When and Wear was paper first invented?

Question

In what country and what centery was paper first invented

Answer 1

All these answers are right, except for the idiot who answered first, but none of them are complete. So here you have it.

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

In China, documents were ordinarily written on bone orbamboo, making them very heavy and awkward to transport. Silk was sometimes used, but was normally too expensive to consider. Indeed, most of the above materials were rare and costly. While the Chinese court official Cai Lun is widely regarded to have first described the modern method of papermaking (inspired from wasps and bees) from wood pulp in AD 105, the 2006 discovery of specimens bearing written 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 [1]. Archæologically however, true paper without writing has been excavated in China dating from the 2nd-century BCE.

Paper is considered to be one of the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China. It spread slowly outside of China; other East Asian cultures, even after seeing paper, could not figure out how to make it themselves. Instruction in the manufacturing process was required, and the Chinese were reluctant to share their secrets. The paper was thin and translucent, not like modern western paper, and thus only written on one side. Books were invented in India, of Palm leaves (where we derive the name leaf for a sheet of a book). The technology was first transferred to Korea in 604 and then imported to Japan by a Buddhist priest, Dam Jing (曇徴) from Goguryeo, around 610, where fibres (called bast) from the mulberry tree were used.

After further commercial trading and the defeat of the Chinese in the Battle of Talas, the invention spread to the Middle East, Production was started in Baghdad, where the arabs invented a method to make a thicker sheet of paper. The manufacture had spread to Damascus by the time of the first crusade, but the wars interupted production, and it split into two centers. Ciaro continued with the thicker paper. Iran became the center of the thinner papers, where it was adopted in India The first paper mill in Europe was in Spain, at Xavia (modern Valencia) in 1120. More mills appeared in Fabriano Italy in about the 13th century, as an import from Islamic Spain. They used hemp and linen rags as a source of fiber. The oldest known paper document in the West is the Mozarab Missal of Silos from the 11th century, probably written in the Islamic part of Spain. Paper is recorded as being manufactured in both Italy and Germany by 1400, just about the time when the woodcut printmaking technique was transferred from fabric to paper in the old master print and popular prints.

Some historians speculate that paper was the key element in global cultural advancement. According to this theory, Chinese culture was less developed than the West in ancient times prior to the Han Dynasty because bamboo, while abundant, was a clumsier writing material than papyrus; Chinese culture advanced during the Han Dynasty and preceding centuries due to the invention of paper; and Europe advanced during the Renaissance due to the introduction of paper and the printing press.

In the very small quantities needed for popular prints , paper was affordable by the European urban working class and many peasants even in the 1400s, but books remained expensive until the nineteenth century. However even poor families could often afford a few by the 1700s in England, if they so chose.

Paper remained relatively expensive, at least in book-sized quantities, through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could make paper with fibres from wood pulp. Although older machines predated it, the Fourdrinier paper making machine became the basis for most modern papermaking. Together with the invention of the practical fountain pen and the mass produced pencil of the same period, and in conjunction with the advent of the steam driven rotary printing press, wood based paper caused a major transformation of the 19th century economy and society in industrialized countries. With the introduction of cheaper paper, schoolbooks, fiction, non-fiction, and newspapers became gradually available to all the members of an industrial society by 1900. Cheap wood based paper also meant that keeping personal diaries or writing letters became universal. The clerk, or writer, ceased to be a high-status job, and by 1850 had nearly become an office worker or white-collar worker , which transformation can be considered as a part of the industrial revolution.

Unfortunately, the original wood-based paper was more acidic and more prone to disintegrate over time, through processes known as slow fires. Documents written on more expensive rag paper were more stable. The majority of modern book publishers now use acid-free paper.

Hope that helped

Answer 2

Ancient Egypt, as Papyrus.

Answer 3

It was fist invented in China, but the century is hard to determine, probably 3000 b.C.

Answer 4

Its true MythBuster did a episode on it was invented in the Tang Dynasty

Answer 5

Mlaheji is right, Egypt and printing was first on China.

Answer 6

I'm gonna guess Egypt

Answer 7

up yo moms @s$ in 1954