Etymology

Card, derived:

early 15c., "a playing card," from Old French carte (14c.), from Medieval Latin carta/charta "a card, paper; a writing, a charter," from Latin charta "leaf of paper, a writing, tablet," from Greek khartēs "layer of papyrus," 

Card must be the Latin term for writing material before the invention of parchment.

But Spanish used a different term tarjeta, which comes from indo european, evidently. bypassed the latin.  But the Indo European stem meant shield. They likely did not have papyrus and wrote on wooden planks.

These things catch my eye, anything about communication technology going way back.