PAPYRUS AND PARCHMENT
"Cut the soft pith of the papyrus stems into fine, thin strips, put them close together, and place a second corresponding layer over them at right angles. Both layers were worked with a stone or a hammer until a coherent, elastic sheet was created. The juice of the pest served as an adhesive. After drying and re-smoothing several sheets were combined with an adhesive into a roll (6-10 m). Their average width was 25-30 cm. The roll end was glued onto a thin rod and wound up on the roll. A leather strip, which was attached to the upper edge of the role, gave the title and informed even when closed role on the content. After that, part of the roll was stowed away in a leather cover. "Greater durability and more comfortable handling were the hallmarks of the parchment codex made of animal hide in front of the papyrus roll as a writing material. On the one hand, the writing was scraped off with a knife and replaced by another. "The animal skin was depilated, cleaned, stretched, dried, smoothed and could be described on both sides in contrast to the papyrus.
The Codex, the bound book of quadrilateral parchment leaves, described on both sides, appeared only at the beginning of the imperial era with the Romans. "As discoverer of the parchment is mentioned Krates of Sardis (2nd century). Since the papyrus material was susceptible to damage, the upper and lower edges of the roll were left free. Since, on the whole, the papyrus rolls are sensitive to moisture, the libraries were enclosed against this moisture by a double wall. For both materials, essentially the same writing implements were used: if the writer had drawn the lines of the columns with a ruler, he dipped the pointed writing tube in a bowl of black ink, a mixture of glue, soot, and water. The library, set up by the Ptolemies in the Museion of the Egyptian city, is said to have comprised 700,000 scrolls at the time of Caesar.
As competition to Alexandreia the library of Pergamon was founded by the first attalids, whose holdings in the second year had 200,000 rolls. This was given by Antony to the Cleopatra later (1 century BC). Parchment and vellum (from late-Latin pergamena, paper from Pergamon), writing materials from smoothed and stretched, untanned animal skins (mostly sheep, calf or goat skins). Parchment has been around since 1500 BC. Its name derives from the ancient small Asian city of Pergamon, where especially fine parchment was made. Velin is an even finer quality than parchment and is made from skins of very young animals. Parchment is an extremely durable writing material used in antiquity and the Middle Ages for spiritual and literary manuscripts. It replaced from the 3rd century BC. As papyrus was written, Egypt gradually closed the papyrus export to Pergamon in order to secure the primacy of the library in Alexandria. Today it is occasionally still used for official documents.
The production process of parchment or vellum is as follows: The animal skins are first washed, then laid for depilation in chalk mud, scraped, smoothed on both sides and finally rubbed extensively with pumice powder. Coarser parchment, which is used, for example, for covering drums, banjos and tambourines, is made from the skins of older animals. Parchment paper is ordinary unprimed paper that is briefly dipped in a solution of two parts of concentrated sulfuric acid and one part of water to make it greaseproof and wet-strength. It has in common with the real parchment slightly shimmering character.
