From scrolls to codex

Among the experiments of earlier centuries, scrolls were sometimes unrolled

horizontally, as a succession of columns. (The Dead Sea Scrolls are a famous
example of this format.) This made it possible to fold the scroll as an accordion. The
next step was then to cut the folios, sew and glue them at their centers, making it
easier to use the papyrus or vellum recto-verso as with a modern book. Traditional
bookbinders would call one of these assembled, trimmed and bound folios a codex
to differentiate it from the case, which we now know as hard cover. Binding the
codex was clearly a different procedure from binding the case.