The origins of proper paper happened in South East Asia. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, virtually 5,000 years in the past, created a pictographic form of writing. The Egyptians too had been using various things to scribe upon, usually strips of bamboo and processed silk and possibly the barkcloth they were using for other reasons from the Paper. Mulberry was also used.
Legend points to the fact that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker by the name of Tsai Lung, brought out papyrus, though it is clear from archaeological finds that in fact it was being worked with in what is now the People's Republic of China for at least two centuries before Tsai Lung.
In ancient times gone by scribing was mainly on bamboo or sometimes on lengths of silk, which were then called ji. Nevertheless silk was expensive and bamboo being too weighty, these materials were inconvenient. Then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing bark from trees, rags, hemp, and fish nets. In 105AD he made a report to the emperor on the production of paper and got high accolade for his ideas. Since then paper has been in use universally and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this historical reference is accurate or not, will likely never be known! Nonetheless the important thing has to be that it was found that they could pound some compounds derived from plant matter into a mache, bstract unwanted substances, place the mache in liquid, sieve it out onto cloth sheets allowing it to dry. After drying, it consolidated into a firm, resilient sheet that turned out to be astonishingly light, and providing it did not get wet, proved particularly durable.
This simplest of papermaking techniques is even now in use in exactly a similar way within Tibet and Nepal, the very first places to take the techniques from China. A basic frame utilizes a cloth manufactured from cotton pulled and held over one side, watery mash is situated in to the far side and spread around until it has become even. After which it is suspended somewhere to enable the water to drain out of it and the pulp to dry in to a sheet of parchment which can be removed by stripping off.
It eventually came to pass that a talented developer came to the conclusion that manufacturing a frame with ribs and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is removable across it, would let the process to be speeded up greatly. Instead of tying up one mould for each paper sheet, severely limiting the amount of sheets that are able to be produced at one time, a stack of sieved grume was able to be built up layer upon layer, with just a piece of cotton thread between them in order to enable later separation. The stack would then be squeezed gently, and every layer of paste moved to a dry place.