Fourteenth-Century Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther) on Carved Wooden Roller

Rare early Esther scroll radiocarbon-dated to the fourteenth‑century.

Apart from the Torah, the Book of Esther is the only biblical book that rabbinic law requires to be read from a parchment scroll in synagogue, a practice that ensured the continued copying of megillot long after the invention of printing. Medieval Esther scrolls, however, are extraordinarily scarce. Recent codicological surveys estimate that only around thirty scrolls written before 1500 are known worldwide, and only a handful of these can be securely dated as early as the fourteenth century. The present scroll, dated on the basis of radiocarbon analysis of the parchment to the fourteenth century, thus belongs to the very earliest stratum of surviving megillot and offers a valuable witness to the transmission of Esther in the later Middle Ages. 

Physical Description

Scroll of parchment, approximately 220 mm in height; in Hebrew, in square script, rolled around a carved wooden roller. Composed of eight membranes sewn together, carrying a total of twenty‑eight text columns: generally four columns per membrane, with three columns on the first membrane and a single terminal column on the last. The first membrane is written in nineteen lines per column; the second membrane in seventeen lines per column. On the seventh membrane, the first column is written in eleven lines, corresponding to the traditional special layout for the list of Haman’s ten sons (Esther 9:6–10). Corrections are present in columns two and three of the third membrane, where the text has been adjusted by the scribe or a later corrector.