Papyrus, parchment and paper in old Istanbul

The ‘Sahaflar’ (used books) Bazaar has a history that stretches back into the days of New Rome, when the city was renamed Constantinople The “Sahaflar” (used books) Bazaar, nestled in the shadow of Beyazıt Mosque, has a long and for the most part honorable history that can be traced to Byzantine times. Although some have speculated that today’s location is the same as it was in Byzantine times, others say that it was originally in the Kapalıçarşı. Regardless of which site, it would have been very near New Rome’s Forum Tauri, later the Forum of Theodosius, a center for commercial activities throughout most of the city’s history as New Rome, Constantinople and Istanbul.

The Byzantines used this location to sell paper and books that came in two forms - one would have been the book as a roll and the other would be a bound book known as a codex. The roll form originated in Egypt and spread throughout the Roman world. It was used primarily for secular works until approximately the 10th century, while the subjects of the bound book were usually religious. Of the latter the most important ones contained elaborate decorations, either illustrations of the stories being told in the work or as decorative headings of pages or paragraphs.

Since the texts were all handwritten, the beauty of the calligraphy and the quality of the pages and ink were of particular importance. The pages in later centuries were usually of parchment. Classics scholar Nigel G. Wilson in Byzantine Books and Bookmen points out that there must have been factories in the city for the manufacture of parchment, even if there are few references to them.

Parchment was first made in the city of Pergamon either during the third or early...