The story of true paper began in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually five thousand years in the past, created a type of writing that used images. The Egyptians too had been using several types of things to write upon, most notably strips of bamboo and woven silk and possibly the barkcloth they used for other uses from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of too.
History points to the fact that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker going by the name of Tsai Lung, developed papyrus, although it seems from archaeological finds that actually it was in existence in South East Asia for at least two centuries prior to him.
In ancient times setting down words or pictograms was usually on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on pieces of silk, which were called Ji in those days. But the prohibitive cost of silk and bamboo being weighty, these materials were not convenient. About this time Tsai Lun thought of making use of bark, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105AD he made a report to the emperor on the process of paper manufacture and got high accolade for his thoughts. From that time paper has been used everywhere and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If the above title is Marquis Tsai's entitlement or not, will very likely never be known! Nevertheless the major consideration must be that they discovered that if they ground some compounds derived from plant matter into a mache, take away spume, put the mache in water, sieve it out onto cloth sheets and allow it to dry. After drying, it conglomerated into a firm, resilient sheet that was remarkably light, and as long as it did not get wet, proved particularly robust.
This most simple of paper making techniques is still practised in exactly the same way in and around Nepal and Tibet, the first regions to take the technolgies from China. A simple frame has a cotton cloth made to stretch over a side, very watery mush is put in to the other end and spread around until it has become even. It is then left hanging so that it will enable the liquid to drain and the paste to dry in to a paper sheet which may be stripped off.
At some point in time a developer with great skills worked out that manufacturing a frame with ribs and putting in place a delicate bamboo mat that is replaceable across this, would allow the paper-making process to be accelerated fantastically. Rather than tying up one mould for each parchment sheet, consequently severely limiting the number of sheets that could be made at the same time, a stack of sieved mash could be built up layer upon layer, with only a strip of cotton thread between them to enable later separation. The stack would then be pressed very gently, and every layer of pulp shifted to a board to dry.