Discovery of Making Paper

The discovery of writing by the Sumerians has brought with it the the inevitable innovations to the writing materials and tools used during their time.

As for the writing pad, the Sumerians used wet tablets of clay and used reed pens with wedge-shaped tip for writing the earliest form of script called cuneiform which means “wedge shape”. At almost the same time, writing began to be developed and used by the Egyptians using a different script forms called hieroglyphics derived from the Greek word “hieros” meaning sacred and the word “gluphein” meaning “to carve” or “to write” though of the same concept of being pictographic and still using the wet clay writing pads and stones.

At this early stage of Egyptian development of their written language they discovered the need for a writing medium other than wet clay pads and stones to get away with the difficulties of transcribing, handling and storing such bulky and heavy slabs. This need was solved by the discovery of making papyrus, the forerunner of our most common writing medium called paper. With this development, the former transcribing by carving is now replaced with brushes made from reed and ink from coal, ocher and other coloring materials.

The discovery of making papyrus is the birth of the discovery of making paper. In fact, the word “paper” is derived from the word “papyrus” but the first true paper which is the forerunner to our modern paper is the one made by the Chinese in 100 AD.

Today paper making is a big and important industry and paper is an indispensable material in our modern living for it is that one material commonly used in schools and offices which are very important entities for human development.