The origins of real paper happened in China. Similar to the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually 5,000 years ago, developed a type of writing that used images. The Egyptians also had been utilizing many different types of objects to write on, most commonly lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and possibly the barkcloth they utilized for other reasons from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105AD a member of the government named Tsai Lung, invented usable paper, though it seems from archaeological digs that it was actually being worked with in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
Way back during ancient times setting down words was generally on bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were called Ji in those days. However, the soaring cost of silk and bamboo being too heavy, these materials were not of great use. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using tree bark, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor with regard to the process of paper making and received much praise for his inventions. Consequently, since those days paper has been availed of in almost every place on earth and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this particular claim is accurate, will likely never be known! Nevertheless the important consideration has to be that the discovery was made that if they ground particular substances taken from plant material into a pulp, take away impure substances, put the pulp in liquid, screen it out onto textile sheets giving it time to dry. After the drying process was complete, it consolidated into a hard, dense sheet that was really light, and as long as it did not come into contact with water, turned out to be extraordinarily tenacious.
It's a fact that this very simple of paper making techniques is even now practised in precisely the same way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the first regions to take the craft from what is now the People's Republic of China. A basic frame has a kind of cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, watery mush is situated in to the other side and spread around until it has reached a level. After which it is left suspended that will enable the water to leave it and the grume to dry in to a paper sheet which may be removed.
As time passed a very talented individual realized that building a frame with ribs and placing a fine bamboo mat that is removable across this, would allow the paper-making process to be speeded up incredibly. Rather than tying up a single mould for every sheet of parchment, therefore severely restricting the amount of sheets that can be produced at one time, a stack of sieved paste could be built up a layer at a time, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them to help with later separation. The stack would then be squeezed very slightly, and each layer of mash transferred to a board to dry.