Page - 36 - in The Vienna Genesis - Material analysis and conservation of a Late Antique illuminated manuscript on purple parchment

36 The parchment of the Vienna Genesis: characteristics and manufacture Characteristics of Late Antique parchment The parchment of Late Antique manuscripts, which date from the 4th –7th century, is made from sheepskin2. It is typically very smooth and thin and has an even surface on both the flesh and hair sides. The production of parchment during this period was distinctively different from the processes used during the Middle Ages. There are no known accounts that specifically describe the methods of manufacture of parchment in the Greco-Roman world. However, hidden within descriptions of historical events and even in some poetical texts, one can find indirect information about the qualities of parchment made during that time and the types of animals from which skins were prepared. The earliest account of the invention of parchment, which is widely repeated in modern texts, is that of Varro (116–27 B. C.) and is noted in Pliny the Elder’s (23–79 A. D.) Historia Naturalis, (book VII, chapter 21)3, where the production of parchment in Greek Pergamum (now Bergama in modern-day Turkey) is mentioned: Subsequently, also according to Varro, when owing to the rivalry between King Ptolemy and King Eumenes about their libraries, Ptolemy suppressed the export of papyrus, parchment was discovered at Pergamum; and afterwards the employment of the material on which the immortality of human beings depends spread indiscriminately.4 It is not clear which kings Varro or Pliny are referring to in this passage. Johnson, like most scholars, identifies them as Eumenes II (197–159 B. C.) and Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145 B. C.). Johnson recognized that the primary reason for the shortage of papyrus was the threat of war between Egypt and the Seleucid kingdom in the years 173–169, which must have led to a reduction in trade5. There is consensus among scholars that leather or slightly tanned parchment were used for several centuries before this date. The method of manufac- ture of parchment as material for writing was not invented in Pergamum, but it is possible that the techniques were fully mastered there and the process of its manufacture standard- 2 In manuscript catalogues and other scholarly publications, parchment from the Late Antique pe- riod is often called vellum. The term is misleading, because this type of parchment is prepared from sheepskin and not from calfskin, from which the word vellum is derived. 3 The production of parchment is only mentioned towards the end of chapter 21, which is focused on the history of papyrus. A description of the manufacture of papyrus and the different types and qualities of “paper” that can be obtained from it, is found in chapters 22 to 26 of book XIII. 4 Plin. HN 13.70. The translation is that of H. Rackham, 1938–1963, IV, p. 141, except for two words that were changed by R. G. Johnson (see below): “papyrus” to “paper” and “discovered” to “inven- ted”. 5 Johnson 1970, p. 120. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0