The birth of a book

 Sometime before the birth of Christ the Roman Army, in its inventiveness, concluded that stacks of bound pages were a more economical way to store and transmit information than on a scroll.

The pages were stacked and folded into choirs, and the choirs stacked and stitched together in turn. The volume had a loose leather covering that could be laced together to protect the parchment pages inside. Traveling diaries were popular and easier to transport than scrolls.

Dr. Eli Harron, my principal character, makes his own diaries today in much the same way he did 1900 years ago. Why change something that works?

The Vatican Sequestry has hundreds of volumes all about 16 by 20 centimeters and 7 centimeters thick. The basic book has never changed in size or style over the centuries.  Any alterations were merely technical improvements discovered in Eli’s travels; parchment, leather, inks from charred fishbone, carbon-based, medieval Iron gall and India ink. Sheep skin is a little more difficult to obtain these days, the best  is sourced from Anatolia.

Even today, Eliazar ben Aharon is not yet convinced paper is a product that will last.