Scroll (parchment) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A scroll is a roll of papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

, parchment

Parchment

Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned; therefore, it is very...

, or paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

which has been written, drawn or painted upon for the purpose of transmitting information or using as a decoration.

Structure

A scroll is usually divided up into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyrus or parchment glued together at the edges, or may be marked divisions of a continuous roll of writing material

Writing material

Writing material refers to the materials that provide the surfaces on which humans use writing instruments to inscribe writings. The same materials can also be used for symbolic or representational drawings. Building material on which writings or drawings are produced are not included...

. The scroll is usually unrolled so that one page is exposed at a time, for writing or reading, with the remaining pages rolled up to the left and right of the visible page. It is unrolled from side to side, and the text is written in lines from the top to the bottom of the page. Depending on the language, the letters may be written left to right, right to left, or alternating in direction (boustrophedon

Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in...

).

Some scrolls are simply rolled up pages; others may have wooden rollers on each end: Torah

Torah

Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

scrolls have rather elaborate rollers befitting their ceremonial function.

Usage

The greatest usage of scrolls today is in Jewish religious observance at least every week in each Bet Knesset (Synagogue) or Bet Midrash (house of learning).

The Sefer Torah

Sefer Torah

A Sefer Torah of Torah” or “Torah scroll”) is a handwritten copy of the Torah or Pentateuch, the holiest book within Judaism. It must meet extremely strict standards of production. The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Torah reading during Jewish services...

scroll (Hebrew: ספר תורה ; plural: ספרי תורה, Sifrei Torah ; "Book(s) of Torah" or "Torah Scroll(s)" ) is only opened during actual reading, and covered with bein gavras, the flat, embroidered cover placed over the Torah between Aliyot (those called to the seven Torah readings).
When stored, the Sefer Torah is always in an upright position, resting on the lower handles.
In Jewish practice the Torah scrolls are bound by a special length of usually silk ties or belts with clasps, and in Ashkenazi practice are covered or "dressed" in protective embroidered kippah (mantle), and external ornamental silver Tas (breastplate), and usually a silver Keter (crown) of beaten silver placed over the upper atzei chaim (handles). In Sephardi practice the Keter

Keter

*Keter in Kabbalah, is one of the ten Sephirot *Keter or kether כתר is the Hebrew word for "Crown ", as worn by a king or queen* Keter Publishing House is a book publisher based in Israel...

is built into the portable Aron

Ark (synagogue)

The Torah ark or ark in a synagogue is known in Hebrew as the Aron Kodesh by the Ashkenazim and as the Hekhál amongst most Sefardim. It is generally a receptacle, or ornamental closet, which contains each synagogue's Torah scrolls...

and the Sefer Torah is never removed from it, the reading conducted with the scroll remaining in the upright position, while that of the Ashkenazi practice is laid on a recliner. These ornaments are not objects of worship, but are used only to beautify the scroll as the sacred and holy living word of God. The reading pointer, or yad

Yad

A yad , literally, "hand," is a Jewish ritual pointer, used to point to the text during the Torah reading from the parchment Torah scrolls. It is intended to prevent anyone from touching the parchment, which is considered sacred. The Vellum Parchment does not absorb ink so touching the scroll with...

, to help the reader keep track of the text without actually touching it, is also stored with the scrolls usually by means of being hung on a chain suspended from the upper handles over the Tas, or over the Aron latch. In Jewish designs the handles with their top and bottom plates are known as atzei chaim (trees of life) and are often highly decorated with silver and etchings.

The upper handles are decorated with Rimonim (pomegranates) that include bell decorations. The scroll is stored in a cylindrical Aron (case) in the Sephardic practice, and in an often extremely elaborate Aron Kodesh (Hekhál amongst most Sefardim) in Ashkenazi designs, preferably built on the East wall, which takes the shape of a large, often walk-in niche with doors and covered with an elaborately decorated embroidered parokhet (curtain) either inside (Sephardim) or outside (Ashkenazim) the doors. The parokhet usually includes the name of the congregation and that of its donors. Scrolls are expensive and large. Every synagogue needs a Torah scroll, but few have scrolls of other Biblical books.

In Greek and Latin usage, scrolls were mostly used for texts, including scholarly texts, and were stored on open racks that accommodated the scrolls laid flat suspended by the handles, usually uncovered. In a later Early Christian era, scrolls became quite valuable as scribal skills became less common, and were often stored in protected leather cases.

In general, Christian texts were kept in Codex

Codex

A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...

form: that is, books with pages and covers that could be opened to any page. A scroll is a sequential access format; a codex is a random-access format, analogous to tape and disc storage devices in computers.

In medieval iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

, as in the stained glass

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

images in cathedrals: the prophets of the Old Testament were shown holding scrolls; the evangelists (authors of the Gospels) of the New Testament were shown holding codices.

