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Bookend Beginnings

Bookends are first and foremost an item ofThe advantage that books had over scrolls was
function. A bookend's only reason to exist isthat individual pages made access to
to be placed at the end of a row of books toinformation easier by indexing, which
keep it from falling over. While it is aeventually made books more popular. Hand
simple concept, the history of bookends iswritten on fine parchment or vellum, hand
wrapped within the very history of writtenbound in fine leather and sometimes highly
language  itself.decorated outside and in, these early books
were works of art in themselves. They were of
Before books, knowledge and information wassuch high value that books were actually
passed by word of mouth. The more thechained to the shelves they were stored on to
knowledge base of humans increased, the moreprevent theft. They took so long to produce
the need for some way of keeping a record ofat such great expense that a library with as
things. Among the first 'books' known arefew as 25 volumes was worth a fortune. These
clay tablets with marks made into the wetwere stored in piles, or singly on slanted
clay which was then fired in an oven likeboards  where  they  were  read.
pottery. This was the first known written
language, called Cuneiform Script, developedThe development of movable type for printing
over 6,000 years ago. As innovative as thesethem slowly made them more affordable and
first writings were, it was not the mostnumerous. With so many more books available,
practical way to record information, andshelving systems holding books vertically to
carrying large clay tablets around wassave space, with the spines facing outward
definitely not convenient. The nextfor ease of identification were developed to
innovation in the written word came with thecategorize and store them for ready use. The
introduction of the scroll, approximatelyproblems of a half-row of them constantly
5,000 years ago. The first scrolls were madefalling over, sometimes off the shelf, was
from  animal  skins  or  papyrus.solved by the use of bookends in these
Renaissance libraries. Bookends have been
The scroll held many advantages over the claywith  us  ever  since.
tablet. They weren't as cumbersome, could
hold much more information as the scrollFrom plain metal bookends to highly ornate
could be made as long as was needed, andbookends, their function remains the same.
offered opportunities of editing text thatThey are a part of the evolution of the
were not possible with clay tablets once theywritten word that began with those cuneiform
had been fired. The ancient Judeans used thetablets over 6,000 years ago. That there was
scroll to transmit their holy texts,ever a need for such an item speaks volumes
beginning a tradition that is still practicedabout the ingenuity, creativity and
in  modern  Judaism  with  Torah  scrolls.practicality of the human mind.



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