Parchment was, along with papyrus, one of the most important materials used as a writing surface in ancient times. Middle Eastern civilizations first wrote on ordinary leather before parchment was invented. The oldest existing text on leather found in Egypt dates from the fifteenth century BC.

In Mesopotamia, the oldest leather dates from the ninth century BC. The use of leather then spread from these two centers of civilization to the Phoenicians and to the rest of the inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean shores. Leather and, later, parchment were used specifically by the Jews to write their sacred texts. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Greeks of Asia Minor wrote on leather before switching to papyrus.

It was in the Hellenistic period that a new method for treating leather was discovered, most probably in the city of Pergamun. This new material, parchment, was called "pergamen" in Latin.