The history of proper paper started in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly 5000 years ago, developed a style of writing that used images. The Egyptians also had been utilizing many different things to scribe upon, most usually strips of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they used for other uses derived from the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker going by the name of Tsai Lung, invented papyrus, although it is clear from archaeological discoveries that it was actually being used in South East Asia for more than likely two hundred years prior to him.
In olden times writing was mainly done on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on lengths of silk, which were then called ji. Nevertheless silk being expensive and bamboo being heavy, these two materials were inconvenient. Around then Tsai Lun thought of making use of bark, fish nets, hemp, and rags. In 105AD he made a report to the emperor about the process of making paper and received high accolade for his thoughts. Consequently, from those distant times paper has been availed of every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this particular claim is accurate, will very likely never be uncovered! But the important thing must be that they discovered that they could pound some compounds taken from plants in to a paste, displace unwanted substances, put the paste in liquid, filter it onto fabric sheets and allow it to dry. After the drying process was complete, it conglomerated into a hard, robust sheet that turned out to be exceedingly light, and providing it was not allowed to get damp or wet, turned out to be surprisingly firm.
It's a fact that this simple of paper making techniques is even now practised in exactly the same way around Nepal and Tibet, the initial areas to learn the craft from China. A simple frame utilises a cloth manufactured from cotton made to stretch over a side, thin mush is emptied into the far end and spread around until it has become even. It is then suspended in order for it to let the water to drain and the grume to dry in to a sheet of parchment which may be stripped off.
There came a time when an extremely clever individual came to realize that constructing a frame with ribbing and placing a fine removable bamboo mat over this, would enable the paper-making process to be quickened fantastically. Rather than using one mold for every parchment sheet, severely restricting the number of sheets that can be made at one time, a stack of sieved mache could be built up a layer at a time, with only a length of cotton thread between them in order to enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed slightly, and each sheet of pulp shifted to a dry board.