Scroll

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

Shorter pieces of parchment or paper are called rolls or rotuli, although usage of the term by modern historians varies with periods.

Rolls may still be many meters or feet long, and were used in the medieval and Early Modern period in Europe and various West Asian cultures for manuscript administrative documents intended for various uses, including accounting, rent-rolls, legal agreements, and inventories.

A distinction that sometimes applies is that the lines of writing in rotuli run across the width of the roll (that is to say, are parallel with any unrolled portion) rather than along the length, divided into page-like sections.

[3] In Scotland, the term scrow was used from about the 13th to the 17th centuries for scroll, writing, or documents in list or schedule form.

[4] The codex form of the book—that is, folding a scroll into pages, which made reading and handling the document much easier—appears during the Roman period.

As C. H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat point out, the idea that "Julius Caesar may have been the inventor of the codex... is indeed a fascinating proposition; but in view of the uncertainties surrounding the passage, it is doubtful whether any such conclusion can be drawn".

Scrolls were awkward to read if a reader wished to consult material at opposite ends of the document.

The majority that did survive were found by archaeologists in burial pits and in the buried trash of forgotten communities.