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A record scratched where nothing else could be written.
Also known as: Cell wall inscription, Prison graffiti
The marks made by prisoners on cell walls recording names, dates and the passage of time.
Record names, dates and elapsed time on the walls of cells and places of confinement.
Contexts: History
Frequently the only surviving record of a person's presence, since the institutions that held them often kept none — so the wall carries evidence the archive does not.
Contexts: History
The tally strokes counting days are the same notation recorded earlier in this sprint as a counting convention, used here for the one thing the maker could still measure.
Contexts: History
Names, dates, tally strokes and devices scratched into plaster or stone with whatever was to hand, cut shallowly and repeatedly over the same surface.
The same grouped strokes counting days on a cell wall as on a tally.