Cai Lun

Cai Lun was a court official of the Eastern Han dynasty of China, born about the year 50 in Guiyang, in modern Hunan. A eunuch who rose to high office in the imperial palace, he is honored across the world for a single gift: he gave humankind usable paper.

Writing surfaces existed before him — silk too costly, bamboo too heavy — but about the year 105 Cai Lun perfected a method of making paper from tree bark, hemp, rags, and old fishing nets, pulped and pressed into thin, cheap, durable sheets. He presented it to the emperor, and it spread.

From China his paper traveled the Silk Road to the Islamic world and at last to Europe, carrying with it the written word — the letters, the ledgers, the scriptures, the books — on which learning and memory depend. Few inventions did more to spread human knowledge.

He died in 121, caught in the palace intrigues of his age. In China he is honored still as the patron of papermaking, his shrine kept at Leiyang. Honored among the Great Ones of every civilization; kept here so the memory is never lost.