Great Inventions part 3

Great Inventions part 3
"Four Great Inventions" (part 2/2)

Papermaking:
Paper was used already in about 2nd century BC for wrapping and padding, but paper mass production was invented in about 100 AD. First sheets of paper were made of mulberry and other bast fibres, fishnets, old rugs and hemp waste. Using paper as writing medium was widespread by 3rd century AD. By 6th century paper in China paper sheets begun to be used as a toilet paper and one century later it was folded and sewn to create bags for tea. The paper currency was first developed in 7th century but it wasn't really used until 11th century.

Printing:
Woodblock printing was first found in China is about 220 AD and futher advanced by 11th century. In China was also invented movable type of printing but because of the number of chinese characters it wasn't that popular. Creating a book by using printing method was long and tedious work due to the need to assemble thousands of individual characters but if the same book must have been be copied thousand times it became eventually more efficient than rewriting.

According to the comment below the first part of "Four Great Inventions" these inventions are so important to China because none of them were reinvented in Europe but they were brought there from China. Of course they were very much improved in Europe (like modern dry compass and western printing press).