A “megillah” is a scroll; the Megillah is the scroll containing the text of the biblical Book of Esther, which is read publicly each year on the holiday of Purim. 

This Megillah, from North Africa, is beautifully decorated but lacks figural imagery, reflecting its Islamic context, where depictions of the human form were generally forbidden or discouraged. As a result, megillot and decorated Hebrew manuscripts created in Muslim lands rarely include figural art. The scroll’s design elements—particularly the pointed horseshoe arches and the six-pointed star—resembles those on ketubbot from Oran, Algeria, suggesting this as a possible place of origin.