The origins of true paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually fifty centuries ago, developed a style of pictographic writing. They too had been utilizing various things to write on, most commonly lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and possibly the barkcloth they utilized for other reasons derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was made use of as well.
Legend points to the fact that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a member of the government going by the name of Tsai Lung, created paper, although it seems from archaeological finds that it was actually around in China for probably two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
Back during ancient times scribing was mainly on some derivative of bamboo or occasionally on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nevertheless silk was expensive and bamboo being weighty, these materials were not convenient. Around then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using bark from trees, rags, hemp, and fish nets. In 105AD he submitted a report to the emperor regarding the production of paper and got many accolades for his ideas. Consequently, since then paper has been availed of all over the world and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above historical tag is relevant or not, will very likely not ever be known! Nonetheless the important thing must be that it was discovered that if they pounded particular substances derived from plants into a mache, expel impure materials, place the mache in water, sieve it out onto fabric sheets and allow it to dry. After drying, it compacted into a hard, tenacious sheet that was astonishingly light, and providing it was not allowed to get wet, proved incredibly robust.
This the most simple of papermaking technologies is still being used in precisely the same way within Tibet and Nepal, the first areas to learn the craft from South East Asia. A simple frame makes use of a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, watery paste is put in to the far side and spread about until it is smooth. It is then left suspended somewhere to enable the liquid to drain and the pulp to dry into a sheet of paper which may be peeled off.
As time went by an extremely talented individual figured that making a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a fine bamboo mat that is removable over this, would let the procedure to be quickened enormously. Instead of using one mould for each paper sheet, consequently severely restricting the number of sheets that may be manufactured at the same time, a stack of sieved mash was able to be built up layer upon layer, with merely a piece of cotton thread between them to help with separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed lightly, and every layer of mush transferred to a board to dry.