Slate (writing)
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A slate is a thin piece of hard flat material, historically slate stone, which is used as a medium for writing on. Writing on a slate is impermanent and easily erased, and the same slate is then reuse
Slate with writing from 1894, used in Berlin, Germany, currently at the Museum Europäischer Kulturen
Slate with sponge (~1950)
Soapstone
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Soapstone is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium-rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur i
Slate (writing)
…edge, grinding with a flat stone and, finally, polishing with a mix of slate powder in water. Pencils were of a softer stone, such as shale, chalk or soapstone. In 1853 Charles Goodyear patented a compound of hard-vulcanised rubber with powdered porcelain, from which to make white pencils for writing on slates…
Samples of soapstone
A block of talc
Mythological figures carved in soapstone by Kayasark, Inuit carver, held in the Honolulu Academy of Arts
The 21st-century BC statue of Iddi-Ilum of Mari, Syria, is made of soapstone.