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Making Tabula Rasa
Deletion And Restart

Tablua Rasa means literally „scraped tablet” or “clean slate”. In ancient times people used waxed tablets (picture) which could be scraped and used again after. The advantage of these tablets were their small size and fact that the waxed surface could written at with an ordinary pen so the tablet were easy to take along and were in common use as notebooks or schoolbooks. Also letters and bills were written on tablets.

More known than the ancient writing utensil are phrases like “making tabula rasa” (in German this phrase is used analog to "make a clean sweep"). This expression is related to the process of clear up something, to make a conclusion and to start over again, just as the tablet is being scraped and relegated to it's primitive state. "Tabula Rasa" means in the figurative state a solid deletion for the benefit of th new.

In ancient times Platon and Aristotele alredy used the term "tabula rasa" and compared it with the human soul. Also in the Middle Ages some philosophers picked up the idea. In their writings "Tabula Rasa" was meant to be the soul in it's original state, that will be shaped later in life.


Covenant named Track on their Album Sequencer "Tabula Rasa". The Lyrics uses metaphors that remind on the above. For example: "I'm longing for the flood to sweep this all away" or "To cut the trees to the level of the grass".



Image source: wikipedia.de
Information source: phillex.de; wikipedia.de; wikipedia.com