Parchment

Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By 400 AD many of the written works intended for preservation in these regions had been transferred from papyrus to parchment. Vellum is a type of fine-quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves. The generic term animal membrane is sometimes use...