The birth of the paper has made a profound change in human society. We can say that paper has become the material basis of everything that is created by the human mind. Meanwhile, the history and methods of obtaining paper are not quite common and are not simple. Aristotle and Plutarch inform that laws of Dragon (621 B.C.) and Solon (594 B.C.) in Athens have been written down on wooden and stone prisms. Titus Livius points out that the contract concluded by Consul Slurius Cassius in 493 BC was fixed on the bronze column, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions the bronze stele in the temple of Diana on the Aventine with the record of the contract of King Servius Tullius, concluded with Latin cities. The Laws of 12 Tables were engraved on bronze boards.
The history of paper began a long time ago and has a fascinating development.
After the invention of writing, people tried to invent a lighter medium for text than papyrus or parchment, as well as lighter and cheaper to produce. But it took more than 3000 years to invent the paper!Paper was invented around 100 BC in China. In 105 AD, under the patronage of the Han dynasty, the government official Qai Lung was the first to establish a full-fledged paper industry.The recipe for making paper Qai Moon was as follows. He mixed finely sliced mulberry bark and hemp rag with water, squeezing it all into a strip, then squeezing the water and letting the paper dry in the sun. It is possible that the idea of making paper in this way was developed from the idea of mulberry bark, which was very common in China.The paper on the technology of manufacturing of Cai Luna has received huge popularity across all China. The development of paper technology also made it possible to take the next step for the Buddhist religion. By 650 AD, Buddhist monks had begun to use paper to print prayers, making religion even more popular.
But the invention of paper in China has not yet meant its mass distribution throughout the world.
It took another thousand years before the paper was used throughout Eurasia. By the year 400, paper production had begun in India, and in the 600s, the paper had been exported to Korea and Japan. With the expansion of the Abbasid Caliphate and the inclusion of Pakistan in it, the paper appeared in the Caliphate, spreading to the entire vast empire.For Silk Road traders, the paper had a huge advantage, as it could absorb ink, which made it difficult to counterfeit it. At first, traders purchased paper from China, Central Asia, and India, but by 800, their Islamic producers had emerged.
When the newspaper reached West Asia, people started making books out of it, not scrolls, which were popular in China and India. The idea of inventing books spread to the East and about 1000 people were making books in China and India. For the transition to the book format, there was a manual set using movable letters.
But Europeans still used parchment or bought paper at a high price from Egypt, but soon this changed. By 1250 A.D. the Egyptian technology of paper manufacturing has reached Italy and Italians have so well mastered this technology that has managed to make the variant of a qualitative paper and to sell it on all Europe.
Then the plague became cataclysm which has destroyed the paper industry of Egypt. In 1338, French monks also began to produce their papers. Europeans guessed to use water wheels (which disrupted salmon spawning) to feed their factories, which made their paper even cheaper. By 1350, Europeans were already selling paper themselves (along with other things like sugar and sewing thimbles) to people in North Africa and West Asia.By 1411 almost a thousand and a half years after the paper was invented people in Germany had set up their rag paper. Once the Germans learned how to make paper, they became more interested in Chinese printing technology, and in 1453 Johann Gutenberg produced the first printed Bible.It is worth noting that 15th-century paper is still much more expensive than modern paper made of wood with chemicals.By this time, Aztecs from America had also invented paper but did so on their own. Their paper was made of vegetable agar paper and they also used it to make books.
Paper applications in China were growing. The Chinese used kite paper (650), playing cards (800), folding fans (1100), and in 1300 the Chinese invented toilet paper!