A scroll is a roll of 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 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 reactive with changes in relative humidity and is, or paper Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging.[citation needed] It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets.[citation needed] which has been written, drawn or painted upon for the purpose of transmitting information or using as a decoration. It is distinguished from a roll 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 (see below) by virtue of being intended for repeated use rather than continuous, but once-only use of the roll.

Contents

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 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 gross characterization of writing materials is by the. 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. The letters may be written left to right, right to left, or alternating in direction (boustrophedon Boustrophedon , is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Rather than going from left to right as in modern English, or right to left as in Hebrew and Arabic, alternate lines in boustrophedon must be read in opposite directions).

Some scrolls are simply rolled up pages; others may have wooden rollers on each end: Torah 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 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 is built into the portable Aron 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, 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.

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. Some texts that were declared heretical by the Church, but were retained for study, were secured by special locks somewhat like the chastity belts in use at the time[citation needed].

In general, Christian texts were kept in Codex A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover. It was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll, which was the first form of book in all Eurasian cultures 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 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 εἰκών "image" and γράφειν "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the, as in the stained glass The term stained glass can refer to the material of coloured glass or the craft of working with it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term "stained glass" has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches, cathedrals, chapels, and other significant buildings. Although traditionally made in flat panels and used as images in cathedrals: the prophets of the "Old Testament" were shown holding scrolls; the evangelists of the "New Testament" were shown holding codices.

History of scroll use

Scroll of the Book of Esther The Book of Esther is one of the books of the Ketuvim of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and of the Historical Books of the Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim. Its full text is read aloud twice during the celebration, in the evening and again the following morning, Seville Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of 7 metres (23 ft) above sea level. The inhabitants of the city are known as Sevillanos (feminine form: Sevillanas) or, Spain Spain /ˈspeɪn/ (Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with

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 A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover. It was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll, which was the first form of book in all Eurasian cultures or bound book A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book with pages was invented by the Latins The Latins were an ancient Italic people of the Latium region in central Italy, . Although they lived in independent city-states, the Latins had a common language (Latin), common religious beliefs, and a close sense of kinship, expressed in the myth that they were all descendants of Latinus. Latinus was worshiped on Mons Albanus (Monte Cavo) in the first century CE 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.

Eastern Mediterranean, West Asia and Europe

Egypt

In Dynastic Egypt scrolls were made from 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 was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history Book of the Dead "The Book of Dead" is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary text known as "Spells of Coming" "Forth By Day." The Book of the Dead was a description of the ancient Egyptian conception of the afterlife and a collection of hymns, spells, and instructions to allow the deceased to pass through obstacles in the with repeated sections.

Israel

The Hebrew texts teach that Torah The term "Torah" , refers either to the Five Books of Moses (or Pentateuch) or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts. A "Sefer Torah" (סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה, "book of Torah") or Torah scroll, is a copy of the Torah written on parchment in a formal, traditional manner by a was copied by Moses Moses was, according to biblical texts, a religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbeinu in Hebrew (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, Lit. "Moses our Teacher"), he is the most important prophet in Judaism, and also considered an important prophet onto a scroll c.3300 BCE which was made from skin of a kosher Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with halakha (Jewish law) is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér (כָּשֵׁר), meaning "fit" (in this context, fit for consumption by Jews according to traditional Jewish law). Food that is not in accordance with Jewish law is animal and not 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. 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.[1] 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:

The Torah scroll contains 304,805 letters (or approximately 79,000 words). Other books of the TaNaKh The Tanakh is a name for the Bible used in Judaism, also known as the Masoretic Text. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Five Books of Moses), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim (& are also written in scroll form, as well as the mezuzah A mezuzah (plural: mezuzot (מזוזות)) is a piece of parchment (often contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael", beginning with the phrase: "Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.& scrolls found in most orthodox, conservative and reform Jewish households. Many Jewish families also own their own Megillah scroll for use during Purim Purim (Hebrew: פורים Pûrîm "lots", related to Akkadian pūru) is a festival that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther (Megillat Esther). According to the story, Haman cast lots to determine the day upon which.

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 before current era.

