The Book Form
A Brief History of the Book
The earliest permanent and portable 'documents', dating from around 3000BC, were the clay tablets used for writing by ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites. However, the scroll or roll format is generally considered to be the first book form, the earliest examples being Egyptian papyrus scrolls dating from around 3000BC. Examples of the Egyptian Book of the Dead are some of the earliest extant scrolls.These were texts written to guide the dead safely to the Egyptian underworld and were an essential part of Egyptian burials. The Greek historian Herodotus reported that Egyptian embalmers did a thriving business in copies of the Book of the Dead. They were written in large numbers and kept in stock for personalising as required.
The scroll was the dominant form of book until approximately 400AD, with most being made from papyrus. Papyrus is made from the pith of a rush like plant. The pith is cut into thin strips which are then laid side by side, slightly overlapped. A second layer is placed at right-angles to the first and the layers are fused together by pounding with a mallet, with the sap of the of the plant acting as a glue. The dimensions of the individual sheets varied depending on the quality of the papyrus- they ranged 16 - 40cm in width and up to 50cm in height. Since papyrus is not flexible enough to fold without cracking individual sheets were glued together to make a long roll or scroll if a larger volume was required. The length of a roll varied considerably, with one roll in the British museum measuring around 40 metres long. Tall scrolls were used 'as is' or cut down to make smaller ones. The text was written in red and black ink using a reed pen-brush on the side of the papyrus where the strips of pith ran horizontally,. The finished scroll was rolled up with the text on the inside and had to be unrolled with one hand and rolled up with the other as it was being read. The text in scrolls was most frequently arranged in columns separated by blank spaces, an arrangement that carried over into later forms of the book.
Papyrus had the advantage of being relatively cheap and easy to produce, but it was fragile and susceptible to both moisture and excessive dryness. Unless the papyrus was of good quality the writing surface was irregular and the range of media that could be used was also limited - papyrus scrolls were mostly decorated with line drawing and watercolour. As early as 500BC parchment, made from the skins of animals, was used as an alternative to papyrus to create scrolls. Although it was more durable than papyrus and could be folded without cracking, parchment was heavier, difficult to produce and more expensive and it did not become the dominant writing surface until the widespread adoption of the codex form.
Another book form that was widely used in antiquity was the writing tablet, a precursor of the school student's slate. Writing tablets were mostly used for letter writing, records of business transactions, drafts of texts, and school work. The most common form was a block of wood that had been hollowed out to create a recess, which was then filled with wax. A sharp stylus was used for writing in the wax - the impression thus created could be smoothed over and the tablet re-used. Two or more individual tablets could be joined by lacing to make a more substantial volume, with up to ten tablets sometimes being combined.
In the western world both of these book forms were eventually replaced by the codex, which consists of regular sized, individual sheets of writing material (papyrus, parchment or, eventually, paper), joined together by stitching and placed within a protective cover. A variety of theories have been put forward to account for the development of the codex form. One theory suggests that the scroll was first folded into an accordion, which was easier to handle when reading and easier to store, and that the accordion book and finally the bound codex followed. Another suggestion is that the codex developed from the Greek and Roman wax tablet. The scroll, the wooden tablet and the codex existed side by side for several centuries, but the coming of Christianity saw the codex become increasingly widespread and by around 400AD the parchment codex was the predominant form of book
The codex form has numerous advantages over the scroll.
- The size can be increased to contain very long texts, or several shorter texts can be bound together in one volume;
- The codex makes more efficient use of materials as both sides of a leaf can be written on;
- The codex is portable, easy to store and easy to read - a codex book can be easily opened to any point in text;
- The use of individual pages of regular size allows for varied layouts and makes the inclusion of large illustrations possible;
- Since the writing surface is not rolled thicker pigments can be used, allowing a wider variety of techniques to be employed in decorating and illustrating a text.
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