Society Silk

A brief history of Silk

A brief history of silk

According to Chinese history, Silk was discovered 4700 years ago by the wife of Emperor Huang Di, Xi Liu Shi. It is said that she was drinking tea underneath a mulberry tree when a silk cocoon dropped from the tree into her cup. The cocoon unravelled to reveal a single silk thread. At that time, the Bombyx Moth whose larvae are silkworms, was only found in China. That is because the food of the silkworm only eat fresh mulberry leaves and at that time, mulberry trees grew predominantly in East Asia. Silk in China was for a long time only reserved for use in the imperial family and strict rules governed its use including what colours and designs people of certain official rank were allowed to wear. This exclusivity remained in place for around one thousand years and thereafter silk clothing gradually spread into other social classes in China. Silk was not only used in clothing, it was also used in musical instruments, bows, fishing apparatus and even luxury paper. Silk was also given as gifts from the imperial throne to officials and neighbouring states. Silk became such a symbol of China and the elite that the Chinese character for silk even became one of the main radicals (building blocks of characters) used in Chinese writing.

But while China had a monopoly on production of silk if was by no means the only country to embrace the material. Silk was discovered in Egyptian tombs in 1000 BC, and by 400 BC merchants had established a significant trade of silk from China to middle Asia and Europe. The routes of caravans crossing the plains, deserts and mountains from China to middle Asia and Europe is now known as the “silk road”.  Given the long distance silk had to travel to reach markets such as those in the Mediterranean, it was very expensive and popular with the upper classes of society. China controlled it’s exclusive grip on silk production by having the law that anyone caught smuggling any silkworms of their eggs or any part of sericulture technology out of China would be executed. To enforce this, merchants were searched at the Chinese border.

In 300BC a Japanese operation apparently went to China to bring back sericulture (the name given to silk production) and succeeded, bring back silkworm eggs and knowledge of how to cultivate them to produce silk. But China remained the main exporter of silk and likely still is to this day.

It is said that in late 500 AD, men working for Byzantine emperor Justinian disguised themselves as priests and smuggled silkworm eggs out of China by hiding the silkworm eggs in rods of bamboo. This is the legend of how silk production spread into western Asia and Europe. Notable centres of silk manufacturing grew in Italy and France, and Japan also grew into a major exported prior to the Second World War.

China gradually lost its dominance of the market since sericulture leaked from its borders, though it rebounded in the 20th century and is now the largest producer of silk goods in the world.

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