Greece and Rome

Scrolls were used by the ancient Greeks. Alexander the Great brought the Library of Solomon[citation needed] from his conquest of Persia, where it was taken when the city was overcome by the Babylonians in 597 BC. These scrolls were used as founding texts of the Library of Alexandria The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was probably the largest, and certainly the most famous, of the libraries of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and existed, and functioned as a major center of scholarship, at least until the time of Rome's conquest. 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 A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover. It was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll, which was the first form of book in all Eurasian cultures, which influenced the modern book.

Early Christian era

Scrolls continued to be used during the Early Church era until the early 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 cause doubt about textual meaning; 50 of these are of great significance.

The Masoretic text The Masoretic Text is a Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh). It defines not just the books of the Jewish canon, but also the precise letter-text of the biblical books in Judaism, as well as their vocalization and accentuation for both public reading and private study. The MT is also widely used as the basis for translations of the Old of the Torah has nine spelling variants -- with absolutely no effect on the meaning of the words[citation needed].

European Middle Ages

Scrolls virtually disappeared in Europe during the Dark Ages The Dark Ages is a term referring to the perceived period of cultural decline or societal collapse that took place in Western Europe between the fall of Rome and the eventual recovery of learning. Increased understanding of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages in the 19th century challenged the characterization of the entire period as one of, 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 The Exultet is the traditional Western Rite hymn of praise intoned by the deacon during the Easter Vigil. In the absence of a deacon, it may be intoned by the priest, or by the cantor. It is intoned after the procession with the Paschal Candle before the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word. It is used in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, the).

Scrolls were in use for administrative purposes all over Europe (e.g. the pipe rolls They were the records of the yearly audits performed by the Exchequer of the accounts and payments presented to the Treasury by the sheriffs and other royal officials; and owed their name to the shape they took, as the various sheets were affixed to each other and then rolled into a tight roll, resembling a pipe, for storage. They record not only), 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 oldest dated printed book to survive is a sixteen foot long Chinese Buddhist copy of the Diamond Sutra The Buddhist text known around the world as the Diamond Sutra is a short Mahayana sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom (prajna-paramita) genre, which teaches the practice of the avoidance of abiding in extremes of mental attachment. A copy of the Diamond Sutra, found among the Dunhuang manuscripts in the early 20th century, is, in the words of the, dated 868.[citation needed]

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 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. Also, each button produces one note, while accordions typically-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 is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete. Paintings may be decorated with gold leaf, and some modern and calligraphy Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of writing (Mediavilla 1996: 17). A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner" (Mediavilla 1996: 18). The story of writing is one of aesthetic evolution framed within the technical in East Asia is often still performed on relatively short latitudinal paper scrolls displayed vertically as a hanging-scroll on a wall.

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, 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.

Scrolls have experienced a revival in the 20th century, as they are now used frequently in a virtual rather than a physical sense, in computer application Application software is computer software designed to help the user perform a particular task. Such programs are also called software applications, applications or apps. Typical examples are word processors, spreadsheets, media players and database applications such as word processors A word processor is a computer application used for the production (including composition, editing, formatting, and possibly printing) of any sort of printable material, web browsers A Web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to) and film Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects 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 background or a black screen. Credits which crawl either. This is known as scrolling In computer graphics, movies, television, 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 panning or Tilt (camera) the user's view across what is apparently a larger image that is not. Paper scrolls are also used for classroom instruction, as an alternate and more expansive format than bound books or ebooks. The fundamental benefit of this is that the unrolled paper scroll enables teachers and students to view and work with whole chapters and sometimes entire texts. This use of scrolls was pioneered by Dave Middlebrook, founder of The Textmapping Project.

Rolls

Shorter pieces of 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 reactive with changes in relative humidity and is or paper Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging.[citation needed] It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets.[citation needed] are called rolls 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 A manuscript is a recording of 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. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or 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 60cm 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.[1]

References

  1. ^ International Dunhuang Project - Chinese scroll and "whirlwind" forms from C10th

External links

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See also

Look up scroll in Wiktionary Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. Unlike standard dictionaries, it is written collaboratively by volunteers, dubbed "Wiktionarians", using wiki software, allowing articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the website, the free dictionary.

Categories: Books by type | Manuscripts | Scribes

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