The first paper known to history was made in or around 3500 BC by the ancient Egyptians. They used strips from papyrus reeds, which they dampened and then made into a criss-cross pattern and pressed into sheets. The word paper that we use today, comes from the word papyrus.
This first papyrus paper was not actually anything like the paper that we use today. The first paper closed to our modern type was invented in China in about AD 705 by the scholar Ts'ai Lun. He was relaxing one warm day, watching a wasp making its nest by chewing up pieces of bamboo, mixing them with its own saliva and working the resulting ball into a flat sheet with its feet. It was then using this sheet to build a wall in its nest.
He copied the wasp's idea and made a paste of bamboo and water, which he spread into a flat sheet to dry in the Sun. His paper was later used by the Arabs in the 8th century and later in Europe.
This first papyrus paper was not actually anything like the paper that we use today. The first paper closed to our modern type was invented in China in about AD 705 by the scholar Ts'ai Lun. He was relaxing one warm day, watching a wasp making its nest by chewing up pieces of bamboo, mixing them with its own saliva and working the resulting ball into a flat sheet with its feet. It was then using this sheet to build a wall in its nest.
He copied the wasp's idea and made a paste of bamboo and water, which he spread into a flat sheet to dry in the Sun. His paper was later used by the Arabs in the 8th century and later in Europe.