angular letters for the purpose of writing as curves can make the wax push in on itself. Awesome vid; loved the process.
thats a great idea, I think I'll try just that!
The Greek written alphabet was made for this purpose of being easy to write on wax, Bit I could be wrong.
@@87crowhat54 The Early Greek alphabets are angular because they were mostly inscribed on stone (which provides almost all the surviving inscriptions) and wood which has provided 2-3 inscriptions. I have never written on wax but carving curves on stone is extremely difficult even with modern tools.
Did they use beeswax, or at least a better wax than paraffin? All those flakes covering the surface make it extremely hard to read, and would necessitate a brush as well as a scribing tool be included. Or maybe heating the tip of the scribing tool before writing would eliminate the problem? Another question - while the other end of your scriber might erase a single mistake easily, they must have had something else to erase the whole tablet for reuse. A sort of flatiron, maybe?
No wonder the Norse alphabet doesn't exactly have many curves.
Neat little build. The tablets with multiple pages or with sundials makes me wonder what other stuff people did to make them more useful. A lot of them are real pretty, but I wanna see the ones with calendars and reference material on it.
Well if you consider that even besides scribes, people have been making books for long enough that this stuff has been evolving for hundreds of years now. For us to know what a calendar might look like, means people arrived at that layout a long time ago cause it's the most effective utility. We could have circular calendars, or something. It just works better to use a table instead of a round calendar. I'm sure lots of circular calendars have gone away. I've seen some before.
I'm glad I find this channel. I'm glad to learn of iron acetate stain, I have never heard of it. Thanks
If they had the math, they could implement a slide rule etched on sheets of tin or gold.
They could've had different tools for drawing shapes as well like templates or a drafting compass. (although from what I know, we only have examples of writing on them)
They are the ancient forebearers of ipads/smartpads
"Obliterate" literally means [to push] against [the] letters, to erase them on a wax tablet.
Oblate the literature! 😄
awesome fact thank you for sharing
So it is pretty much the exact same usage as we have fore erase, which is often a word we use for obliterates modern usage. The enemy was obliterated. The enemy was erased.
I haven't felt this dumb (for not having realized something obvious) since it was pointed out to me that petroleum is rock oil.
@@samovarsa2640I felt the same when I realised that Pathfinder, which is another word for navigator is literally just a combination of words path and finder
The leather straps look much nicer than the ivory nut hinge
Idea for an upgraded one of these, add an extra section at the rear, build in a small abacus on one half, and make a folding sundial on the other half... got your notebook, calculator, and watch all in one.
And using glass work, a small hourglass could also be stored as a sort of stop watch.
Redact this, I made this comment at the 3 minute mark 😂
clearly you and the medieval artisans think alike! I love the hourglass idea 😂
@@fraserbuilds idea for your next build. And a research if such thing ever possibly existed with all these feature above with comparison against a smartphone.
cellphone
When you ask grandma for a new tablet for Christmas.
Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandma 😂
I had not seen the tablets with the sundial and compass integrated into the tablet before, that's really neat. I love these moments of seeing technology coming full circle just because people are and have always been people. Sometimes "there are no new ideas" is depressingly nihilistic, but things like this reminds me that it's actually kinda hopeful and wholesome.
its funny isnt it? it makes me think of my phone as more so part of a long tradition than I'd previously thought. that these tablets were used for everything from sending messages, taking notes, and even keeping the time really caught me off guard. I Honestly think its cool to look at some of the artifact examples as what a cell phone would have been made to look like in the medieval period😂 lots of ivory and bronze with all sorts of complex engravings. makes me wish my phone looked like that😅
omg, imagine a 算盘🧮, the chinese calculator thing using beads being one "page", _that's literally a calculator!!!_ it's legit like phone! you got ur compass, u see ur time through the sundial, you can calculate real fast with a 算盘, you got the notes section, maybe you put ur "samsung pen" in on the side the a hole on top, Heck! you could even have a map of wherever u are in a roll and stored in a hole on top! multiple maps even!
