652 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INV^ENTION OF PRINTING. 



the use of skin and its various prej^arations, manuscripts ai-e recopied 

 and circulate among all classes of ancient societ}'. 



For a long time skins rudely prepared, scarcely tanned, were used 

 for writing. We know through documents that the Egyptians em- 

 ployed them two thousand years before our era ; the Assyrian monu- 

 ments depict scribes writing on scrolls. The Persians recorded their 

 annals upon hides, while the lonians prepared for the same purpose 

 the skin of the sheep and the goat. According to biblical texts*, the 

 Hebrews were accustomed to the use of skins, and copied their law 

 upon rolls of lenther" (pi. \). ''There is ]:>reserved,'" says Lalaune.'' 



Pui. at5. Buffalo skin flgnved with designs showing a war <-hief in ai-tion. 



" in the library of Brussels, a manuscript of the Pentateuch, which is 

 believed to date back beyond the ninth century. It is written on 57 

 skins sewed togetlicr, and is oG meters long." 



Petrarch wore a vest of leather upon which he wrote his inspira- 

 rions when on a walk. This vest, covered with wi'iting, was in 1527 

 still in Sadoleto's possession.'' 



Let us recall that the red-skin Indians wrote or i:)ainted the results 

 of the chase or their mai-tial exploits on the inside of the tanned 

 and bleached skin of the bison (fig. 26) '^j which served them for a 



"Hasting (.Tames). A Dictionary of the Bible. Edinburgh, 1902, Vol. IV, 

 art. Writing. 



i* Lahuuie (Lud.). Curiosites bildiogr., ]>. 10. 



<■ (Jeraud, op. cit., pp. 9-10. 



''(latliii: North Amei-ioan Indians. \X:\-J is:{9. Kdinlmrg. 1903, 8°, 2 vols. 



