The story of real paper happened in South East Asia. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost 5000 years in the past, invented a style of pictographic writing. The Egyptians also had been using various objects to scribe on, notably lengths of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they were using for other purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
History points to the fact that in 105AD a member of the government called Tsai Lung, developed paper, although it seems from archaeological discoveries that it was in fact in existence in what is now the People's Republic of China for probably two centuries before Tsai Lung.
Back during olden times scribing was generally on some form of bamboo or occasionally on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nonetheless the cost of silk and the weight of bamboo, these materials were inconvenient. At this time Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of tree bark, hemp, fish nets, and rags. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he delivered a report to the emperor regarding the process of making paper and received high praise for his ability. Consequently, since those days paper has been in use globally and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this accolade is deserved, will likely not ever be known! But what is important has to be that the discovery was made that if they pounded certain compounds taken from plants into a mush, evacuate impure materials, put the mush in water, screen it out onto fabric sheets giving it time to dry. When it dried, it compacted into a firm, robust sheet that was very light, and providing it was not allowed to get damp or wet, proved extraordinarily durable.
This the most simple of paper making technologies is still being used in precisely the same way within Nepal and Tibet, the initial regions to learn the technolgies from China. A basic frame utilises a cloth manufactured from cotton made to stretch over a side, watery grume is poured in to the far side and moved around until it is level. After which it is suspended so that it will let the liquid to leave it and the mash to dry in to a sheet of parchment which may be taken off.
As time passed an extremely talented developer figured that making a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is removable over this, would allow the process to be accelerated enormously. Rather than tying up one mould for each parchment sheet, severely limiting the amount of sheets that may be manufactured at one time, a stack of sieved pulp could be built up layer upon layer, with merely a strip of cotton thread between them in order to enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed very gently, and every sheet of mache moved to a place to dry.