The history of true paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost five thousand years in the past, developed a form of pictographic writing. They also had been using many different kinds of objects to scribe on, usually pieces of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they were making for other purposes from the Paper. Mulberry was also used.
Historical documentation tells us that in 105AD an official named Tsai Lung, invented usable paper, though it seems from finds by archaeologists that in fact it was being worked with in South East Asia for probably two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
During times gone by scribing was generally on bamboo or occasionally on lengths of silk, which were then called ji. But silk being expensive and bamboo being heavy, these materials were inconvenient. Due to these factors Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing the bark from trees, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he put an idea to the emperor with regard to the process of making paper and got many accolades for his thoughts. From those days paper has been in use universally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above title is accurate, will probably never be uncovered! However, the important consideration must be that they discovered that they could pound particular plant-derived compounds into a grume, bstract impure substances, place the grume in water, filter it out onto textile sheets giving it enough time to dry out. When fully dried, it compacted into a hard, resilient sheet that turned out to be astonishingly light, and providing it did not come into contact with water, turned out to be exceedingly robust.
This the easiest of paper making techniques is still in use in exactly a similar way around Nepal and Tibet, the first countries to learn the techniques from China. A basic frame utilizes a kind of cotton cloth stretched over one side, very watery pulp is emptied in to the opposite side and moved around until it is smooth. Then it is left that will allow the liquid to leave it and the paste to dry into a sheet of paper which will be able to be stripped off.
At some stage a talented developer came to realize that manufacturing a frame with ribs and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is removable over this, would enable the paper-making process to be accelerated to a much greater degree. Instead of using one mould for every sheet of parchment, severely restricting the number of sheets that could be made at the same time, a stack of sieved mash could be built up a layer at a time, with merely a piece of cotton thread between them to enable separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed very gently, and each layer of mache transferred to a dry board.