'The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast.' quote from -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus
I was stomped that it was only first found in 2012-2013, this simply cannot be possible right? It was such a widely used thing so it must have been known earlier, or am i totally misreading this and are they trying to say that that was the time they first found very old papyrus? I am so confused
You've misread the statement on the wikipedia page, it's not saying this was the 'earliest' that Papyrus was discovered, i.e. the first time we found out about it. It's saying that this is the earliest (i.e. oldest, most distant in time) Papyrus that's been found.
We've found plenty of papyrus for centuries. This particular one is dated to c. 2560–2550 BCE, the earliest example of papyrus found (so far).