![]() ![]() Most codices, like modern books, are formed from multiple quires (groupings of typically 4, 8, or 16 leaves), bound together side-by-side. P46 is an example of a relatively old and rare form of codex, the single-quire codex. Thus, codices made from papyrus are both very old and very rare few were known to exist until the vast discoveries of papyri that ocurred during the twentieth century. Beginning around the fourth century, parchment began to replace papyrus as the preferred writing material, and parchment manuscripts remained the most common form of the book until the advent of paper and moveable type. The reasons for the shift from roll to codex are uncertain, yet over the course of a few hundred years the roll became obsolete, permanantly replaced by the form which would evolve into the modern book. ![]() Typically about 12 inches tall and a hundred feet or more in length, papyrus rolls could be used to record long works of literature, or cut into smaller pieces to write letters or other short documents.įor some reason, however, early Christian literature began to be written not on rolls, but in codices. ![]() Any reader or writer, from the philosophers of ancient Greece to the emperors of Rome, would have been familiar with the papyrus roll as the normal form of the book. Papyrus had been used as a writing material in Egypt for thousands of years, and during the classical period papyrus rolls were exported throughout the ancient world. A codex (left) compared to a roll (right). ![]()
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