Story of Silk

HISTORY OF SILK
There is a beautiful myth about the discovery of the use of silk as a fibre for fabric production.  It is said that the wife of the mythical yellow emperor, a young girl called Hsi Ling Shi was the first being to reel a silk cocoon and discover the secrets of silk production while she was sipping her green tea, sitting under a mulberry tree.  As she was meditating on her tea, a cocoon from a silk worm fell into her tea cup, and as she pulled at the end of the cocoon to fish it out, the cocoon began to unreel!!  She is commonly credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and the invention of the handloom and silk reeling.  Having said this, recent archeological finds - a small ivory cup carved with a silkworm design are thought to be between 6000 and 7000 years old, and spinning tools, silk thread and fabric fragments from sites along the lower Yangzi River – reveal the origins of sericulture to be even earlier. 

You can see the rich history and significant effect of silk on various cultures throughout the years below:

4,000-5,000 B.C.

Silk artefacts have been discovered along the Yangzi River dating to this period

2,700 B.C.

Hsi Ling Shi is credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and the invention of the handloom and silk reeling.

1070 B.C.

An Egyptian female mummy with silk has been discovered in the village of Deir el Medina near Thebes and the Valley of the Kings, dated 1070 BC, which is probably the earliest evidence of the silk trade

500 B.C.

By the fifth century BC, at least six Chinese provinces were producing silk. Each spring, the empress herself inaugurated the silk-rearing season, for silk production was the work of women all over China. The technique and process of sericulture were guarded secrets and closely controlled by Chinese authorities. Anyone who revealed the secrets or smuggled the silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China would be punished by death.

400 B.C.

From about the fourth century BC, the Greeks and Romans began talking of Seres, the Kingdom of Silk.

200 B.C.

Sericulture reached Korea around 200 BC, when waves of Chinese immigrants arrived there.200 B.C. to 200 A.D.

During the Han Dynasty, silk ceased to be a mere industrial material and became an absolute value in itself. Farmers paid their taxes in grain and silk. Silk began to be used for paying civil servants and rewarding subjects for outstanding services. Values were calculated in lengths of silk as they had been calculated in pounds of gold. Before long it was to become a currency used in trade with foreign countries.  In 139 BC the world's longest trade route was opened stretching from Eastern China to the Mediterranean Sea. It was named the Silk Road after its most valuable commodity.

53 B.C.

Some historians believe the first Romans to set eyes upon the fabulous fabric were the legions of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Governor of Syria. At the fateful battle of Carrhae near the Euphrates River in 53 BC, the soldiers were so startled by the bright silken banners of the Parthian troops that they fled in panic!!

220 A.D.

The Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (AD 218 - 222) wore nothing but silk

300 A.D.

By 300 AD the secret of silk production had reached India and Japan.

380 A.D.

A Roman dignitary, Marcellinus Ammianus reported, "The use of silk which was once confined to the nobility has now spread to all classes without distinction, even to the lowest."

408 A.D.

When Alaric, a Goth, besieged Rome, his price for sparing the city included 5000 pounds of gold, 3000 pounds of pepper, 30,000 pounds of silver and 4000 tunics of silk.

440 A.D.

It is also said that in AD 440, a prince of Khotan ( today's Hetian)--a kingdom on the rim of Taklamakan desert -- courted and won a Chinese princess. The princess smuggled out silkworm eggs by hiding them in her voluminous hairpiece.

550 A.D.

Two Nestorian monks were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to discover the secret of sericulture.  They returned to his court with silkworm eggs hid in their hollow bamboo staves. Under their supervision the eggs hatched into worms, and the worms spun cocoons.  The Byzantine church and state created imperial workshops, monopolizing production and keeping the secret to themselves. This allowed a silk industry to be established in the Middle East.

600 to 700 A.D.

The Arabs conquered the Persians, capturing their magnificent silks in the process, and helped to spread sericulture and silk weaving as they swept victoriously through Africa, Sicily and Spain.

700 to 1000 A.D.

A series of historical migrations, wars and other events such as the Crusades, the formation of the Mongol Empire and Marco Polo's journeys in China led to the development of commercial exchanges between East and West, and to an ever-increasing use of silk around the world

1015 A.D.

Buddhist monks, possibly alarmed by the threat of invasion by a Tibetan people, the Tanguts, sealed more than ten thousand manuscripts and silk paintings, silk banners, and textiles into a room at the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang, a station on the Silk Road in north-west Gansu, which were discovered in the 20th Century.

1200 – 1300 A.D.

During the time of the Second Crusades Italy began silk production with the introduction of 2000 skilled silk weavers from Constantinople, which was the beginnings of sericulture and silk weaving in Europe.

1450 -1466 A.D.

Lyon became a major warehouse for foreign silks, but these imports caused a harmful outflow of capital, and in 1466 Louis XI declared his intention to "introduce the art and craft of making gold and silk fabrics in our city of Lyon".

1536 A.D.

François Ist gave Lyon the monopoly of silk imports and trade, thus effectively creating the Lyon silk industry

1685 A.D.

With the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the French Huguenots, again subject to religious persecution, fled the country in large numbers. Many Huguenots were expert throwsters and weavers, and they contributed in a very large degree to the development of the silk industry in Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland.

1700 – 1800 A.D.

By the 18th century England led Europe in silk manufacturing because of English innovations in the textiles industry.  These innovations included improved silk-weaving looms, power looms and roller printing

1804 A.D.

Jacquard perfected the method of producing figured fabrics, by the use of perforated cards. This was a revolution in weaving techniques and gave a tremendous impetus to the creating of silk industry in Lyon and then in other European countries.

1800 -1900 A.D.

The 19th Century is characterised by two contradictory trends: increased mechanisation and the consequent increase in productivity in the silk industry, on the one hand, and on the other, the beginning of the decline of European sericulture in the last quarter of the century. From 1872, and the opening of the Suez Canal, raw silk imported from Japan became more competitive, thanks also to Japan's progress in reeling techniques. The rapid industrialisation of European silk-producing countries, notably France, led to transfer of agricultural labour to the cities and towns. Diseases that affected the silkworm, although overcome by Pasteur, made silk-rearing a less reliable source of income, and the first man-made fibres were beginning to make inroads into the markets traditionally reserved for silk.

1855 – 1865 A.D.

An epidemic called Pebrine disease, caused by a small parasite, raged through the industry. It was the French scientist Louis Pasteur who discovered that this could be prevented through simple microscopic examination of adult silkmoths. Much research was carried out on silkworms at this time, ultimately setting the stage for a more scientific approach to silk production

The next major turning point was to be the Second World War. Raw-silk supplies from Japan were cut off, and the new synthetic fibres captured many of silk's markets, such as stockings and parachutes. This interruption in silk activity in Europe and the United States sounded the death-knell of European sericulture.

After the war, Japan restored her silk production, with vastly improved reeling, inspection and classification of her raw silk. Japan was to remain the world's biggest producer of raw silk, and practically the only major exporter of raw silk, until the 1970's. Then China, thanks to a remarkable effort of organisation and planning, gradually re-captured her historic position as the world's biggest producer and exporter of raw silk