scroll

Scroll refers to a long piece of parchment, papyrus, or similar material upon which a text is written, rolled for storage and reading. In antiquity scrolls were common in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Scrolls were typically made from papyrus or parchment; scrolls could be inscribed on both sides and were read by unrolling from one end while keeping the other end anchored. The form persisted alongside the codex, with religious, legal, and literary texts produced as scrolls. East Asian traditions developed different formats, including handscrolls that unfurl horizontally and hanging scrolls that are displayed vertically in a frame. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean scrolls often serve as art objects, calligraphy, or narrative documents; scroll painting is a recognized medium.

With the rise of the codex in late antiquity, scrolls gradually declined in everyday use but remained in specialized contexts and for certain practices. In libraries, intact scrolls preserve portions of ancient writing, though many works survive only in codex form.

In computing and digital media, the term scroll denotes the action of moving content within a window so that unseen content becomes visible. This is accomplished via scroll bars, mouse wheels, touchpads, or touch screens. Menus and web pages may support horizontal or vertical scrolling, and some interfaces implement features such as smooth scrolling or infinite scrolling.