Parchment is distinct from leather in that it is limed (soaked in an Alkali solution which removed the hairs on the skin) but not tanned. After a great library was setup in Pergamon (that rivalled the Library of Alexandria) prices began rising for the price of papyrus (partly due to the increasing scarcity of the papyrus reeds as it was overfarmed) leading to the adoption of parchment as the main writing material. Parchment itself derives it's name from the city of Pergamon (the same Greek city as Pergamum) and it is known to have been perfected here. According to the Roman Varro (a scholar and writer who lived 116BC - 27BC) parchment was invented under the patronage of Eumenes of Pergamum (an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey) due to shortages of Papyrus.

Herodotus, the Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (regarded as the 'Father of History' in Western culture) described the use of skins to write on as common in his time. Parchment, a thin material that is made from calfskin, sheepskin or even goatskin was first developed as a substitute to Papyrus. This favoured the left to right system that is now the standard in western cultures, although there is still a number of written scripts that use the right to left script, including Arabic and Hebrew.īefore this was decided many cultures wrote left to right, right to left, up to down and even down to up. This method of writing was used extensively until the 8th century AD.Ħ00 BC - Standardised writing system developedĪround this time a general consensus of mediterranean cultures slowly emerged to form a more developed writing system. The Books were always rolled out horizontally and the text occupied on side, split into columns. These scrolls were rolled up and often contained within wooden tubes to protect them and books were produced by glueing together a number of scrolls up to a length of 10 metres or in some cases even longer (The history of the Egyptian King Ramses III was over 40 metres long). Again a calamus cut from the stem of a reed and then sharpened was often used to scribe but bird feathers were also used.Įgyptians used this material for hundreds of years before the Greeks and Romans eventually adopted the technique. This 'pith' was cut into thin strips, pressed together and then glued and dried to form a thin flat surface that could be written on. Papyrus is a very thick paper like material that is made from the 'pith' (centre of the stem) of the papyrus plant, a reed like swamp plant that used to be found in abundance along the Nile river.

The earliest surviving Papyrus scrolls that contain written words date back to around 2400 BC, originating in Egypt (The Fifth Dynasty of King Neferirkare Kakai), although it has suggested by historians that papyrus could have been used as early as the First Dynasty (3100 BC).

Timeline of bible books infographic