Deposits of Texts and Cultures in Qurʾānic Palimpsests: A Few Remarks on Objects and Dynamics in Palimpsesting

The article offers an overview of the known Qur'anic palimpsests focusing on terminology, texts, cultures, and times of both scriptio inferior and scriptio superior. The article describes the history of studies on Qur'anic palimpsests and how they shaped the entire field of Qur'anic manuscript studies from the beginning of the last century until now. The main focus of previous scholarship has been the study of each Qur'anic artefact and its Qur'anic layer in isolation. The focus on the cultures that produced both layers (Qur'anic and non-Qur'anic) of each palimpsest from an archaeological perspective can shed light on the patterns of Qur'anic palimpsests and their production.