Palimpsests

The 'Palimpsests' volume will contain thirteen chapters divided into five sections. The first section consists on a single overview study by Finbarr Barry Flood that addresses recognizing palimpsests in architectural contexts. The second section, entitled Monuments Inscribed, contains three studies that take what might be called a traditional approach. Each of them examines textual palimpsests added to the interior and exterior of buildings well after the completion of their construction. The third section, entitled Building Transformations, contains three studies that each present the palimpsestual transformation of built architecture. These studies address the transformation of either the original monument or the palimpsestual addition to it. The fourth section, called Site Transformations, considers how a palimpsest is used to transform not a single building, but rather a site as a whole. The final section, entitled Restoration and Rewriting, looks critically at the role of restoration as a process of rewriting in the remaking of older architectural monuments. The Palimpsests volume concludes with summary remarks and outlines directions for future research into monuments and sites as palimpsests, emphasizing the longue duree biography as the primary mode for monument and site studies.