History of scroll use

Origins in Europe and West Asia

Scrolls were the first form of editable record keeping texts, used in Eastern Mediterranean ancient Egyptian civilizations.

Parchment scroll used by Israelites after Sinai was the first use of scrolls in the recording of literature before the codex

Codex

or bound book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

with pages was invented by the Latins

Latins

"Latins" refers to different groups of people and the meaning of the word changes for where and when it is used.The original Latins were an Italian tribe inhabiting central and south-central Italy. Through conquest by their most populous city-state, Rome, the original Latins culturally "Romanized"...

in the first century AD to differentiate their usage from that of the Judeans who were recently conquered. Nevertheless, scrolls were more highly regarded than codices until well into Roman times where they were usually written in single latitudinal column.

Egypt

In Dynastic Egypt scrolls were made from papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

. The way a scroll was read by being unrolled meant scribes were sometimes confused; for example, there are versions of the Egyptian

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

with repeated sections.

Israel

The Hebrew texts teach that Torah

Torah

was copied by Moses

Moses

Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

onto a scroll c.1200 BC which was made from skin of a kosher animal and not papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

as in Dynastic Egypt. According to Jewish tradition, since that time the scrolls are copied from one to another due to their extreme survivability, with examples known to be hundreds of years old such as the 800 Year Old Sephardic Sefer Torah from Spain.
The meticulous process of hand-copying a scroll takes about 2,000 hours (approximately one person-year, a full-time job with a 40 hour work week being 2080 hours a year, ignoring vacations and holidays). Throughout the centuries, Jewish scribes have adhered to the following guidelines:

A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is added.
A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is deleted.
The scribe must be a learned, pious Jew, who has undergone special training and certification.
All materials (parchment, ink, quill) must conform to strict specifications, and be prepared specifically for the purpose of writing a Torah Scroll.
The scribe may not write even one letter into a Torah Scroll by heart. Rather, he must have a second, kosher scroll opened before him at all times.
The scribe must pronounce every word out loud before copying it from the correct text.
Every letter must have sufficient white space surrounding it. If one letter touches another in any spot, it invalidates the entire scroll.
If a single letter was so marred that it cannot be read at all, or resembles another letter (whether the defect is in the writing, or is due to a hole, tear or smudge), this invalidates the entire scroll. Each letter must be sufficiently legible so that even an ordinary schoolchild could distinguish it from other, similar letters.
The scribe must put precise space between words, so that one word will not look like two words, or two words look like one word.
The scribe must not alter the design of the sections, and must conform to particular line-lengths and paragraph configurations.
A Torah Scroll in which any mistake has been found, cannot be used, and must be fixed within 30 days, or buried.

The Torah scroll contains 304,805 letters (or approximately 79,000 words).

Other books of the TaNaKh

Tanakh

The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...

are also written in scroll form, as well as the mezuzah

Mezuzah

A mezuzah is usually a metal or wooden rectangular object that is fastened to a doorpost of a Jewish house. Inside it is a piece of parchment inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah...

scrolls found in most orthodox, conservative and reform Jewish households. Many Jewish families also own their own Megillah

Megillah (Talmud)

Megillah is the tenth Tractate of Mishnah in the Order Moed. It and its Gemara deal with the laws of Purim and offers exegetical understandings to the Book of Esther. It also includes laws concerning the public reading of the Torah and other communal synagogue practices...

scroll for use during Purim

Purim

Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...

.

Despite this attention to detail, there is still a reference to alternate readings even within the text: Qere and Ketiv;

Syria and Babylon

The Jewish communities residing in these countries used same techniques to manufacture scrolls with the exception of the deer skins being used rather than the calf, lamb or goat skins elsewhere. The scrolls from these areas were known for their quality and durability, and were later imported into European and Indian communities.

Non-Jewish vellum manufacturing also took place after 3rd century BC.

Greece and Rome

Scrolls were used by the ancient Greeks. In Roman usage the scrolls were written latitudinally, usually placed on podiums with roll holders from which the rolls were unwound.

The Romans eventually found the scroll too cumbersome for lengthy works and developed the codex

Codex

, which influenced the modern book.

Early Christian era

Scrolls continued to be used during the Early Church era until the Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

era. Owing to the copying practices many errors were introduced into the texts at this time.

The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, a book written to prove the validity of the New Testament, says: " A study of 150 Greek [manuscripts] of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings... It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform."

Other scholars report there are some 200,000 variants in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, representing about 400 variant readings which can cause some doubt about textual meaning; 50 of these are of great significance.

