Most (all?) investigators agree that the scroll should be read from bottom to top, starting with the blue/symbolic degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason), going up to ‘higher degrees’ and only unrolling the image for the degree currently worked in.
There is a bit of a problem with that reasoning. Day’s counting is: “Craft” degrees in the panel at the bottom (panel 8 in his counting). Panel 7 for the “Mark” and “Excellent Master” degrees; panel 6 for the Royal Arch, panel 5 for Templar degrees, panel 3 for “Ark Mariner” and “Red Cross (of Babylon)” degrees and finally, “purely Christian degrees” on panel 2. Panels 1 and 4 are not Masonic in his thinking.
This can somewhat work when displaying a part of the scroll with working in certain degrees.
Cooper, on the other hand, identifies both “craft” and “higher” degrees on some panels (with ‘back references), which could also still work. Several authors see Knight Templar or Royal Arch symbols in various panels, so what then would the Knight Templar or Royal Arch panels be?
Also, the “Dome on the Rock” on panel 5 (or 4 in Cooper’s counting) “[…] is almost certainly a refence to Hiram Abiff, the central character of the Third Degree of Freemasonry.”
But when then would the third degree be on panel 8 and again after the “Mark” and “Excellent Master” panel?
The scroll seems to have been painted from top to bottom. W.R. Day (1) numbered eight panels from the top to the bottom. Jackson (2) and Cooper (3) see Day’s panels 4 and 5 as one panel, so their numbering differs from panel 4 downwards. This website uses the numbering of Day.
Day only gives the top panel a name (“Creation Panel”). The other panels get no name. Cooper names every panel. I used those names on the panel pages, but note, that from panel 5, Cooper’s counting differs from Day’s, so I have Day’s numbers and Cooper’s names.
I have cut out every panel and from every panel the different symbols. Go to a panel (links below) and at the bottom of each page you, can click to a specific symbol. A new page opens with more information about the symbol and the possibility to share information. It would be most interesting if the significance is mostly Masonic, plus: the older the better. If there is a symbol that we know from -let’s say- a 19th century Royal Arch ritual, then we would here have an indication that around 1780 that symbol was already known / used. If the context would support the Royal Arch suggestion, we just might find that some symbols or even degrees were already worked in either the London area (where the probably giver of the scroll was initiated) or all the way up in Kirkwall.
(1) See “literature” Day
(2) See “literature” Jackson
(3) See “literature” Cooper