History of Parchment

Parchment was invented in Pergamon, when King Ptolemy banned papyrus export to Pergamon in order to prevent Bergama Library from surpassing that of Alexandria.
This is the way that Plinius explains the invention of parchment in his book Natural History, Section XIII, 70. He states that Eumenes II was the king at that time, that is the first half of the Second Century B.C. (between 196 – 157).

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Historian John Laurentius Lydus (6th Century) tells in his book called "de mensibus", that Crates of Mallos brought very thin skin materials from Pergamon to Rom as writing media, while Aristharkos brought papyrus from Alexandria to Rom in the year 167 B.C.
Parchment was probably a continuosly developed science, rather than a sudden invention.
Tough, the earliest parchments are from IIIrd or IInd century B.C. ( not all skin written on is parchment.)
The word parchment ( pergamena ) doesn't come up until the 4th Century A.D. In Greek it is called "diphteria", and in Latin "membrana", both meaning skin.
As far as we know, the word parchment first appears in 301 A.D. under Cesar Diocletian’s list of prices and fixed prices as “Membrana pergamena”. This means that it is a well known term in those days.
The word parchment was derived from pergamena, and used as membrana pergamena (Pergamon skin ) and Charta pergamena (Pergamon paper), also in other languages like Turkish Parsömen, French Parchemin, German Pergament, Spanish Pergamino, Italian Pergamena, Dutch Perkament etc.
It is probable that the original of the Gospel of Mark, one of the first four Gospels, was written on parchment.
Saint Paul had asked for his parchments he had left in Assos in his second letter to Timetheus.

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Until 5th century A.D. there was a continuous competition between papyrus and parchment, developing in favor of parchment. If we consider, that parchment is immensely strong, remains flexible indefinitely under normal conditions, does not deteriorate with age, and possesses a smooth even surface which is both pleasant to the eye and provides unlimited scope for the finest writing and illumination, it is not surprising that parchment surpassed papyrus only that. why it didn't happen earlier is probably because parchment was developed in a long period until it become one of the finest writing material devised by man.
Besides other advantages, writing on both sides of the leaf lead to revolutionize the ancient book form forever as it evolved from rolls to codex and from codex to the book form we use today.
So with the new book form, dictionaries and encyclopedias became more practical or maybe probable. It must be like a nightmare to use a roll as dictionary.
In the very first Christian Council in Nicaea in 325, Constantine the Great ordered 25 copies of each gospel to be written on parchment.
In the 5th century, under the leadership of Eusobios, Christian texts on papyrus are transferred onto parchment, to ensure that these texts are conserved till "eternity".
During the birth of Islam almost the only writing material was parchment. So the early copies of Holy Qur’an were all written on parchment.
One of the best examples of these old Korans is in Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul and looks like written yesterday.

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Compared with paper and papyrus, parchment is an expensive material made from animal skin. It is the writing media of medieval ages, when writing, written texts, and books were rare. Parchment was also rare and expensive. So as a common practice, the old ancient texts on parchments were erased, and the new mostly Christian texts were written, and these second, sometimes even third writings are called palimpsest.
Paper slowly replaced parchment from 9th century onwards in Middle East and from 12th century onwards in Europe. Because paper is very weak in comparison with parchment, people kept on writing the important documents on parchment. Even today in the English language one of the meanings of the word parchment is diploma.
Transition from parchment to paper was a slow process as was transition from papyrus to parchment. In 15th century Gutenberg invented the printing press and the first thing he printed was 140 Bibles, 35 of them being printed on parchment.
Gutenberg needed approximately 300 goatskins for one bible, so he spent more than 10000 goatskins for 35 bibles.
From 15th century onwards, parchment was used mostly on book bindings and for paintings. Baroque artists preferred parchment especially in portraits because of its neutrality of skin tones, as did the Jugendstil painters in nudes Rembrandt and Durer are among many artists who have created wondrous paintings and engravings on parchment.
The original Magna Charta was on parchment.
The Declaration of Independence was also written originally on parchment.
Paper has not been considered safe as it can easily be torn and burned. So parchment continued to be the material of important documents.
English Parliament writes its decrees still today on parchment as two copies.