The words vellum and veal come from Latin vitulus, meaning calf, or its diminutive vitellus. One sort of parchment is vellum, a word that is used loosely to mean parchment, and especially to mean a fine skin, but more strictly refers to skins made from calfskin (although goatskin can be as fine in quality). Early Islamic texts are also found on parchment. Rabbinic culture equated the idea of a book with a parchment scroll. Though the Assyrians and the Babylonians impressed their cuneiform on clay tablets, they also wrote on parchment and vellum from the 6th century BC onward. Some Egyptian Fourth Dynasty texts were written on vellum and parchment. Writing on prepared animal skins had a long history, however. As prices rose for papyrus and the reed used for making it was over-harvested towards local extinction in the two nomes of the Nile delta that produced it, Pergamon adapted by increasing use of vellum and parchment. a great library was set up in Pergamon that rivalled the famous Library of Alexandria. Parchment ( pergamenum in Latin), however, derives its name from Pergamon, the city where it was perfected (via the French parchemin). Herodotus mentions writing on skins as common in his time, the 5th century BC and in his Histories (v.58) he states that the Ionians of Asia Minor had been accustomed to give the name of skins ( diphtherai) to books this word was adapted by Hellenized Jews to describe scrolls. The article originally appeared on and is reprinted below with the author's permission.Īccording to the Roman Varro and Pliny's Natural History, vellum and parchment were invented under the patronage of Eumenes of Pergamum, as a substitute for papyrus, which was temporarily not being exported from Alexandria, its only source. This fascinating blog post about the history of vellum and parchment is written by Richard Norman, an experienced British bookbinder now living in France, where he runs Eden Wookshops with his wife and fellow bookbinder, Margaret, specializing in Family Bibles and liturgical books.
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