The history of proper paper started in China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly five thousand years ago, brought out a kind of writing that used pictures. They too had been making use of many different kinds of things to scribe on, most commonly lengths of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they were using for other unconnected purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
Historical documentation leads us to believe that in 105AD an official by the name of Tsai Lung, created papyrus, although it is clear from archaeological discoveries that actually it was being worked with in what is now the People's Republic of China for at least two hundred years prior to him.
Way back in ancient times scribing was mainly on some form of bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were known as Ji then. However, the great price of silk and bamboo being heavy, these materials were not convenient. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using bark from trees, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he made a report to the emperor with regard to the process of paper manufacture and was endowed with high praise for his ability. Since those days paper has been utilized universally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether the above title is correct, will likely never be known! But the most important consideration has to be that the discovery was made that if they ground certain compounds derived from plant matter in to a paste, evacuate unwanted substances, put the paste in water, filter it out onto textile sheets and allow it to dry. When it dried, it compacted into a firm, resilient sheet that was extremely light, and provided that it did not get damp or wet, proved astonishingly firm.
This the most simple of papermaking techniques is even now still being used in exactly the same way in and around Nepal and Tibet, the very first regions to learn the technolgies from South East Asia. A basic frame has a cloth made from cotton stretched over a single side, watery mash is emptied into the far end and moved around until it is smooth. It is then left hanging in order for it to enable the liquid to drain out of it and the pulp to dry in to a sheet of paper which may be peeled off.
By and by an extremely clever individual realized that constructing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is removable over it, would allow the process to be accelerated fantastically. Rather than tying up one mold for each sheet of parchment, consequently severely limiting the number of sheets that are able to be made at the same time, a stack of sieved mush could be built up a layer at a time, with merely a length of cotton thread between them in order to help with later separation. The stack would then be squeezed slightly, and every sheet of mache moved to a dry board.