[Avodah] kesiva and tzovea

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jul 04, 2013 at 02:44:17PM +0100, Chana Luntz replied to my post:
:> Ink can crack or peel off parchment. It more rests above the skin than
:> penetrate within it. Would medium be considered tzoveia in any case?
: 
: Well if you consider that not to be permanent, then you don't have the
: melacha of kesiva either...

I wasn't talking about impermanence. If ink on parchment were temporary,
we would have no sta"m!

AIUI, the most common ways of writing in ancient Israel were:
1- Writing with ink / dye on pottery -- in which the ink is absorbed into
   the writing surface, and we can therefore entertain our question about
   tzoveia.
2- Etching into clay, where there is definitely no question of tzoveia.
And last
3- Ink on parchment. But the ink sits ON the parchment, AIUI. We aren't
   dying the parchment, we are sticking a colored (black) layer on top
   of it. Veharaayah, you can take a blade and scrape it off, and years
   of aging and enviromental changes can cause the ink to peel off on
   its own.

So I asked about case 3 -- the most usual way of writing text by Jewish
contemporaries of Tanakh. Does the process even allow for the question
of tzoveia?

In the mishkan, kesivah was marking letters on gold plate. Either they
were etched (like my #2) or the ink was stuck onto (but outside) the
gold (like #3). AFAIK, there is no way to dye gold.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Zion will be redeemed through justice,
micha at aishdas.org        and her returnees, through righteousness.
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