How Silk Is Made?

"Wild silks" are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm and cannot be artificially cultivated. A variety of wild silks have been known and used in China, South Asia, and Europe since early times, but the scale of production was always far smaller than that of cultivated silks. They differ from the domesticated varieties in color and texture, and cocoons gathered in the wild usually have been damaged by the emerging moth before the cocoons are gathered, so the silk thread that makes up the cocoon has been torn into shorter lengths.

Commercially reared silkworm pupae are killed by dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge, or by piercing them with a needle, allowing the whole cocoon to be unraveled as one continuous thread. This permits a much stronger cloth to be woven from the silk. Wild silks also tend to be more difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm.

Silk fabric was first developed in ancient China, possibly as early as 6000 BC and definitely by 3000 BC. Legend gives credit to a Chinese empress, Xi Ling-Shi (Hsi-Ling-Shih, Lei-tzu). Silks were originally reserved for the Kings of China for their own use and gifts to others, but spread gradually through Chinese culture both geographically and socially, and then to many regions of Asia. Silk became an important trading item especially for early chinese travellers.

Silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants because of its texture and luster. Silk was in great demand, and became a staple of pre-industrial international trade. In July of 2007, archeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk textiles in a tomb in Jiangxi province, are dated to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, roughly 2,500 years ago.

Although historians have suspected a long history of a formative textile industry in ancient China, this find of silk textiles employing "complicated techniques" of weaving and dyeing provides direct and concrete evidence for silks dating before the Mawangdui - discovery and other silks dating to the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD).

* adapted from wikipedia

Cheers,

Mr Syed