<P> Archaeological evidence of papermaking predates the traditional attribution given to Cai Lun, an imperial eunuch official of the Han dynasty (202 BC - AD 220), thus the exact date or inventor of paper cannot be deduced . The earliest extant paper fragment was unearthed at Fangmatan in Gansu province, and was likely part of a map, dated to 179 - 141 BC . Fragments of paper have also been found at Dunhuang dated to 65 BC and at Yumen pass, dated to 8 BC . </P> <P> "Cai Lun's" invention, recorded hundreds of years after it took place, is dated to 105 AD . The innovation is a type of paper made of mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishing nets, old rags, and hemp waste which reduced the cost of paper production, which prior to this, and later, in the West, depended solely on rags . </P> <P> During the Shang (1600--1050 BC) and Zhou (1050 - 256 BC) dynasties of ancient China, documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo (on tablets or on bamboo strips sewn and rolled together into scrolls), making them very heavy, awkward, and hard to transport . The light material of silk was sometimes used as a recording medium, but was normally too expensive to consider . The Han dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun (ca . 50--121) is credited as the inventor of a method of papermaking (inspired by wasps and bees) using rags and other plant fibers in 105 CE . However, the discovery of specimens bearing written Chinese characters in 2006 at Fangmatan in north - east China's Gansu Province suggests that paper was in use by the ancient Chinese military more than 100 years before Cai, in 8 BC, and possibly much earlier as the map fragment found at the Fangmatan tomb site dates from the early 2nd century BC . It therefore would appear that "Cai Lun's contribution was to improve this skill systematically and scientifically, fix a recipe for papermaking". </P> <P> The record in the Twenty - Four Histories says </P>

What was paper made of in ancient china