First people their records engraved into stone, wood and bone. In the old day’s Mesopotamia [Babylonia] they used enough suitable clay, which they used as the writing material. They were putting records into clay’s book with the help of so called cuneiforms. The written plates were burning out in a fire [thanks it they were saved till today].

There is the fragment of tablet with cuneiforms [the epos about Gilgames] from the half of 7^th century before our age.

But the tablets were heavy and there was not been put much on them. In addition the suitable clay was not at disposal everywhere. Contrary it there was growing papyrus plentifully [it was ” related ” to room’s sachor”] in Egypt and on the banks of the river Nile. They divided its stalk into pieces, put out the pith and cut it on the thin strips. They put these strips alongside each other in two layers; they crossed them on themselves, squeezed and smoothed them down. After it they stuck these sheets together until they created scrolls several meters long.

Papyrový svitek s Homérovou Iliadou
(převzato z http://www.greece.org/alexandria/library/library7.htm)

But papyrus has not been grown everywhere. In the town Pergamon in The Small Asia inhabitants dressed the skin from lambs, calves, sheep, goats or donkeys this way that the thin membrane was produced from it. They rubbed this membrane over with the white paint, which was melting in oil, than they smoothed it and shined out it. They named this writing material Pergamen in honor of their town.

The pergamen was expensive however. Wasn’t there been possibility to write on anything else?

 Yes, there was. The Chinese ministry of plowing Ts`ai Lun introduced it according to historical records and he announced it his Emperor in the 105^th year. This material was named paper [but recently archeological researches prove that it was known some 2000 years before].

The original Chinese paper was produced from hemp. It let soaked by water and after it they crushed it with mallets. They rinsed out this dope from the plant’s fibers, added starch and white paint and they poured this dope material on the nets from the rough cloth in the bamboo frames. They were shaking this dope material and they let it cool off partially. Then they put away the sheets of paper and parched them out on the smooth worm wall. The production became more quickly, when they though out more smooth material for the nets, from which it was possible to take out the sheet immediately after dropping down water.

 In the sixth century the production of paper moved from China to Korea. Except hemp they used so mulberry, bamboo, stalks from rice and seaweeds.

 The Korean monk Don – cho, met according the tradition, in 610 The Japanese Emperor’s palace with the production of paper. The Japanese started to use paper only for the clerk’s documents first. Only with spreading of Buddhism the using of paper was extending.

Paper also got to Tibet from China, where it replaced the traditional writing material – palm leaves. In the western direction paper traveled from China to The middle of Asia and Persia, from where merchants imported it to India. In the 8^th century paper got to Baghdad, in 10th century to Damask, Egypt and Morocco. The original hemp was replaced by flax.

 Even if in that time paper was appeared in here and there in Europe its production started in Spain and Italia only in 12^th century. It was refused by the Christian’s world from the ideological reasons [!] and even all clerk’s documents wrote on paper were claimed as non – valued with the decree from Fridrich II. The common sense won until 15^th century under the pressure of letter – press.

 Even if the production of paper passed through many changes during centuries, the base of production stayed the same. One from the first important changes was the pressing of paper under the stationer’s press derived from the wine’s press [11th century]. Next the speeding of production was by using of different grinding equipments especially so-called ” holandr” [from it comes this: ” he has been drinking like holandr”, because there is needed 30 – 700 liter water for one kilo of paper]. The Dutch were keeping this their inventions secret for a long row of years [it got to our country only in 1710]. The Important progress were machines for producing paper. The first of them was appeared in 18^th century. ”The ideal” however was the continual producing of paper. The creator of the machine, who managed it in 1804, was Frenchman Nicholas – Louis Robert. He sold that patent for a price 27 4000 franks, but because of the financial difficulties of the merchant he had never anything from his invention. After next its improving Brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier`s met this machinery. In 1807 they constructed the machinery, in which they invested 60 000 pounds and it became a conception [‘fourdrinier’ it was synonym for the machinery for the continual production of paper]. By the mistake on the patent document they didn’t however have anything from invested pounds.

Legendární stroj na kontinuální výrobu papíru - “fourdrinier”
(převzato z http://www.inveresk.co.uk/fourdrin.htm)

Because the producers became increasing there were needed to mark paper some way to be able to recognize its producer. So – called water symbol was created this way. First these were so – called wire water symbols. Fitting the suitable formed wire into the sieve produced them. The wire left its print in the paper, which was thinner in this place. After watching against the light the lighter pattern was appearing. Later it was possible to produce water symbols, which had the continual passes between lighter and darker places. This was produced this way that they created matrices according to the wax model [a traction and scramble] and the metal network was formed under the press between them into the needed relief and this relief was fitted on the net after it. This network relief made this that the thickness of the paper vacillated in this place from minimum to maximum. There were appeared the picture with continual passes between light and dark areas during a view against the light.

 The sorts of paper are several thousand. Paper is produced from fiber raw material like is for example cellulose, semi – cellulose, wooden material or during a production some demanding kinds of paper [for cigarettes, bank notes`, filter’s paper] it is from a rag material. It is not a problem to produce a strip of paper, which is wide 2 – 9 meters with the speed 2000 – 1500 mm/ min [this is till 150 000 t yearly].

 There is also produced except ” new” paper the paper, which is produced by recycling. Its share on the production of paper has been growing all time, in The USA were produced more recycled paper than this from the ” new” raw material first in our history. The recycling is not so simply, how it could seem on the first view. There is however the starting demand to sorting of paper in each case, which our Czech ‘ small salvages” [if they take paper] are not able to ensure [not even this place market did not manage all things, how some economists supposed in a naďve way]. For example the paper from newspaper is mostly used for rayon paper and mill – board, old magazines and again for the newspaper’s paper. Paper can be recycled 5 – 8 times.