Paper is said to have been invented in 105ad by a eunuch named Cai Lun, a civil servant in Luoyang, China. Cai used bark from mulberry trees and plant fibre, pounded into pulp, then dried and matted into sheets. It was cheap, portable and printable; light, absorbent and strong. Within a couple of hundred years, paper had taken over from bamboo and silk in China to carry the written word.
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