Scroll Tube

Here's a little something that hopefully might add something to the visualization of our games — a real-life genuine scroll-tube. My partner, Annette, picked it up recently from an antique shop up in the Wairarapa.

This one is Tibetan I think, probably intended to hold a prayer-scroll; it's not all that old, not more than a couple of hundred years at most, but it's basically the same as similar things that have been made and used forever.

It's made primarily of copper, with applied decoration and script in brass and silver and beads of semi-precious stones. The base is flat, and the tube stands up reasonably steadily; the top of the cap is domed. There are chain-loops on each section, and I suppose that it would have had a chain joining the two halves so that you wouldn't risk losing the cap.

The tube is in two parts that fit quite snugly together. There is no locking mechanism, but if one wanted to secure the lid, or make the tube air- and water-proof, one could apply pitch or wax to the collar to do the job. Just as it is, it would be pretty weather-proof though.