Scroll

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For other uses, see Scroll (disambiguation).

A scroll of Sefer Torah opened for liturgical use in a synagogue service.

A scroll is a roll of parchment, papyrus, or paper which has been written, drawn or painted upon. They were the first form of book used in all Eurasian ancient civilizations before the codex or bound book with pages was invented by the Romans in the first century. Nevertheless, scrolls were more highly regarded than codices until well into Roman times. Codices contained notes, drafts, and records rather than serious literature. For example, early Christian gospels appear always to have been written in codices, and many readers assumed they were didactic handbooks (New Oxford Annotated Bible, 3rd Edition).

Scrolls virtually disappeared in Europe during the Dark Ages. They continued in use longer in the Islamic world, and longer still 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, dated 868. Later other formats came into use in China, firstly the sutra or scripture binding, a scroll folded concertina-style, which avoid the need to unroll to find a passage in the middle. By about 1,000AD sheet-based formats were introduced, although scrolls continued to have a place. The ceremonial Torah scroll is perhaps the last survival of this ancient book format, although traditional painting and calligraphy in East Asia is often still done on relatively short scrolls.

Scrolls are still used today in some religious contexts; in Jewish and many other cultures, a scroll is read with one roll to the left and one roll to the right, and with columns of text running from top to bottom. Quality control of a Jewish Torah is maintained by counting the number of characters, and disposing of the faulty versions, before they can be used.

Some other cultures use scrolls with one roll at the top and one at the bottom, called a hanging scroll, without any obvious division of the text into columns. In some scroll-using cultures painted illustrations ran above the columns of text, either in a continuous band or broken into scenes above either a single or double-column of text. Typically, each end of a scroll is attached to a rod or baton for support and to protect from damage during storage and use.

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

Scrolls have experienced a revival in the 20th century, as they are now used frequently, in virtual instead of physical sense, in computer software (eg. word processors and web browsers) and television (eg. closing credits). This is known as scrolling. Scrolls are also used for classroom instruction, where being able to see an entire text, or at least large sections of it, can be beneficial.