Codices

Dresden Codex

Codex is a noun (plural codices) that means "a quire of manuscript pages held together by stitching: the earliest form of book, replacing the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times"; the word for a book made of thin wooden strips coated with wax upon which one wrote. It was developed by the Romans.

Examples of folded codices are the Maya codices. This codices had the same form as the European codex, but were instead made with long folded strips using the inner bark of certain trees, the main being the wild "fig tree" or "amate". The Dresden codex (eleventh or twelfth century), also known as the Codex Dresdensis, is generally considered the most important of the few that survive.