The origins of real paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost five thousand years in the past, brought out a pictographic type of writing. The Egyptians too had been using several types of things to scribe upon, notably strips of bamboo and woven silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they utilized for other reasons from the Paper. Mulberry was also used.
History leads us to believe that in 105AD an official by the name of Tsai Lung, invented papyrus, although it seems from archaeological discoveries that it was in fact in existence in China for probably two centuries before him.
Back during ancient times gone by scribing was generally done on some derivative of bamboo or occasionally on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nevertheless silk being expensive and bamboo being weighty, these two materials were not convenient. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark, hemp, fish nets, and rags. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he put an idea to the emperor about the process of paper manufacture and got much praise for his creativity. Consequently, from those days paper has been utilized everywhere and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed this historical reference is correct or not, will likely not ever be known! Nonetheless the major factor is that they discovered that if they pounded some substances taken from plant material into a grume, take out unwanted substances, float the grume in liquid, screen it onto cloth sheets giving it enough time to dry out. When fully dried, it congealed into a firm, dense sheet that turned out to be very light, and provided that it did not come into contact with water, proved extremely tenacious.
It's a fact that this extremely simple of paper making techniques is even now in use in exactly a similar way around Tibet and Nepal, the first areas to learn the techniques from South East Asia. A basic frame utilizes a cloth manufactured from cotton stretched over one side, diluted mache is put in to the other side and spread about until it is level. Then it is left suspended so that it will let the water to leave it and the paste to dry in to a parchment sheet which may be stripped off.
As time passed an extremely talented developer came to the conclusion that making a frame with ribbing and putting in place a delicate bamboo mat that is removable across it, would enable the paper-making procedure to be quickened incredibly. Instead of using one mould for each sheet of parchment, severely limiting the number of sheets that could be made at the same time, a stack of sieved pulp could be built up layer upon layer, with just a length of cotton thread between them which would facilitate later separation. The stack would then be pressed very lightly, and every layer of mush transferred to a board to dry.