A short history of paper

For centuries before paper existed, people recorded information on whatever durable material was available locally. In China, that often meant strips of bamboo bound together with cord, or silk for more valuable or formal documents.

Both materials had serious drawbacks. Bamboo was heavy and bulky, especially for lengthy texts, while silk was prized and expensive, which limited how widely it could be used for everyday writing.

Elsewhere in the ancient world, Egyptians used papyrus, made from the pith of the papyrus plant, while other societies relied on clay tablets or, eventually, parchment made from treated animal skin. None of these is considered true paper by historians, since paper specifically involves pulped plant fiber reformed into sheets, a different manufacturing process entirely.

Clay tablets, used extensively in Mesopotamia, had the advantage of durability, since baked clay could survive for thousands of years, but they were heavy, bulky for lengthy records, and impractical to transport in large numbers. Each of these earlier materials, in its own way, shaped how much information a society could record and how easily that information could travel.

Cai Lun and the Official Account

The traditional account of paper's invention centers on Cai Lun, a court eunuch serving under Emperor He of the Eastern Han dynasty. According to the official history of the Han dynasty, written in the fifth century, Cai Lun developed a method of making paper from tree bark, hemp waste, old rags, and fishing nets.

He reportedly submitted the process to the emperor in 105 CE and received praise for it. The historical account credits him with paper's invention, and later tradition even describes him as having been inspired by watching wasps build nests from chewed wood pulp, though this detail is a later legend rather than a verified fact.

From this point, paper gradually came into wider use across China, supporting administration, learning, and the spread of the written word in ways that bamboo and silk could not match as easily.

Cai Lun's role at court extended beyond papermaking. He also served as director of the manufacture of instruments and weapons, a position that would have given him both the resources and the authority to experiment with new materials and bring a successful process to the emperor's attention.

An Older Origin

Archaeological finds complicate the traditional story. Fragments of paper discovered in a tomb in Gansu province, dating to the early Western Han dynasty around the second century BCE, predate Cai Lun by roughly two centuries.

Further finds from the Xuanquanzhi ruins in Gansu are dated to the reign of Emperor Wu, between 140 and 86 BCE, also well before Cai Lun's lifetime. Some of this early paper appears to have been used for wrapping or packing rather than writing, and one surviving fragment seems to show a rough map rather than text.

Historians now generally treat Cai Lun not as the sole inventor of paper but as the official who refined and standardized an existing technique, then successfully promoted it at the imperial court, which helped it spread far more widely than it otherwise might have.

Paper Travels West

Papermaking technology moved beyond China over the following centuries. It reached Korea by around the sixth century CE, and from there spread to Japan, with papermakers in each region adapting the craft using local fibers such as mulberry bark.

The technique reached the Islamic world by the eighth century, where it gradually replaced papyrus as the preferred writing material. Papermaking centers developed in cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo, and from there the craft moved further west along trade and pilgrimage routes across North Africa.

Paper reached Europe mainly through Muslim-ruled Spain, where the earliest well-documented European paper mill operated at Xàtiva from around the mid-twelfth century. From this foothold in Iberia, papermaking knowledge spread gradually north into Christian Europe over the following century, reaching Italy and France by the thirteenth century, where it initially existed alongside parchment and wax tablets rather than replacing them immediately. Paper mills also later appeared in Italy, notably at Fabriano in the late thirteenth century, where papermakers introduced watermarks and improved pressing techniques that raised the quality of European paper considerably.

One often-repeated account of papermaking's westward transmission toward the Islamic world credits the transfer of the technology to prisoners captured by Islamic forces following the Battle of Talas in 751 CE, some of whom reportedly knew Chinese papermaking techniques. While historians treat the precise details of this story with some caution, it reflects the broader pattern of papermaking knowledge moving along trade and conquest routes connecting China, Central Asia, and the Islamic world, well before it reached Christian Europe through Spain.

Why Paper Mattered

Paper's advantages over parchment and papyrus were practical rather than dramatic. It could be produced from a wider range of raw materials, including rags and plant fiber, making it cheaper and less dependent on specific crops or livestock than its predecessors.

This affordability mattered enormously once printing technology developed in Europe in the 15th century. A cheap and plentiful writing surface was a necessary partner to the printing press, and the spread of paper manufacturing across Europe in the preceding centuries helped make the later printing revolution possible.

Centuries later, further changes came with the 19th-century shift to wood-pulp paper, which reduced costs even further and made paper, and the printed material it carried, more widely available than ever before.

Paper also proved more versatile than its predecessors. Beyond writing and record-keeping, it was adapted for wrapping, packaging, currency, and eventually wallpaper and other household uses, a flexibility that papyrus and parchment never offered to the same degree.