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Sericulture — silk production from the Bombyx mori silkworm — Chinese Neolithic artisans

~2700 BC · Transmission: Silenced

MaterialsMethodChinese

Sericulture is the process of raising the silkworm (Bombyx mori), harvesting cocoons, reeling the continuous thread (up to 1,500 meters per cocoon), and weaving silk cloth. China maintained a monopoly on this knowledge under penalty of death for approximately three thousand years: it exported the cloth but concealed the production method. Silk reached Persia and Rome via the Silk Road as a luxury item without recipients knowing its biological origin; the Roman historian Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) believed it was 'combed from the leaves of trees'. The secret reached Byzantium around 552 AD when, according to Procopius, Nestorian monks smuggled silkworm eggs hidden in hollow canes from China or Central Asia, in one of the best-documented cases of industrial espionage in ancient history. China's monopoly on silk production is the longest documented period of industrial property protection in history.

InstitutionArtisanal production and later Chinese state manufacture — Shang, Zhou, Han dynasties

Historical regionChina (Yellow River valley and Yangtze basin; later expansion throughout Asia)

Primary sourceKuhn, D., 'Silk Weaving in Ancient China: From Geometric Figures to Patterns of Pictorial Likeness', Chinese Science 12, 1995; Li, C. et al., 'The earliest evidence of silk in the Yellow River basin', Quaternary International 521, 2019

Secondary sourceBritannica — britannica.com/topic/silk; Procopius, De Bellis VIII.17 (on the introduction to Byzantium, c. 553 AD); Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia XI.26

Original languageclassical Chinese / Greek (Procopius) / Latin (Pliny)

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