The Invention of Paper

Morning Scribes!

So… paper!

Where did it come from?

For that, we gotta go back… 

WAY back!

To Ancient China.

Before paper came around, people wrote on other things…

Things like bones, bamboo tablets, or animal skins.

But there's a problem…

These things kinda sucked.

Why?

Well, the goal of writing is to store information, right?

So, say you’ve got this giant pile of bamboo tablets which has, I don’t know, maybe 2000 words on them.

Not bad.

But today you could fit 2000 words on like 5 pieces of paper…

Which would you rather carry around and store?

The 5 pieces of paper, right.

The information is just stored MUCH more efficiently.

Ok, so back to Ancient China.

You’ve got this guy Cai Lun.

AKA the guy behind paper.

The legend goes like this:

One day, Cai saw a wasp building its nest.

He looked closer and saw that the wasp was chewing up plant fibers and spitting them out to create the walls of the hive.

Then the sun would dry these plant fibers to create a solid structure.

This gave Cai an idea…

He took some bamboo fibers…

(Basically just loads of little strands of bamboo)

Put them in a big pot of hot water… 

And mixed until they were all interwoven together.

He then poured them out onto a woven cloth to drain.

And then waited for it to dry.

And tada… ancient paper!

It was perfect to write on.

Quite durable.

And took up almost no space.

It was a total revolution!

The Chinese kept this paper stuff secret for a while but eventually it was leaked to the rest of the world.

Soon, paper was everywhere!

Stay Cute,
Henry & Dylan 🌈

P.S if you enjoyed this lesson, forward it to a friend.

If you’re that sexy friend, subscribe here.