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The use of silk was known to the ancients; history records the Chinese as the first people who knew how to raise and manufacture it. About 2600 BCE, silk culture, sponsored by the wife of the Emperor, was begun in China. While Chinese legend gives the title Goddess of Silk to Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, it is doubtful her or her husband is anything beyond legend. Later the mulberry tree was cultivated to provide food for the silkworm. Silk ribbons and fragments of silk cloth have been found in Qianshanyang in Zhejiang province which date to about 3000 BCE. Other indications of silk date from as much as 4000 BCE. A mummy in Egypt has been recovered with silk, dating to c.1070 BCE, which indicates evidence of the silk trade.
The secret of the cultivation of these worms and of the manufacture of their fibres into cloth was carefully guarded for about 2000 years. It was a capital crime to export live silk worms out of China in their effort to protect the secret of the incredible silk cloth. Chinese immigrants brought the knowledge of silk culture to Korea around 200 BCE. By 300 CE the culture of silk was also known in Asia. Finally, silkworms were smuggled out of China to Greece, and sericulture became a backyard industry in many areas, especially Turkey, along the southern shore. According to one story, two Nestorian monks concealed some silk cocoons in their staffs in 550 CE. They took the cocoons to Greece; so, in the sixth or seventh century CE, southern Europe was developing a silk industry. Greece, Italy, and Turkey were the first countries to try this new culture, but the secret spread to Spain, Portugal, and France |
