The history of proper paper began in South East Asia. Like the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly five thousand years in the past, invented a form of pictographic writing. The Egyptians also had been utilizing various kinds of objects to scribe on, usually lengths of bamboo and processed silk and possibly the barkcloth they were making for other unconnected purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
Legend tells us that in 105 years after the birth of Christ an official named Tsai Lung, created usable paper, though it is almost certain from archaeological finds that actually it was in existence in China for at least two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
Way back in times gone by setting down words was generally done on bamboo or occasionally on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. However, the cost of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these two materials were inconvenient. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark from trees, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105AD he put an idea to the emperor on the process of paper making and received many accolades for his ideas. From those distant times paper has been utilized all over and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this particular claim is Tsai's entitlement, will very likely never be uncovered! Nevertheless the major consideration is that they found that they could pound particular compounds derived from plants into a mush, depose unwanted materials, place the mush in liquid, screen it out onto fabric sheets allowing it to dry. After drying, it calcified into a firm, durable sheet that turned out to be extraordinarily light, and providing it was not allowed to get damp, proved incredibly firm.
This most simple of papermaking techniques is even now still being used in exactly a similar way around Tibet and Nepal, the first regions to learn the technolgies from what is now the People's Republic of China. A basic frame has a cloth made from cotton stretched over a single side, watery mash is situated in to the opposite side and spread around until it is level. It is then left that will enable the water to drain out of it and the pulp to dry in to a parchment sheet which will be able to be removed by stripping off.
It eventually came to pass that a very clever individual came to the conclusion that building a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a delicate bamboo mat that is replaceable across this, would allow the process to be speeded up greatly. Rather than utilizing one mould for each paper sheet, severely restricting the amount of sheets that can be made at one time, a stack of sieved paste was able to be built up layer upon layer, with just a length of cotton thread between them which would enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed very slightly, and every layer of mache moved to a place to dry.