Paper

The word paper comes from the Greek term for the ancient Egyptian writing material called papyrus, which was formed from beaten strips of papyrus plants. Papyrus was produced as early as 3000 BC in Egypt, and sold to ancient Greece and Rome. The establishment of the Library of Alexandria put a drain on the supply of papyrus. As a result, according to the Roman historian Pliny (Natural History records, xiii.21), parchment was invented under the patronage of Eumenes of Pergamum to build his rival library at Pergamum. Outside of Egypt, parchment or vellum, made of processed sheepskin or calfskin, replaced papyrus as the papyrus plant requires subtropical conditions to grow.

Paper is considered to be one of the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China, as the first standard papermaking process was made in China during the early 2nd century. During the Shang (1600 BC-1050 BC) and Zhou (1050 BC-256 BC) dynasties of ancient China, documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo (on tablets or on bamboo strips sewn and rolled together into scrolls), making them very heavy and awkward to transport. The light material of silk was sometimes used, but was normally too expensive to consider. Indeed, most of the above materials were rare and costly. While the Han Dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun is widely regarded to have first invented the modern method of papermaking (inspired from wasps and bees) from wood pulp in 105 AD, the 2006 discovery of specimens bearing written Chinese characters in north-west China's Gansu province suggest that paper was in use by the ancient Chinese military more than 100 years before Cai in 8 BCE. [2] Archeologically however, true paper without writing has been excavated in China dating to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han from the 2nd-century BCE, used for purposes of wrapping or padding protecting for delicate bronze mirrors.[1] It was also used for safety, such as the padding of poisonous 'medicine' as mentioned