The history of genuine paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost 50 centuries in the past, created a style of writing that used pictures. The Egyptians too had been utilizing several types of things to write upon, most commonly lengths of bamboo and processed silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they utilized for other reasons from the Paper. Mulberry was ased too.
Historical documentation tells us that in 105 years after the birth of Christ an official by the name of Tsai Lung, developed usable paper, though it is clear from archaeological discoveries that in fact it was in existence in South East Asia for more than likely two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
Back during times gone by setting down words was mainly done on some derivative of bamboo or occasionally on pieces of silk, which were called Ji in those days. Nevertheless the prohibitive cost of silk and bamboo being too weighty, these two materials were not convenient. Around then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark from trees, hemp, fish nets, and rags. In 105AD he submitted a report to the emperor about the process of paper making and received many accolades for his inventions. Consequently, since then paper has been in use every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed this title is deserved or not, will very likely not ever be known! Nonetheless the important thing must be that the discovery was made that they could grind certain substances taken from plant matter in to a paste, extract impure substances, put the paste in liquid, screen it onto fabric sheets allowing it to dry. When it dried, it compressed into a hard, tough sheet that was decidedly light, and provided that it was not allowed to come into contact with water, turned out to be really dense.
This easiest of papermaking techniques is still being used in precisely a similar way around Nepal and Tibet, the very first countries to take the techniques from China. A basic frame makes use of a cotton cloth stretched over a single side, thin pulp is poured into the other side and moved around until it is even. Then it is left hanging somewhere to let the water to drain out of it and the grume to dry into a sheet of parchment which may be removed by stripping off.
It eventually came to pass that an extremely talented developer figured that building a frame with ribbing and placing a fine removable bamboo mat over it, would enable the procedure to be quickened greatly. Rather than using one mold for each paper sheet, consequently severely restricting the number of sheets that are able to be made at one time, a stack of sieved mash was able to be built up a layer at a time, with just a length of cotton thread between them in order to enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed lightly, and every layer of mush shifted to a place to dry.