The origins of true paper began in China. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly 5,000 years in the past, brought out a style of writing that used pictures. They also had been making use of many different kinds of things to scribe on, usually pieces of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they used for other uses derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was also used.
Legend points to the fact that in 105AD a member of the government called Tsai Lung, developed paper, although it appears from archaeological digs that it was actually around in what is now the People's Republic of China for at least two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
Way back during ancient times setting down words or pictograms was mainly on some derivative of bamboo or on lengths of silk, which were then called ji. But the great price of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these two materials were inconvenient. Due to these factors Tsai Lun thought of utilizing bark, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor on the process of paper making and was endowed with much praise for his ability. Consequently, from those days paper has been availed of every place and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this particular claim is correct, will probably not ever be known! Nevertheless the important thing has to be that the discovery was made that they could pound particular compounds derived from plant material into a pulp, depose spume, put the pulp in liquid, filter it onto cloth sheets giving it enough time to dry out. After drying, it congealed into a hard, tough sheet that was surprisingly light, and provided that it did not get damp, turned out to be remarkably tenacious.
It's a fact that this most simple of paper making technologies is even now practised in exactly a similar way in and around Nepal and Tibet, the very first areas to take the craft from South East Asia. A simple frame utilises a cloth made from cotton made to stretch over a side, diluted mash is emptied in to the opposite side and spread about until it has become even. It is then left hanging that will enable the water to drain out of it and the paste to dry in to a sheet of paper which can be peeled off.
Eventually an extremely clever individual figured that constructing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and placing a fine bamboo mat that is replaceable over it, would allow the paper-making process to be accelerated enormously. Rather than utilizing a single mould for every sheet of parchment, severely limiting the amount of sheets that may be produced at one time, a stack of sieved mush was able to be built up a layer at a time, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them which would help with separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed lightly, and each layer of mache shifted to a place to dry.