Scrolls

Scrolls are necessarily religious, but that's how we generally see them. Scrolls were long strips of papyrus or parchment (or shorter pieces glued together) rolled around two dowels. They were first invented in the Mediterranean region, maybe Egypt, some time between 2000 and 1000 BC. They stayed in general use until some time into the Roman era, eventually supplanted by the codex, or bound book, invented in the first century AD. In ancient times scrolls were used for really any longer work, certainly including religious works. Today scrolls are still used in ceremonial reading from the Sefer Torah, a hand written scroll of the Torah used for ritual reading during services in a synagogue. BTW, here's a fun scroll fact - the work for scroll in Latin is VOLVME, which is the source in English both for the word 'volume' and the word 'revolve'. Here are a couple of wonderful renditions of scrolls in LEGO form by Bruce Lowell and Filip Soukup.