Elaborate historical bindings are called treasure bindings. At least in the Western world, the main alternative to the paged codex format for a long document was the continuous scroll, which was the dominant form of document in the ancient world. Some codices are continuously folded like a concertina, in particular the Maya codices and Aztec codices, which are actually long sheets of paper or animal skin folded into pages.
Elaborate historical bindings are called treasure bindings. In the Western world, scrolls were the primary alternative to codex format for long documents, as they were the dominant form of document in ancient times. Some codices fold like a concertina, particularly those from the Maya and Aztec civilizations, which are made of long sheets of paper or animal skin folded into pages.