This paper focuses on the written modalities of silence and on the relationship between graphic notation and the acoustic, musical and, more generally, cultural phenomenon of the manifest absence of sound production. It engages with examples and paradigms from the Middle Ages, with the paintings inserted in the famous Commentary on the Apocalypse written by monk Beatus of Liébana, to contemporary experimental music, with John Cagess silent performances and glosses. The paper considers if the sign, whether handwritten or printed, can account for the absence of sound. It suggests a number of research paths to move beyond the overly marked opposition between the sound content of writing and blankness, emptiness and anepigraphy implied by the withholding of sound.