made from antelope skins, but modern microscopic examination has shown otherwise. Most of the quires (or signatures) contain four sheets, save two containing five. It is estimated that the hides of about 360 animals were employed for making the folios of this codex. Each line of the text has some twelve to fourteen Greek uncial letters, arranged in four columns, 48 lines per column, with carefully chosen line breaks and slightly ragged right edges. When opened, the eight columns thus presented to the reader have much the same appearance as the succession of columns in a papyrus roll. The poetical books of the Old Testament are written stichometrically (writing each new poetic phrase on a new line), in only two columns per page. The codex has almost 4,000,000 uncial letters. Each rectangular page has the proportions 1.1 to 1, while the block of text has the reciprocal proportions, 0.91 (the same proportions, rotated 90°). If the gutters between the columns were removed, the text block would mirror the page's proportions. Typographer Robert Bringhurst referred to the codex as a "subtle piece of craftsmanship". The cost of the material, copying time required for the scribes, and binding, is estimated to have equalled the lifetime wages of one individual at the time. Throughout the New Testament portion, the words are written in scriptio continua (words without any spaces in between them) in the hand-writing style that came to be called "biblical uncial" or "biblical majuscule". The parchment was ruled with a sharp point to prepare for writing lines. The letters are written along these lines, with neither breathings nor polytonic accents (markings utilised to indicate changes of pitch or emphasis). A variety of types of punctuation are used: high and middle points; colon; diaeresis on initial iota and upsilon; a few ligatures are used, along with the paragraphos: initial letter into margin (extent of this varies considerably). A plain iota is replaced by the epsilon-iota diphthong almost regularly (commonly though imprecisely known as itacism), e.g. instead of , instead of , instead of , etc. Nomina sacra with overlines are employed throughout. Some words usually abbreviated in other manuscripts (such as and ), are written in both full and abbreviated forms. The following nomina sacra are written in abbreviated forms (nominative forms shown): ( / god) ( / lord) ( / Jesus) ( / Christ) ( / spirit) ( / spiritual) (