Bookrolls

William A. Johnson tells us in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, that “Books in the form of rolls were the norm for Greek, and later, Roman literary texts from the beginning through the early Roman era.” Texts were written in scriptio continua, without spaces between words or paragraphs, and with limited punctuation, on pre-formed rolls of papyrus. Reading the texts is hard, and was probably an activity restricted to an educated elite; one that could afford the expense too. The scrolls tended to be between 7.5 and 13 inches tall in the Roman era, and usually contained one complete work. As the papyrus sheets would be pasted together before writing started, there was obviously a sophisticated casting off system in operation even then. “The book roll is designed for clarity and for beauty, but not for ease of use, much less for mass readership.”

The codex (our modern form of book) is first found in the first century CE. It was favored for early Christian texts. I wonder if the triumph of the codex format over the scroll/bookroll is a result of the fall of the Roman Empire and the arrival of the “Dark Ages”. One can imagine enthusiastic Christian communities sheltering their scriptures from the depredations of the Vandal hordes, going to lengths which librarians might be less ready to do. Had they not done so we might today be printing our books on web presses without the need for any folding or binding. Just chop them off and roll them up.

It’s perhaps a little paradoxical that the bookroll, superseded by one religion, is now most familiar from its appearance in the synagogue.

Torah-scroll