@@enamishalive do you mean an abacus? The foreign (Chinese?) words don't translate for me.
@@jmoneyjoshkinion4576 yeah, abacus, i didnt bother to translate it lol (yes chinese)
@@enamishalive I thought it was either that or possibly Japanese, and I didn't think it was Korean, and I have no clue how many other languages look similar enough for my poor American brain to try and recognize which one it was. Thanks!
i really liked your words about the closing clack and the situations you can think about when hearing the sound. it is a bit like when we feel something when we crack open a soda
Once cans vanish, the sound they make invoking the feeling of respite will be lost.
now i see why a certain Bookworm would pick this method for writing down notes, such a simple yet elegant design allowing for erasable writing with relatively cheap materials and easy manufacturing
Is this a pop culture reference?
@@JinKee I think it's referring to an anime by the name of Ascendance of a Bookworm
@@MoreEvilThanYahweh thanks!
Also artisans, who often need to to sketch diagrams or shuttle through some calculations on the fly.
Myne picked every writing technology she remembered and hoped for the best, the dyptich was just one of the ones that stuck.
Worlds first PDA Notebook or Personal Digital Assistant: But I guess you could call it a PWA Notebook or Personal Wax Assistant! Imagine traveling back in time and seeing people messing around with these like we do our phones, tables and laptops now. Mind Blowing how everything keeps repeating itself thru history with a slight upgrade.
also the worlds first Nintendo DS
@@Hoolahups
True! You could scratch a gameboard or doodle silly pictures into it.
Hours of entertainment, basically for free.
I can also imagine old people complaining about the kids always playing on their tablets
"I can't believe this stuff is made of nut" ngl I kinda want some ivory now
Just use bone.
Readily available.
Dumbo would not cry.
but bone isn't made out of nut, @@dragoscoco2173
Antlers would look better
Aren't we all?
@@dragoscoco2173 Ivory is enameled bone though. So unless you have a pile of massive teeth...
I love the leather strap and copper staples look, and the stylus is a really neat design!
Thank you :)
@@fraserbuilds I really love the copper Staples and leather look. I've never seen somebody make a wide copper staple like that as something visual. I'm going to have to use that on some this is the first video I've seen of yours and it's a really great video! I just got recommended it on the home page so I'm pretty sure you're about to blow up. Haha
A leather latch stapled to the back and with a copper stud on the front would complete it I think.
I had one when I was a child. It had black wax with a clear plastic sheet over it. If you wrote on it with a stylus it formed grey lettering. All you did was lift the sheet up and the writing would vanish. They were often given like calling cards.
I had several of these as a child!
Erasable tablets! That's what we called them in the 70's-80's!
Dang core memory unlocked, I had forgotten that I had one as a kid. I remember drawing stick figures on it and then slowly peeling it up, pretending they were drowning or something (I was a morbid little kid 😵💫).
Dang yeah, I forgot about that! Also never realised it was wax.
I remember this! In the Philippines we call these things "magic slates"
Wax tablets can also be inked and a transfer ink process used to imprint / copy the text to be read in a mirror surface.
The type of writing direction that some ancient Greek uses is called "BOUSTROPHEDON". From Britannica, "the writing of alternate lines in opposite directions, one line from left to right and the next from right to left"
Even the letters are flipped when writing the line that goes right to left.
So, my guess is that it would be easier to read if it were mirrored for an ancient greek, the problem would not be the mirrored letters (because they already use mirrored versions of them in writing because of the boustrophedon writing system), but rather reading in a flipped alternating pattern.
If they already write in alternating lines (regular, mirrored backwards, regular, mirrored backwards... ), printout would alternate the same, just the lines that were regular, would become mirrored backwards, and the ones that used to be mirrored backwards would become regular
Dang, thanks for idea! Gotta some potato carving to do for my drawing, have a good one
"Back in my day, we used to scribe on scrolls. Now all I see are these damn kids using their tablet on the streets and even at dinner tables. Greece is doomed."
