Credited to Turkey. Pliny, citing Varro, said parchment was invented at Pergamon after Egypt cut off papyrus. Modern scholars note that writing on leather was already old in the Near East, so Pergamon is credited with refining and scaling up the material, not with inventing it.
How it began
Pergamon was a Greek city in Mysia, at present-day Bergama in Turkey. Under King Eumenes II, who ruled from 197 to 159 BCE, it built a library second only to the one at Alexandria. The Roman writer Pliny, citing Varro, reported that a rivalry between the two libraries led King Ptolemy of Egypt to ban the export of papyrus, and that parchment was then invented at Pergamon. Encyclopaedia Britannica records that the city developed parchment, called charta pergamena, after the ban.
Before it existed
Books in the Greek world were written on papyrus, which came from Egypt. A library that copied books on a large scale depended on that single supplier, and Alexandria had little interest in equipping a rival. Writing on leather was already customary in the Near East long before the Attalid kings, so skins were a known alternative. What was missing was a supply of skins good enough and plentiful enough to stand in for papyrus.
How it works
Parchment is made from animal skins that are scraped and treated to give a surface for writing. It was more durable than papyrus. The historian Lionel Casson, quoted in the sources, concluded that the Pergamenes improved the manufacture of skins for writing and adopted them more and more, probably to cut the city's dependence on imported Egyptian papyrus. The library is said to have held 200,000 books at its height, mostly written on parchment.
How it spread
Pergamon became the leading supplier of the material in the Roman period. Rome drew its supplies so heavily from the city that the Latin word for a writing skin was pergamena, meaning of Pergamon, and the English word parchment descends from it. After Attalus III left the kingdom to Rome in 133 BCE, the Romans kept the library running.
Who pushed back
The story that Pergamon invented parchment has been doubted by modern scholars. Casson argued that since writing on leather had long been customary in the Near East, the Pergamenes could hardly have invented it. The World History Encyclopedia states plainly that the city did not invent parchment and only produced it in greater quantities than elsewhere in Anatolia. The record here follows that view and credits Pergamon with development.
