The Ancient Greeks adopted this form
of communication and evolved it until
almost a thousand years later the first
library was created in Athens. The
Greeks also invented parchment that
was made out of the skin of animals
in the city-state of Pergamum. As the
parchment was made of animal skins
though it was a much more luxurious
item the papyrus imported from Egypt,
and so papyrus stayed in common use
until early Christian times. The Romans
started to use writing instruments that
are much more like the pens that we
use now, this is 1500 years (Typographic
Form and Communication, p.2) after the
Egyptians created papyrus, and is almost
in CE times. Brushes were still in use though, as the walls of Pompeii tell us, for larger works.
Much of Pompeii was preserved by the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, which encased the city
in ash. On a side note the city was first hit by an earthquake that devastated the town closely
before the volcano erupted, much of the town was damaged and was being rebuilt. The Romans
also created the alphabet that we use now, they wrote narrowly to conserve space and material.