The history of true paper started in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually 5,000 years in the past, invented a kind of writing that used pictures. The Egyptians also had been using various things to write on, most notably lengths of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they were using for other purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105AD an official by the name of Tsai Lung, created usable paper, although it seems from finds by archaeologists that it was in fact around in China for at least two hundred years before him.
Back during olden times scribing was usually done on bamboo or occasionally on strips of silk, which were called Ji in those days. But the cost of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these materials were not of great use. Then Tsai Lun thought of making use of bark, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he delivered a report to the emperor on the production of paper and got high accolade for his ability. Consequently, from that period paper has been availed of in almost every place on earth and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether the above historical tag is deserved or not, will likely never be uncovered! Nonetheless the most important factor must be that they found that if they pounded some compounds derived from plants in to a paste, eliminate unwanted materials, place the paste in water, filter it onto fabric sheets and allow it to dry. After drying, it compressed into a firm, tenacious sheet that turned out to be extremely light, and as long as it was not allowed to get damp or wet, proved exceedingly resilient.
This most straightforward of paper making technologies is even now in use in precisely the same way around Nepal and Tibet, the first regions to take the technolgies from South East Asia. A simple frame makes use of a cloth made from cotton pulled and held over a single side, diluted mash is emptied into the other side and moved around until it is level. Then it is left hanging somewhere to allow the liquid to drain out of it and the pulp to dry into a parchment sheet which can be removed.
By and by an extremely talented developer figured that building a frame with ribbing and placing a fine replaceable bamboo mat across it, would let the paper-making process to be quickened to a great degree. Instead of utilizing a single mould for every sheet of paper, consequently severely limiting the number of sheets that could be manufactured at one time, a stack of sieved mush could be built up layer upon layer, with only a piece of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed very slightly, and each sheet of mache moved to a dry place.