Origins of Paper

Starting in 3000 B.C. Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians used Papyrus to write on. Papyrus is made from the inner bark of Mulberry, Fig, and Daphne. Another form of paper used then is Tapa. This was being used in China before western records began. It is made by cooking bast, thinning with a wooden hammer, and then lain in water to make a pulp. A screen mold is used where the pulp is collected, flattened then lain in the sun to dry. Then the paper will peel off the screen.

In AD 105, a technique using rags was invented in China. This is the start of the techniques used today. In AD 610, paper is made similar to that of Tapa, except they beat it and repeatedly soaked it. It added layers for better quality. This technique spread like a wildfire. Arabians had trouble at first because they used mostly rags. They used screens with thin reeds and coated the paper with starch for a great quality of paper, once they refined their technique. Italian paper-makers took what the Arabians did and made it better. They developed the stamping mill, use of water power, molds made of wire mesh, a paper press with slides, drying sheets on ropes, and sizing.

In the 14^th century, Germans started making paper, but it was noted as very difficult at first. The Italians kept quiet about the technique, but in the end paper was being made in Germany. In the 16^th century, mills were being used frequently to generate money. Four people worked at a vat. The vat man who controlled the mold, the couch squirt who cut the sheet on felt, the layman who pressed it and took it off the sheets, and the apprentice who put the material in the vat and provided heat for it. It could take thirteen hours to make 4,500 sheets of paper.

In the 17^th century there was a split in paper-making. Two techniques were then being used. The traditional way of using a hammer to flatten the paper and smoothing by hand. Toward the end of the century the Hollander was indented. It replaced the stamping mills. The 18^th century brought about the paper making machines.