Thanks for the demonstration and the safety hints on handling tannin compounds.
thanks! tannins are generally safe but its always best to check, generally speaking chemicals that combine a metal and an organic compound frequently have some biological effects worth looking out for
I have always enjoyed writing on slates (with a slate pencil) and that was common in schools until early to mid 20c. It gave a very precise line on a space about the size of an iPad, could be rubbed off with your hand, or a cloth. I enjoyed this video, thanks.
Your channel is amazing. I love the format of gentle presentation, instruction, knowledge, history and visuals. It is a winning formula and I hope the channel blooms.
Our ancestors have felt something similar the simple yet poignant feeling of closing a flip phone. How beautiful.
A workshop tour would make a nice video to show off all the interesting stuff you made. I think I remember you saying there wasn't any electricity there. I'd love to see the lighting at night.
oh I like that! spend a night in the workshop. it honestly gets a little spooky in there after sunset😂
When you dont do your homework: “sorry professor, I left my tablet out in the sun…”
i think it's very awesome that you talk about the mundane significance of objects you create, as well as how the nature of these objects affect our understanding of history. in particular i appreciate the time you took to discuss the concept of volatile memory in historical artifacts such as these wax tablets, because volatile memory is actually also a modern problem! so much of what we do is recorded ephemerally with electricity on intricate fragile rocks that can lose their usefulness in a matter of a decade or less, and so arguably a historian just as far in the future from us as we are the cultures that used these tablets, possibly even less time, may have a significantly harder time than we do figuring out what their ancestors got up to. even today, the fact that all of our modern recording techniques are so impermanent sometimes results in the near total loss of information than was recorded less than a generation ago, and only time will tell how this will affect humanity in the long run
Lost media is such a weird thing if you think about it, like 10-20 "Doctor Who" episodes have been recreated in animations because the tapes have been lost! Something that is a _LOT_ more historically important is the original moon landing tape, and not the video camera pointed at the TV monitor in Huston that we all know, but the original that was ON the monitor!
you make very interesting stuff :) i love how so many of these builds are attainable to people of varying skill levels as well.
thanks!
I love how you describe and speculate and sort of fantasize through your builds and still an mindful of mentioning other channels and contributors. Well done 😊
That “vegetable ivory” sounds amazing. Would love to see more of it in the future.
Beeswax would be interesting to try as it is less brittle at room temperature and would not create shaven chips in the writing.
You never disappoint with your content
i was curios and german wikipedia has a good article on those, it states the hollow on artifacts was merely between 1 and 3 mm. surely to safe on wax
i think i will build one too
1-3 mm sounds perfect like the perfect size, much less carving that way too 😂
Hands down one of my favorite channels, please never stop posting
Im so very glad there are people like you who put videos like these up. I'm going to try to use your videos as tutorials, and the historical aspect of everything is severely lacking in most videos talking about history. It's the little things like this that no one talks about.
Thank you :) Best of luck!
@fraserbuilds no thank you for what you do!
If you find yourself hollowing out a cavity in wood like this again, you might check out Paul Seller's "poor man's router." It's simple and obvious enough that it surely must have been used in ancient times (it's literally a chisel crammed through a plank), and it will give you nice, consistent bottoms to your cavities, enabling you to (in this case) use a thinner wax layer.
Thanks for the tip! I'll check that out!
I just discovered you through this video. I found your build process and information lovely, but your conclusion is what made me subscribe. Taking in the sound of the tablet closing, a sound that used to reverberate across ancient empires for thousands of years, is a sound few people today have heard. It really is amazing. I am excited to see your other content!
