Beirut as a palimpsest: Conflicting present pasts, materiality and interpretation

Beyond its description as a ‘multi-layered record’,² the palimpsest, as a metaphor, has been widely used since it was coined by Thomas De Quincey in the early nineteenth century, in his seminal work The Palimpsest.³This palimpsest trope was later borrowed to describe landscapes and their chronological superimpositions⁴ or to explain the layering of historical events and processes,⁵ as well as the reconstruction of urban imaginaries.⁶ Furthermore, as a metaphor of chronological erasure and superimposition, it was extensively used by archaeologists to represent the effect of differential temporalities on the archaeological record and layers⁷ or to connect it with the concept