The history of real paper happened in South East Asia. Like the Egyptians, the Chinese had, nearly 5,000 years ago, developed a type of writing that used images. The Egyptians also had been utilizing several kinds of things to scribe upon, most usually lengths of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they were using for other purposes from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
Historical documentation tells us that in 105AD a government worker by the name of Tsai Lung, invented usable paper, although it appears from archaeological discoveries that it was in fact being worked with in what is now the People's Republic of China for probably two hundred years prior to him.
Way back in olden times setting down words or pictograms was generally on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on pieces of silk, which were then called ji. Nonetheless the prohibitive cost of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these two materials were not of great use. About this time Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark from trees, hemp, fish nets, and rags. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he made a report to the emperor with regard to the process of paper manufacture and was endowed with much praise for his abilities. Consequently, from that time paper has been in use all over the world and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this particular claim is correct, will likely not ever be known! Nevertheless the most important thing must be that the discovery was made that if they pounded certain compounds derived from plants in to a mash, shed unwanted substances, put the mash in liquid, screen it out onto fabric sheets giving it enough time to dry out. When it dried, it compressed into a hard, durable sheet that was remarkably light, and provided that it did not get wet, proved surprisingly tenacious.
It's a fact that this very straightforward of papermaking techniques is still in use in precisely the same way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the first regions to take the craft from China. A simple frame has a cloth manufactured from cotton pulled and held over one side, very watery mache is situated into the opposite end and moved around until it has become even. It is then left hanging somewhere to allow the water to leave it and the mush to dry in to a paper sheet which will be able to be removed by peeling.
At some point in time a very talented individual worked out that building a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a delicate replaceable bamboo mat across this, would let the paper-making procedure to be quickened to a much greater degree. Instead of utilizing one mold for every parchment sheet, therefore severely limiting the number of sheets that can be made at one time, a stack of sieved pulp could be built up a layer at a time, with only a piece of cotton thread between them to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed very gently, and each layer of paste moved to a board to dry.