The little worlds that people live in are always so incredible to explore! I've heard stories of the Gods, from all different pantheons, from all different mythologies - they always sounds so incredible, but as told, these stories are so lifeless, they lack that common everyday feel. These people aren't relaxing after a hard day, eating a nice meal, making love with someone their adore, practicing hobbies they chose, playing with their grandkids and dying of a heartattack, drawing little hearts on their notebook, those little interactions with objects and actions throughout the day that just... feel so incredible. Objects shape so much of our world... thank you for exploring one of humanity's story through this build ♡
I love how even back then they wanted to have a note taking reference thing with a clock and navigation tool that you could also use to send texts on and made due with the materials at hand. It's also funny that wax tablets didn't stick around as a dust free way to have a low waste "scratch pad" well into the 20th century, I could see a use for a wax tablet in my writing kit having a prominent place for doing quick math or something like that before it gets written down on paper.
Love this video! I hope you do some more recreations of ancient everyday items like this, i thought your point at the end about how much hidden significance these objects can hold to us was really salient - that sound of the wood clacking together really could have brought someone the same exact feeling I have when I close my laptop after doing homework, it’s crazy to think that despite being separated by thousands of years and different cultures and continents and having such drastically different lives, we probably have many of these shared little moments of everyday minutiae that persist through time
"I can't believe this stuff is actually made out of nut!"
Out of context quote of the day.
I connected with your monologue at the end. Finding these little glimpses of life repeating itself makes me feel more unified to the collective life we all go through. Some things persist, like writing and learning so we adapt and create modern answers.
Great writing tablet. Leather and staple hinges are fabulous.
ive not been this excited to find a new channel, you are just so captivating to watch. Really amazing stuff, and ALL of your videos are at this incredible standard. Just beautiful stuff - keep it up!
Clack! What a great project - and thank you for sharing your insights from use, as well. This is living history!
I just came across your channel two days ago! Man oh man, this is some seriously cool stuff! Thank you for your hard work and content 🙏
I love that not only did you put such clear depth of feeling into making the tablet itself, but that you connected something as simple as the kind of sound it makes to the history and subjective value of it. I'm having trouble finding the right words, but there's something soft and sentimental that comes with thinking about those everyday kind of experiences that meant so much despite being so small and simple. No matter how our technology and culture change over the years, decades, centuries, millennia... people are still people, with all kinds of markers and experiences that can still resemble our own.
It always makes me so happy to see simple old things being restored/made so that they get to continue a simple life. It’s not a famous painting or grand house, but a simple belonging of a person or family that that got/gets to be cherished and used it in their own unique everyday life. There’s so many times I wonder where where my favorite vintage clothes or old things have been and I can’t wait to tell my future kids the memories I had with my favorite things before I give it to them so they can continue to create their own new memories with it after I’m gone. Theres such a surreal feeling being in the presence of something that was at the heart of a real life persons world years upon years before you or maybe even your greatest of grandparents were even thoughts in a mind.
I've greatly enjoyed watching your woodworking technique improve in precision and speed. Great video!
thank you! this project was definitely good practice for it!
That's an awsome build ! It would be really cool to see you make one of those bamboo strip "book" next !
This is one of the best things I've seen on RUclips! Love your perspective and your work!
Thank you! :)
Dude your channel is amazing! i cant say enough, amazing Ancient civilization vibe
thank you!
You truly did a great job with this! I enjoy how much research you put into this project, and learning about its history and usage as you made it was very fascinating. I also really appreciate your perspective with regards to historical objects- when I was excavating, I was always captivated by the exact same thing! All the little ordinary, everyday things, and what they meant to the lived experience of the people in the past. It's something that gets me every time, and just adds so much to our understanding of history. Fantastic video!
Thank you :) This made me very happy to read
It doesn't often happen that I cllick a video of a channel I never watched, view all 17 minutes of it and instantly subscribe. Very well done, your enthusiasm is infectious.
Brilliant thank you for sharing and bringing back to life this piece of history
This video was great. Glad to learn something while watching you make it
Really cool video and build. I also liked your thoughts on history and the user personal experience when you put the device to work. Thanks!
Thank you!
"The Roman woman" mentioned in the video is actually Sappho. She is a famos Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. She is where we get the words "sapphic" and "lesbian" from, cause she wrote poetry about her attraction to women.
