caption death_date death_place birth_place castration_date birth_date image article_title castration_place
an the patron of paper making 18th-century qing dynasty print depicting cai lun as 121 a.d. han palace -lrb- luoyang -rrb- guiyang -lrb- today leiyang -rrb- , china 75 a.d. 50 a.d. cai-lun . jpg cai lun
 han impieral castration court
cai lun

cai lun -lrb- -rrb- -lrb- ca. 50 ad -- 121 -rrb- , courtesy name jingzhong -lrb- 敬仲 -rrb- , was a han dynasty chinese eunuch and official .
he is traditionally regarded as the inventor of paper and the papermaking process , in forms recognizable in modern times as paper -lrb- as opposed to papyrus -rrb- .
although early forms of paper had existed in china since the 2nd century bc , he was responsible for the first significant improvement and standardization of paper-making by adding essential new materials into its composition .