European Middle Ages

Scrolls virtually disappeared in Europe during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, and re-emerged only rarely for use in official treaties and other international documents of great significance during and after the Baroque Era of the 17th century. These were usually written on high quality vellum, and stored in elaborate silver and gold cases inscribed with names of participants. Earlier examples were written in Latin.

In Southern Italy scrolls were in use for liturgical texts (Exultet

Exultet

The Exsultet or Easter Proclamation, in Latin Praeconium Paschale, is the hymn of praise sung, ideally by the deacon, before the paschal candle during the Easter Vigil in the Roman Rite of Mass. In the absence of a deacon, it may be sung by a priest, or by a cantor...

).

Scrolls were in use for administrative purposes all over Europe (e.g. the pipe rolls

Pipe Rolls

The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rolls, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or Treasury. The earliest date from the 12th century, and the series extends, mostly complete, from then until 1833. They form the oldest continuous series of records kept by...

), from which derive several denominations as roll.

West and Central Asia

Scrolls continued in use longer in the Islamic world, often elaborately decorated in calligraphic writing that included use of gold embossing and pigments when used for the writing of the Qur'an.

China and East Asia

Scrolls continued in use longer in East Asia cultures like China and Japan.

The Chinese invented and perfected 'Indian Ink' for use in writing, including scrolls. Originally designed for blacking the surfaces of raised stone-carved hieroglyphics, the ink was a mixture of soot from pine smoke and lamp oil mixed with the gelatin of donkey skin and musk. The ink invented by the Chinese philosopher, Tien-Lcheu (2697 B.C.), became common by the year 1200 B.C.

Later other formats came into use in China, firstly the sutra or scripture binding, a scroll folded concertina

Concertina

A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...

-style, which avoids the need to unroll to find a passage in the middle. By about 1,000 CE, sheet-based formats were introduced, although scrolls continued to have a place. Traditional painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

and calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

in East Asia is often still performed on relatively short latitudinal paper scrolls displayed vertically as a hanging scroll

Hanging scroll

A hanging scroll is one of the many traditional ways to display and exhibit Chinese painting and calligraphy. Displaying the art in such way was befitting for public appreciation and appraisal of the aesthetics of the scrolls in its entirety by the audience. The traditional craft involved in...

on a wall or horizontally and flat as a handscroll

Handscroll

The handscroll is a long narrow scroll for displaying a series of scenes in Chinese painting. The handscroll presents an artwork in the horizontal form and can be exceptionally long, usually measuring up to a few meters in length and around 25–40 cm in height. Handscrolls are generally viewed...

Modern era

Torah Scrolls are still used today in Jewish religious observance with almost insignificant changes despite the thousands of years in practice.

Some cultures use scrolls as ceremonial texts or for decoration called a hanging scroll

Hanging scroll

, without any obvious division of the text into columns. In some scroll-using cultures painted illustrations were used as header decorations above the text columns, either in a continuous band or broken into scenes above either a single or double column of text.

One of the few modern texts written on a scroll was Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

's On the Road
On the Road
On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...

, which he typed on a scroll made of taped-together sheets of paper.

Paper scrolls are also used for classroom instruction. The fundamental benefit of this is that the unrolled paper scroll enables teachers and students to view and work with whole texts -- from picture books for preschoolers, to textbook chapters for college students -- in a single, panoramic view.

Scrolls are also now used in the virtual sense, in computer applications such as word processors, web browsers) and film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

closing credits

Closing credits

Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...

. This is known as scrolling

Scrolling

In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...

.

The scroll format is also recognizable in tape reel

Reel

A reel is an object around which lengths of another material are wound for storage. Generally a reel has a cylindrical core and walls on the sides to retain the material wound around the core...

devices such as tape

Compact Cassette

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

, microfilm, and videotape

Videotape

A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...

Rolls

Shorter pieces of parchment

Parchment

or paper

Paper

are called rolls
Rotulus
A rotulus is a roll designed for writing on, in which a long narrow strip of papyrus or parchment, written on one side, was wound like a blind about its wooden staff....

, which may still be many meters or feet long, were used in the medieval and Early Modern period in Europe and various West Asian cultures for manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

administrative documents intended for various uses, including accounting, rent-rolls, legal agreements, and inventories. Unlike scrolls, these are usually written down the length of the roll latitudinally. Rolls may be wider than most scrolls, up to perhaps 60 cm or two feet wide. Rolls were often stored together in a special cupboard on shelves.

A special Chinese form of short book, called the "whirlwind book," consists of several pieces of paper bound at the top with bamboo and then rolled up.

External links

Encyclopaedia Romana: "Scroll and codex"

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Structure

Usage

History of scroll use

Origins in Europe and West Asia

Egypt

Israel

Syria and Babylon

Greece and Rome

Early Christian era

European Middle Ages

West and Central Asia

China and East Asia

Modern era

Rolls

See also

External links