There are four things that are considered to be the great inventions of ancient China, gunpowder, the compass, the printing press, and paper.

Despite the incredible impact that all four things have had on the world, the greatest cultural and social impact may very

well be paper.

Even in a world awash in digital information, paper can still be found all around us

for a wide variety of uses. Learn more about paper and how it changed the

world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. When humans first developed systems of writing, it necessitated the creation of things to write on.

The first writing services were rocks and cave walls, which were a pretty finite resource. Eventually clay tablets were used,

which was better, but not really by much. They were heavy, cumbersome, and extremely fragile.

About 6,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians developed a substitute for clay tablets called

Popyrus.

Popyrus was an improvement over clay tablets in many ways.

It was lighter, easier to transport, and it wasn't quite as fragile. However,

papyrus wasn't easy to make. It required harvesting thin strips from the

inside of papyrus plants, which were then glued together.

There was a great deal of demand for

papyrus around the Mediterranean world. Demand for papyrus was so

great at one point that the papyrus plant was almost over-harvested to extinction. However, papyrus plant was almost overharvested to extinction.

However, papyrus too had its problems.

For starters, it was glued together and would often fall apart over time.

And second, it became very expensive because production was monopolized by the city of Alexandria.

This led to the development of another writing service, parchment.

Parchment came from the skins of animals, usually sheep and goats.

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