The origins of real paper started in China. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, nearly 5,000 years in the past, created a pictographic form of writing. The Egyptians too had been using many different objects to scribe upon, usually lengths of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they made for other unconnected purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was used as well.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker called Tsai Lung, developed papyrus, although it appears from archaeological discoveries that it was in fact being worked with in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries before Tsai Lung.
Back during olden times writing was usually on some form of bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were then called ji. Nevertheless the soaring cost of silk and bamboo being heavy, these materials were inconvenient. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of the bark from trees, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105AD he delivered a report to the emperor with regard to the process of paper manufacture and was endowed with many accolades for his thoughts. Consequently, from those distant days paper has been in use every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above title is correct or not, will probably never be known! Nonetheless the most important thing must be that they found that if they pounded certain substances derived from plant material into a grume, bstract impure materials, put the grume in liquid, sieve it out onto cloth sheets and give it time to dry out. When it dried, it dried into a firm, tough sheet that turned out to be astonishingly light, and providing it did not get wet, proved remarkably robust.
This simplest of papermaking technologies is even now still being used in precisely a similar way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the first areas to take the techniques from what is now the People's Republic of China. A basic frame makes use of a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, diluted paste is emptied in to the opposite end and spread around until it has become even. Then it is left hanging so that it will allow the water to drain out of it and the mash to dry into a parchment sheet which can be stripped off.
As time passed a very talented individual came to realize that making a frame with ribbing and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is removable over it, would enable the paper-making process to be quickened to a much greater degree. Rather than using a single mold for every sheet of paper, therefore severely restricting the amount of sheets that may be produced at one time, a stack of sieved mache was able to be built up layer upon layer, with only a piece of cotton thread between them in order to help with later separation. The stack would then be pressed very slightly, and each layer of pulp transferred to a dry board.