The tradition of writing on lontar leaf is at least a thousand years old in Bali. Lontar resembles copper plates because the leaf produces a writing material of long, thin strips that contain typically four lines of writing. Sometimes the text consists of two lines of writing and drawings illustrating the contents.The production of writing material from the palmyra palm was, until the twentieth century, a cottage industry. Mature leaves were harvested during the dry season, which occurs in Bali between May and October. A long process of washing, drying, pressing, smoothing, trimming, and polishing produces a medium for incising with an iron stylus.