palimpsest

George Orwellの小説 1984を読んでいます。主人公のWinston Smithは歴史を記録する役人として日々働いています。
Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.
歴史を記録する仕事と言っても実際は記録を改ざんしている様子です。"palimpsest" は見慣れない単語なので辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain.: Some people used old books as the basis of their scrapbook, leading to a palimpsest of original text and jumbled scraps, with columns overlapping columns and sentences running together.

・Collins Dictionary: a manuscript on which two or more successive texts have been written, each one being erased to make room for the next

我が国でも国家の重要な文書がなかったり、なかったはずの文書が出てきたり、さらには改ざんの事実も判明したりして、真実は闇の中というのは実際に多いのですね。