Re: THEAD & TFOOT for columns

At 7:16 AM -0000 8/16/97, Dave Salovesh wrote:
>Walter sent this to the www-html list:
>
>>scrolling. I think this is based on gravity; if you go back in
>>time to when scribes published on actual *scrolls*, the scroll
>>orientation was usually vertical -- you could drop the lower
>>scroll to the ground and then read whilst operating only the
>>upper scroll. Try that with horizontal papyrus and your neck
>>will hurt. ;)
>
>I guess the principle of gravity escaped the wisdom of the Jews. ;)
>
>--
>dave salovesh
>darsal@tezcat.com

I've read from scrolls, both vertically *and* horizontally (I *am* Jewish)
and let me tell you --horizontal is actually *a lot* easier.  When
scrolling horizontally, both scrolls are easy to control, since you can
hold each end with hands held comfortably apart.  In addition, moving
through "pages" is easier (especially when backtracking), because it is
much easier to twist the wrist in a horizontal fashin than in a vertical
way.  Finally, even Gentile scholars probably wrote on horizontal scrolls
quite a bit, and other media reflect a horizontal rather than vertical form
of information intake (murals, stained glass, etc, all went left to right
in a sort of montage).

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[                    Jordan Reiter                     ]
[            mailto:jreiter@mail.slc.edu               ]
[ "You can't just say, 'I don't want to get involved.' ]
[  The universe got you involved."  --Hal Lipset, P.I. ]
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Received on Monday, 18 August 1997 00:44:13 UTC