8:54 these are my fav scenes, when you show a small example of each of the materials needed for a build
Your conclusion was super beautiful thank you for sharing.
Thank you, RUclips algorithm, you’ve recommended a true gem. This channel is amazing, and I love this video.
I found this channel just a few days ago. But I love it! I love just how much new things I learn about through this channel!
How have I gone this long without all the little crucible, and blowtorch and wax tablets? These things seem genuinely useful even these days, and I'm wondering what other cool interesting stuff I just didn't hear of!
Gotta be honest: I really loved watching you do this, had to sit down and rest in order to accordingly enjoy it. Just two little notes: first (from a woodworker) the very moment you used your chisel the way you did to trace and deepen the outlines of the material you want to take away, you can turn it around and use it that way so it works kinda like a plane not feeding into the wood, but chiseling/ carving out only smaller layers and pieces and secondly (as a philosophy student) I highly recommend to you the works 'gesture' and 'communicology' by my favorite philosopher Vilém Flusser, where he writes a lot about the meaning and information in the acts and systems of writing. Thank you for the video.
Learning about history this way is just so humanizing, I love it and it really makes me feel connected to those who came before
this channel is super underated !! awesome video.
This is awesome stuff man
you have good powers of observation. working with various tools and materials you develop your brain and therefore also know how to philosophize. I'm glad you have such a creative spirit!
I love how the Greek pottery in the beginning looked like it predicted the laptop 2500 years ago
I'd prefer that over a tablet any day. I'm so happy you stopped using the music loop in the background.
This looks to be a pretty awesome channel.
This looks amazin! I'm loving the channel. To make it more legible you could try making layers of different colors of wax?
You're doing exceptional work
Love this video thank you for posting. Love your channel.
Thank you!
This is very cool! I haven't yet seen a video on making these tablets. Something you seem to have missed is a closure to the tablet so it won't accidentally open when dropped or tossed around. Cheaper ones would have a leather lace wound around like a string closure on a manila envelope. More expensive ones might have clasps made of metal. If you try the ivory hinges again, try inletting them into the tablet bodies. Maybe try hinges made of copper or brass.
I love this channel. It reminds me of when I was a kid growing up on the farm. I would get inspired by things that I would read in our Encyclopedia Britannica and other books like Native American another primitive tool making. Then I would go out and try to make them. I even found a great source for clay behind one of our sheds down by the creek.
Wow .. I just stumbled across your channel... These experiments are doing are very intriguing... You've received a lot of insight from doing these things... A lot of insight.. good for you bro 😊
Heard about these in one of my favorite books "The Ascendance of a Bookworm" so it's cool to see the process broken down like this
you've got a really nice channel going man. THanks for the educational entertainment
Thanks!
Flip tablet, a flip communication device. The clap is satisfying. It's resonating truly somewhere deep. Thank you for making this video.
Beautiful! Loved the cultural reflection at the end there.
Congratulations on your blog. Beautiful project for writing and dreaming with. New Subscriber 🙏 🇺🇸
Just came across this by accident and wow this is great! I love these sort of things :-)
I love the musings at the end there.
I think this is absolutely fascinating! Thank you for sharing this historical object. Its funny how humanity never changes! The first thing I thought of when you explained that it would be used to send letters, but it was erased to send a response back, I instantly thought of snapchat!
Amazing story I learned a lot! Thank you! 😊
I see this channel explode sooner than later. Great content.
thank you!
Just discovered this video. Love it! I’m subscribed
great build! interesting as always
thanks! :)
Those nut hinges were beautiful. Made it feel like something someone a little higher up the ladder would have. And the ivory on black stain really made it stand out like it was for important things. I definitely liked it better. The leather with the copper was nice too though. In that laid back every man sorta way. Got the list of things he needs for the job on one side and a smoothed fresh blank on the other side for those the days calculated guesses.
