652 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INVEISTTION OF PRINTING. 



the use of skin and its various preparations, manuscripts are recopied 

 and circulate among all classes of ancient society. 



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 Ass3a'ian monu- 

 ments depict scri])es writing on scrolls. The Persians recorded their 

 annals upon hides, while the lonians ])repared for the same 2Jiirj)ose 

 the skin of the sheep and the goat. Accoi'ding to biblical texts, the 

 Hebrews were accustomed to the use of skins, and copied th«Mr law 

 upon rolls of l(>:ith(>r" (])1. \). '' Tliere is preserved,"" says Lahmne,'' 



Fkj. :i6. Butfali) skin figured with designs showing a war chief in ai-tion. 



" in the library of T>i-ussels, a manuscript of the Pentateuch, which is 

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

 skins sewed together, and is 3(j meters long."" 



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

 tions when on a walk. This vest, covered with wi'iling, was in 15^27 

 still in Sadoleto's possession.'' 



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

 of the chase or their nuirtial exploits on the inside of the tanned 

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



allastiug (James). A Dictionary of the Bible. Edinburgh, 1902, Vol. IV, 

 art. Writing. 



6 Lalanne (Lud.). Curiosites l)ibliogr., p. 10. 



c(ieraud, op. (it., ]>\>. 9-10. 



dCatlin: North American Indians, lS:^2-1S;>.!t. Edinlmrii, 1!»(i;',, 8°. 2 vols. 



