2. Kingdoms and Materials II

Aanvulling Materials I

18.000 GEGRAVEERDE POTSCHERVEN BIEDEN INKIJKJE IN DAGELIJKS LEVEN OUDE EGYPTENAREN

Egyptologen van de Universiteit van Tübingen hebben meer dan 18.000 gegraveerde scherven gevonden in de Oudegyptische stad Athribis, zo’n 200 kilometer ten noorden van Luxor. De inscripties op de scherven bieden onderzoekers meer informatie over de handel, het lesmateriaal Archeologieonline februari 2022

Picturale ostrakona die een baviaan en ibis voorstellen

**Roll and Scroll**

A roll Is simply a relatively long and narrow bundle frighten material 

pro top on itself in order to render transportance soaring easier. 

However, we tend to associate the roll format with papyrus as writing material, 

the fact is that throughout history, many cultures has adopted this book format 

using all sort of materials available to them, not only papyrus

The existing types of rolls depending on the direction of the writing.

Horizontal development 

The text laid 

in pages that is columns parallel to the roll in axis, and 

therefore perpendicular to the length of the band. 

This format is called volumen in Latin and roll paper in English. 

In order to read it, 

the reader would hold the roll horizontally with both hands in parallel. 

The right one holding the part of the book that he had not read yet, and 

the left hand the already read part.

The best known examples of this type are the Greco-Roman roll 

from the classical period made of papyrus. 

And the modern used liturgical rolls containing the turang 

made of leather or parchment.

Vertical development

When the written text runs vertically in a single column, parallel through 

the length of the band is called rotulus in Latin and a scroll in English. 

 

In order to read it, the reader grasp it in this way. 

One hand, normally the right one held from above the unread part. 

Unrolling it as he or she progressed in the reading, 

while the other hand from below rolled up the part already read. 

A good example of this type are the medieval Westernus scrolls and 

the modern Ethiopian rolls.

The Greco-Roman roll of the classical period. 

As the name suggests, it belongs to the group of horizontally lit writing and 

constituted the first book for modern western culture, 

although it was imported from Egypt together with the papyrus it was made of.

The classical roll was built out of a series of rectangular pieces of papyrus 

called pages, plagulae in Latin, glued in a way that the right 

end of each plagula was superimposed on the left end of the following one. 

In this way, the writing could proceed easily 

even on the union of two leaves that were called kollesis. 

The whole piece was rolled up on itself or around an axis made of wood or 

bone called omphalos in Greek and umbilicus in Latin, that is bellybutton. 

That was fixed to the edge of the band to reinforce its consistency.

The endings of the umbilicus were called cornua, horns, and 

frequently received some kind of decoration. 

The top and bottom margins of the band or frontes, 

were carefully polished with pumice. 

At least in the Latin world, the first plagula or leaf of the roll was called 

protokollon and contained the title and author of the work copied in the roll. 

Because the title had to be seen when the roll was closed. 

Each page was written on the exterior side 

while the rest occupied the interior side of the role. 

And therefore the primaries of the protokollon run 

in the opposite direction from the rest. 

The other possibility to render available the identification of the work 

was a sort of label, sillybos, 

titulus, hanging from one of the ends of the corner of the umbilicus. 

Some sort of clasp, lora, and a leather sleeve, toga, for 

protection completed the precious object.

If a work is too long to be contained in a single world, then all the rolls 

that have made it up were put together in a case called Capsa. 

The roll receive writing only in its inner part where the fibers of papiros run 

horizontally. 

The text run in the same direction with the papiros fibers and 

was arranged in columns or selides, parallel to each other. 

The text lines received the name of stikhoi in Greek and 

versus in Latin, and were relatively short. 

Made up on the average length of the Homeric verse, 

which has between 34 and 28 letters and around 18 syllables. 

In order to read this book, the reader held it with both hands in parallel. 

The right hand held it and read part of the book, and 

the left hand the already read part. 

As the reading progressed, the reader would simultaneously 

unroll with the right hand and roll up with the left. 

And therefore, when he or she finished reading the text, 

the book was totally rolled up in the left hand and 

had to be rewound if somebody else wanted to read it again.

This was the predominant book model and 

are most the only one in classical antiquity. 

But already during the late antiquity, 

the roll had to face the competition of a writing format. 

The codex that ended up superseding it but never completely.

In fact, we still find growth during the Middle Ages, although for residual uses. 

But as a matter of fact in most cases, 

the medieval roll is artery of the scroll type with a single written column 

running along the whole length of the band made up almost always of parchment.

Of the terms found most often in a scroll format, 

probably the most idiosyncratic are the necrologies and 

the so-called rotuli mortuorum, or scrolls of the dead. 

Charters the written product that 

proved to be best fitted adopt the scroll format. 