I only recently found your videos, but I’m absolutely fascinated by the ancient craftsmanship and the way you describe it. It seems like everyone has this idea that those in the past were backwards and couldn’t understand the world the way we do now-but listening and learning from your videos really makes me call all my preconceptions into question.
I guess for the next while I’m going to be looking at everything I see around me and wondering: What was used before this? How did we get to this point? Is it really so different? Is this actually better or just modern?
Incredible stuff! I’m actually thinking of making one of these myself now
AWESOME UPLOAD!! THANKS FOR THIS!! 😊
Thank you!
AYYYYYYYYYYYY! I love Irving Finkel! My ears perked up when I heard his name dropped.
I've seen a few videos on the wax tablet, and since my first viewing of it, instantly fell in love with the piece of history, possibly a past life or something coming through. xD
At the end of the video you mentioned the connections with past to modern day, My phone right now is almost the exact form. it's a phone with a built in stylus, and my case is leather that folds over it, the closest to the modern version in form of the Wax tablet I think there could be. other than say a fold able phone itself.
We as a culture have come a long way, and we continue to innovate and build off ancient concepts and artistry. even if not intended.
just moved to south florida, very tempted to try and find one of these palms for sale to grow my own ivory nut
amazing video!!
I think I'll have to try my hand at making one of these.
I feel some of that ancient connection when I do very ancient tasks like sweeping.
... a lot of us are knowing what you mean when you stated that it seems like it's drawn out of cultural memory.
Good insights, good ideas you have, good video. Thanks for sharing it. 😊
Very cool video bro I learned so much from this thanks for that. This is what RUclips should be used for right here.
Thank you!
Really liked the way you brought up the sound, my father liked to a folding case for his phone and wrote with a stylus on it. He often wondered if Cicero used one and what his it contained at his death. Poetry? A limerick about a Senator? or a simple shopping list to give to a slave?
Wow this is really cool I was thinking as the wax cooled it would shrink and pop off but i guess the grooved patter held it in, I hope to see more video from you they are always great and very interesting. Thank you
Thanks! I was suprised too, as it turns out the wax sticks really well! Too well maybe, I was honestly hoping it would be easier than it is to pop out the wax to remelt it, but its suprisingly stuck in there😅
I think you smooth the wax over with a hot knife or the bottom of a pan you've just cooked with. No need to pop it out.
Amazing build! I’m always most fascinated by these everyday objects from history. Megalithic structures are cool and all but they aren’t relatable in the same way. Small common items really show us that humans have always been smart and industrious with similarly complex lives regardless how far apart we are in time 💖
I once heard of the wax being black and thin on top of a white Priceline backing. Additional elements to incorporate; a basic abbacus on top, a simple calender along the edges, possibly letter writing guide. And of course on the cover. A motivational image and quote.
Thanks for sharing!
15:46 Another creator I was watching was learning to spin and mentioned this same sort of sentiment. "The sounds of the past". Able to know some of these noises that they would have heard almost every day because of the machines and objects that have survived to this day. The rhythmic sounds of a spinning wheel, the clack you hear when closing your notebook, the sounds their shoes might've made. It's a very cool way to be able to connect to the past.
I recently got an eink tablet/reader. I have had an ereader prior, but wanted something to be able to quickly jot down notes or ideas, and make quick sketches, or do some simple math. Basically I wanted a paper scratch pad but with the ability to digitally save the papers for archival reasons, but without the distraction of a full electronic tablet. I quickly made a leather type case for it, to give it an old fashioned look/feel, because while modern, it feels more traditional than an iPad.
I love this wax tablet you made, and sort of marvel at how I have a modern day equivalent that is both high tech, and simple. I'm now kind of considering making an alternative wooden case for it as well.
This is the first I've heard of the teguya nut, and I'm excited to learn of an ivory alternative! I love the look of ivory, but I don't like how it's acquired. In the past, I have actually wondered if there were alternatives to some materials that were rare and difficult to come by or that had ethical problems in their use and acquisition. 👍