The history of true paper began in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, almost five thousand years ago, developed a pictographic style of writing. The Egyptians also had been utilizing several kinds of things to write upon, most usually pieces of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they used for other purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was used as well.
Legend points to the fact that in 105 years after the birth of Christ an official going by the name of Tsai Lung, created papyrus, though it appears from archaeological discoveries that in fact it was in existence in China for more than likely two centuries before him.
During ancient times gone by setting down words or pictograms was usually on bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were known as Ji then. But silk was expensive and bamboo being very heavy, these two materials were not of great use. Around then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of the bark from trees, fish nets, hemp, and rags. In 105AD he submitted a report to the emperor regarding the process of paper making and got high accolade for his idea. From those days paper has been utilized every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this title is accurate, will probably never be uncovered! However, the important thing is that they found that they could grind particular plant-derived compounds into a mache, evacuate unwanted substances, place the mache in liquid, screen it out onto cloth sheets and allow it to dry. When it dried, it congealed into a hard, dense sheet that turned out to be astonishingly light, and provided that it was not allowed to get damp, turned out to be extraordinarily tenacious.
This simplest of papermaking technologies is still being used in exactly the same way around Nepal and Tibet, the very first places to pick up the technolgies from South East Asia. A simple frame utilizes a kind of cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, very watery pulp is emptied in to the far side and spread around until it has become even. Then it is left suspended somewhere to enable the water to drain out of it and the mush to dry in to a sheet of paper which may be stripped off.
It eventually came to pass that an extremely clever individual came to the conclusion that manufacturing a frame with ribs and placing a fine bamboo mat that is replaceable over this, would allow the paper-making process to be accelerated to a great degree. Instead of utilizing a single mold for each parchment sheet, therefore severely restricting the amount of sheets that may be produced at the same time, a stack of sieved grume was able to be built up a layer at a time, with merely a length of cotton thread between them to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be pressed very gently, and every layer of mash transferred to a board to dry.