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Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned, therefore it is very reactive with changes in relative humidity and is not waterproof. The finer qualities of parchment are called vellum. Parchment is considered the "finest writing material ever devised".[1] Modern products do not reach the quality of medieval manufactured parchment.[2] According to the Roman Varro, Pliny's Natural History records (xiii.21) that parchment was invented under the patronage of Eumenes of Pergamum,[3] as a substitute for papyrus, which was temporarily not being exported from Alexandria, its only source. Writing on prepared animal skins had a long history, however. Some Egyptian Fourth Dynasty texts were written on parchment. Though the Assyrians and the Babylonians impressed their cuneiform on clay tablets, they also wrote on parchment from the 6th century BC onward. Rabbinic culture equated a "book" with a parchment scroll. Early Islamic texts are also found on parchment.
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