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Project, e.g. Charlesworth and Cross 1994). In Dura Europos on the
Euphrates all pre-Roman documents are on parchment and this
material was still used under Roman occupation from the mid-2nd
century CE, for example for literary texts, military documents and
civil administration (Welles et al. 1959).
Further reading:
Fig. 37: Dead Sea Scroll parchment containing 48 psalms, 1–68
CE. Dead Sea Scroll Digital Library B-314640, 11Q5, plate 978,
frag. 1. Courtesy of The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital
Library, Israel Antiquities Authority, photo by Shai Halevi.
Fig. 36: Parchment fragment Pg.Dura 10 containing part of a gospel,
from Dura Europos (Syria), 3rd century CE. © General Collection,
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Further reading:
Bülow-Jacobsen 2009, 11, 23–25; Charlesworth and Cross 1994; Sarri 2018,
the Torah, the New Testament and the works of classical authors. 84–86; Welles et al. 1959
Individual pieces of parchment were also used, but they were bound
to form a codex. The codex existed simultaneously with the papyrus
volumen from the late 1st or early 2nd century CE but only during Selected ancient literary evidence:
the 3rd and 4th century did it slowly become the dominant form.
Persius (Sat. 3.10–20) concerns parchment. Quintilian (Inst. or. 10.3.31) says
Roman parchment is preserved under similar circumstances as that writing on parchment is easier to read than on wax but that it has
other organic materials. Important finds are the so-called Dead the disadvantage of interrupting the flow when the pen has to be dipped
Sea scrolls found in the Qumran caves in the Judean desert. Most into the ink regularly. Isidorus (Orig. 6.11) mentions white, yellow and red
of the scrolls are parchment, some are papyrus and one is made parchment. Pliny the Elder (NH 13.70) writes about the alleged origin of
of copper. They date roughly from the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd parchment. Martial (14.7) mentions writing on parchment that could be
century CE and represent the archive of a religious community erased.
including biblical manuscripts but also legislative texts (ed. in
the series The Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls
