History of Silk
Silkworms
Silk cocoons
Traders probably began to bring silk from East Asia to West Asia around
2000 BC. By the time of the Roman
and Parthian Empires,
silk was very popular in West Asia and around the Mediterranean and
a lot of silk was being imported. Because it had to come from so far
away, silk was very very expensive.
Ordinary people could not afford to wear silk. But everyone wanted to
wear silk. It was very pretty, smooth and shiny and soft, and comfortable
to wear. Also it was cooler in the summertime than wool
or linen.
Around 600 AD, some Christian monks who had gone to China managed to smuggle out two baby mulberry trees and some silkworms under their tunics, and brought them back to West Asia. Soon these silkworms were making silk in Syria, and silk became a lot cheaper than it had been before.
When the Islamic Empire took over Syria less than a hundred years later, it also took over the silk business. Because of this, silk was generally much cheaper and more available in the Islamic Empire than it was in medieval Europe.
To find out more about silk, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Silk, by Claire Llewellyn (2002). For kids.
Eyewitness: Costume, by L. Rowland-Warne (2000). For kids, but mainly European clothing, from earliest times to modern.
World Textiles: A Concise History, by Mary Schoeser (2003). For adults.
Chinese Silk: A Cultural History, by Shelagh Vainker (2004).
