H i s t o r y   o f   S i l k

Ilt is very hard to say exactly when silk was discovered, but its use goes back at least 4,500 years. Legend has it that the Chinese princess Xi Ling Shi was the first to reel a silk yarn from a cocoon which had fallen into her cup of tea. What is certain is that the Chinese, through careful observation and research, managed to domesticate the silkworm, Bombyx mori, an insect which in its present form does not exist in nature.

When the secret of silk production was discovered, the Chinese guarded it so jealously that any leak of information about the process was punishable by death. In the next chapter we shall see how Byzantium learned the secret some 3,000 years later and how silk reached the west.

As early as the 12th. Century B.C., silk was mentioned in some of the earliest-known texts of the Chinese language. At one time silk was so widely produced in China that it was cheaper than hemp and its use was not confined simply to clothing. It was also used for bow-strings, fishing-lines, padding for winter clothing and for manufacturing waterproof vessels for transporting liquids. However it was in the form of a luxury fabric that silk was first used in the west and up to this day silk has always had an image of luxury. The ancient silk roads with their long caravans were the means by which silk began to penetrate western countries, before sericulture (silk production) was introduced in the wake of Arab ascendancy in the Middle East, North Africa and Spain

China’s monopoly of silk production was gradually eroded as other countries became more and more self-sufficient in raw materials in general while internal strife weakened the organisation of China’s own silk production.

By the late 19th. Century Japan had made enormous strides in the control of diseases of the silkworm, in reeling and inspection and was beginning to export large quantities of raw silk to the United States and Europe whike China was entering the most difficult period of her recent history. With the slow but sure decline of western sericulture Japan’s position became even more dominant and in 1923 Yokohama had become the home of the world’s largest silk warehouse. The situation today is radically different. The rapid industrialisation of Japan has led to a corresponding decline of her sericulture. China has made enormous efforts to catch up and her raw-silk production today (1999) is over 50,000 tonnes, or 70% of the world total.

In a sense the wheel has come full circle, and China is once again the world’s foremost producer and exporter of raw silk. More than that, China exports large quantities of silk fabric (grey and finished) as well as silk garments and accessories.