Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Ian wrote: "I do remember that we call a variety of this, "parchment" from 
"Pergamon", which I gather indicated when that practice developed, ie 
during the history of Pergamon."

Come on, Ian, you can argue better than that! The provenance of an 
English word tells us very little about the provenance of a custom. If 
I call one type of pottery "china", does that mean that pottery was 
not invented before the history of China? Anyway, parchment is only 
one type of specially prepared animal skin.

According to "New Bible Dictionary", leather and parchment for writing 
"was in rarer use than papyrus in Egypt and Bablylonia from early 
times... for scrolls from the 17th century BC onwards... Parchment is 
attested from c. 1288 BC in Egypt."

Peter Kirk