The history of proper paper began in South East Asia. Similar to the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually 50 centuries ago, invented a kind of writing that used pictures. The Egyptians too had been making use of various types of things to write on, notably pieces of bamboo and processed silk and possibly the barkcloth they made for other uses derived from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of too.
History tells us that in 105AD a member of the government going by the name of Tsai Lung, developed usable paper, although it appears from archaeological digs that in fact it was being used in what is now the People's Republic of China for more than likely two centuries prior to him.
Way back in ancient times scribing was generally done on some derivative of bamboo or on strips of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. Nevertheless silk was expensive and bamboo being too heavy, these two materials were inconvenient. Around then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing tree bark, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he put an idea to the emperor with regard to the process of making paper and received high praise for his thoughts. Consequently, from that time paper has been in use every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this historical reference is Tsai's entitlement, will probably not ever be known! But what is important has to be that the discovery was made that they could pound some substances taken from plant material in to a mush, remove impurities, float the mush in liquid, sieve it onto textile sheets and give it time to dry out. When it dried, it consolidated into a hard, dense sheet that was exceedingly light, and as long as it was not allowed to come into contact with water, proved extremely robust.
This simplest of paper making techniques is still being used in exactly the same way within Tibet and Nepal, the initial countries to make use of the techniques from China. A simple frame has a cloth manufactured from cotton pulled and held over one side, very watery mash is put into the other end and moved around until it is level. Then it is left that will allow the water to drain out of it and the mache to dry into a paper sheet which can be removed by stripping off.
At some point in time a developer with great skills came to the conclusion that building a frame with ribs and putting a fine removable bamboo mat across this, would enable the paper-making process to be accelerated greatly. Rather than using a single mould for every sheet of parchment, severely restricting the amount of sheets that can be made at one time, a stack of sieved pulp could be built up layer upon layer, with just a length of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed lightly, and each sheet of grume moved to a dry board.