The history of true paper began in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost 5000 years ago, created a pictographic form of writing. They also had been utilizing several types of things to write upon, most commonly lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they made for other uses derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was used as well.
Historical documentation leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker named Tsai Lung, invented papyrus, although it appears from archaeological finds that in fact it was being used in South East Asia for probably two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
In times gone by setting down words or pictograms was usually on some form of bamboo or on strips of silk, which were called Ji in those days. However, silk was expensive and bamboo being weighty, these two materials were inconvenient. Due to this Tsai Lun thought of making use of bark, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105AD he made a report to the emperor with regard to the process of paper making and received many accolades for his abilities. Consequently, since then paper has been utilized globally and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether the above historical tag is relevant, will probably never be uncovered! Nevertheless the most important factor has to be that the discovery was made that they could pound some plant-derived compounds in to a paste, bstract impurities, place the paste in water, filter it onto cloth sheets giving it enough time to dry out. After the drying process was complete, it calcified into a hard, tenacious sheet that turned out to be decidedly light, and provided that it was not allowed to get damp or wet, proved extremely dense.
This easiest of papermaking techniques is even now practised in exactly the same way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the very first regions to take the technolgies from China. A simple frame has a cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, very watery pulp is situated into the other end and moved around until it is even. It is then left suspended so that it will let the liquid to leave it and the grume to dry in to a parchment sheet which will be able to be removed by stripping off.
Eventually a clever developer worked out that making a frame with ribs and placing a delicate bamboo mat that is removable across this, would enable the paper-making procedure to be accelerated incredibly. Rather than utilizing a single mold for each sheet of parchment, consequently severely restricting the number of sheets that are able to be made at one time, a stack of sieved mash was able to be built up a layer at a time, with only a piece of cotton thread between them which would facilitate later separation. The stack would then be squeezed very gently, and every sheet of mache shifted to a place to dry.