The origins of true paper began in South East Asia. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, virtually 50 centuries in the past, created a style of pictographic writing. The Egyptians also had been utilizing many different types of objects to scribe upon, usually pieces of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they utilized for other reasons from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of as well.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a member of the government called Tsai Lung, brought out paper, although it seems from finds by archaeologists that it was in fact in existence in what is now the People's Republic of China for probably two hundred years prior to Tsai Lung.
Back in ancient times gone by setting down words or pictograms was mainly on some form of bamboo or on strips of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nevertheless the soaring cost of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these materials were not of great use. About this time Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105AD he made a report to the emperor about the process of making paper and was endowed with much praise for his inventions. From that time paper has been in use all over and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this particular claim is relevant, will probably never be uncovered! Nonetheless the important consideration must be that they found that if they ground particular compounds taken from plants in to a paste, purge unwanted substances, float the paste in water, filter it onto cloth sheets and allow it to dry. After the drying process was complete, it dried into a firm, durable sheet that was extraordinarily light, and as long as it did not come into contact with water, proved surprisingly tough.
This easiest of paper making technologies is still practised in exactly the same way in and around Nepal and Tibet, the very first regions to take the techniques from China. A basic frame makes use of a cloth manufactured from cotton pulled and held over a single side, thin grume is situated into the far end and moved around until it is smooth. Then it is suspended so that it will enable the liquid to drain and the pulp to dry in to a sheet of parchment which can be removed by stripping off.
There came a time when an extremely clever individual realized that making a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a delicate bamboo mat that is removable over this, would allow the process to be speeded up to a great degree. Rather than tying up one mould for every sheet of paper, severely limiting the amount of sheets that may be made at one time, a stack of sieved mush could be built up a layer at a time, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate later separation. The stack would then be pressed lightly, and each sheet of mash transferred to a place to dry.