Papermaking

Today I would like to know from you what paper means for you?
In our daily life we use nearly everywhere paper: for books, letters, notebooks, packages, to wrap presents, to wrap sweets, for toilet paper, tissues and a lot more.   
But to the people of which century and from which nation do we owe this really helpful invention, the papermaking?


You can believe me if I tell you that the papermaking was created in the capable minds of the ancient Greeks.
Paper is a material of vegetable origin which is today mostly made through recycling of old paper or out of wood.
The progress of paper making through wood starts with the chopping of the wood until only sawdust is left.
The sawdust gets soaked in water and chemically treated. The outcome is a tough paste which gets mixed with substances like glue or bleach. At the end the paste is getting pressed and dried. The wood has become paper.
Now to the question who invented it, the answer is not sure but the procedure was firstly written down by a Greek constructor for instruments and weapons in the year 105 AD with the beginning letters “Τσ.Λ.”.
Even so there are discoveries of paper in Greece from the year 200 BC, so much older than the documentation.
But how was the paper made in this time? To tell you the truth there are some similarities. Paper was mostly made out of hemp or rags. Those were mixed with bark and bast of the mulberry tree. The materials got cleaned and the rest of the fibre was pounded, cooked and soaked. The layers of the made paste got then separated, dried, pressed and smoothed. And paper was made.
And now another question to you, do you believe everything I said is the truth?


Solution:

Everything I said is the truth with just two really severe lies. The happenings did not take place in Greece but in China in the given period and the weapon constructor who wrote everything down was Cai Lun, an eunuch and civil servant under the Chinese emperor He. Cai Lun lived 50AD until 114 AD.

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