Generally, they constrained themselves to reduced dimensions of 

the plagulae also because charters are in themselves not so long texts. 

But sometimes several charters more or less related to the same issue were 

shown each to the next one in order to form a scroll, and 

ensure that they wouldn't be disbanded and lost. 

These scrolls received a technical name of tomos synkollesimos. 

Some of these scrolls have been preserved in European archives. 

**Codex**

The codex is the book format we are nowadays accustomed to.

Usually, but not necessarily, the codex is built up of quires that at their time are made out of leaves folded in two through their middle line. Because each of these leaves will form two of the leaves of the book or folia, we call them bifolia. The quires made up from a number of bifolia (4 or 6 are the most common number in medieval codices) are kept together by a sewing thread that runs through the fold. The different parts of a codex are the following: 

• Head is the top edge of the pages or the front part of the volume. 
• Tail is the bottom edge of the pages or the back part of the volume. 
• Spine is the edge where the stack of leaves have been bound together. 
• Edge is each of the three sides that haven’t been bound together. 
• The edge opposite to the spine is called fore edge. 
• Gutter is the part of the bifolia that is nearest to the spine. 
• Outer edge is the part of the bifolia that is nearest to the fore edge.
  

The word codex derives from caudex, that means wood or tree trunk. And indeed the tablets must have served as an inspiration for the codex format, but we simply don’t know the precise historical moment when the technical innovation took place and the rigid material wood or ivory was substituted for a flexible one: papyrus or parchment.

For sure the only thing we can ascertain is that the process had already started in the first century AD and was already completed by the fourth, and that in between both dates the evolution was slow, gradual, and complex.

• The codex is easier to handle than the roll 
• The codex is easier to transport than the roll 
• The codex is more resilient than the roll, that wears very quickly due to the action of unwinding and rewinding. 
• Tt is easier to read from a codex than from a roll, and especially it is easier to retrieve a certain passage. 
• A codex can contain more text in less space, because its leaves are written on both sides, while the roll receives writing only on the recto 
• The codex is more accessible from an economic point of view

A single-quire codex is the most archaic form of codex. In it all the bifolia form a single quire, with the inconvenience that either the fore edge is not flat or else the central pages of the codex are narrower than the outer pages. We have a nice collection of single-quire codices in the gnostic library found in Nag-Hammadi.

A booklet is a very thin volume, generally just a few bifolia or even only one bifolium. Although most booklets have been preserved bound together in sets of booklets or together with other pieces, they are independent structurally and they were circulated on their own. 

The text contained in a booklet is always short, but the actual length cannot be determined a priori, since it depends on the format of the leaves and the size of the hand. A genre that is relatively common found in booklets is the sermon.

A notebook is a quire of small dimensions. 

 A pocket-book is a volume small enough to be taken by the owner on regular basis inside a pocket.

A girdle book is also a book of small dimension, conceived to accompany its owner in all occasions, since it has a chemise in the guise of a bag and hung from the belt by means of a sleeve that prolonged the chemise and ended up in a thick knot or ball. 

A folding book is a volume whose leaves, in order to reduce size, were folded once or several times on themselves. It was carried hanging from the belt as well and used to be a faithful companion to physicians and apothecaries. 

 

A ledger book, coucher book, or lectern book is a very big book that because of its dimension needed some sort of support to be read. 

Chained books or cadenati are books that to prevent burglary were chained to their desks or bookshelves. 

A miscellaneous book is a book in which texts from variegated origins have been copied in a succession. Basically a miscellaneous book was the result of the wish of a certain individual of having together several short texts, that could be complete brief works or fragments of longer ones. 

As the miscellaneous books were conceived for personal use, the compiler could alter some texts if he deemed it convenient, or add personal notes without any sort of warning, or even interspersed a short text of his own among the others without any mention of authorship. 

The miscellaneous book is a typical product of the Middle Ages, since the classical world knew and utilized books of unitary character, made up of a single work or at most several works of the same author collected in an organic assemblage.

A composite volume is a codex made up of two or more independent codicological units. We understand a codicological unit as a part of a volume that has been executed as a single operation in the same conditions of place, time, and technique. Sometimes it can happen that several codicological units once independent are bound together and nowadays form one composite volume. In these cases, the different codicological units of the same volume are called sectors and each sector is individualized by means of a Latin capital letter or a Roman number, and therefore we refer to sector A, sector B and so on, or sector I, sector II etcetera.

**Exotic book formats**

Pothi is the Sanskrit term to designate a book format very common in the Orient 

made up of several sheets of wood or palm leaves in a stack with one or 

two holes through which a rope goes, and the sheets can slide along this rope.

Zie voor verdere uitleg:

Ana B. Sánchez-Prieto en Roger L. Martínez Dávila, "Forms and materials of the manuscript book: Archaïsch en exotische vormen van het boek", in Codicology Course , 2015