Communication · c. 200 BCE

Parchment

Scraped and stretched animal skin gives a durable writing surface that can be folded and reused.

Treated skins were used for writing long before, but parchment production is traditionally linked to Pergamon in the 2nd century BCE. Tougher than papyrus and writable on both sides, it made the bound codex practical and preserved most classical texts through the Middle Ages.

See it in the living treeWikipedia