Neckties - Silk history from 2700 B.C.to 27 B.C.

Neckties Silk history from 2700 B.C. to 27 B.C.

Neckties' best material is silk. Learning neckties material silk history is to learn how the East opened to the West. Ancient Greek writers believed that Chinese silk grew on trees. It was not true.

2700 B.C. : Chinese Princess Hsi-Ling discovered of silk

The legend said the discovery of silk by the Chinese Princess Hsi-Ling, wife of Emperor Huang-Ti (circa 2700 B.C.). The princess was drinking tea under a mulberry tree one day, when a cocoon fell into her cup. "She started to play with the tiny gray ball, and was amazed to find it contained a delicate thread of extraordinary texture." According to Chinese tradition, sericulture began with Princess Hsi-Ling, but more reliable evidence suggests that systematic silkworm breeding did not truly get underway until several centuries later. Bone carvings from the Shang dynasty (circa 1500-1050 B.C.) bear ideograms denoting "silk thread," "mulberry tree," and "bombyx" (silkworm moth), and cocoon-shaped amulets have been excavated from an ancient Chinese tomb. Bronzes dating from the same period carry the imprint of the fabrics in which they were once wrapped, transferred by oxidation as the material decomposed. These diamond-shaped patterns prove the existence of a technically advanced silk-weaving industry at the time.

China's ancient silk manufacturing process

The first cocoons used for making silk were almost certainly in their natural state. However, the filament from wild cocoons cannot be reeled, since the moth uses an acid secretion to pierce the cocoon, severing the long silk filament into thousands of smaller pieces which then have to be carded and spun like cotton or wool. The stroke of genius that transformed this primitive silk-weaving process-and gave the Chinese their unique monopoly-was the realization that if the silkworm is bred in captivity and the chrysalis killed before it can pierce the cocoon, the long filament will remain unbroken.

The caterpillar of the Bombyx mori, the silkworm moth, feeds only on the leaves of the white mulberry tree. Silkworm breeding therefore depends on a highly developed agricultural system capable of sustaining the large-scale cultivation of mulberry trees. Furthermore, harvesting the fresh leaves is a labor-intensive task. Silkworm breeding is a difficult and risky enterprise; when it was a cottage industry people erected temples to the silk goddess in their homes to ensure a fruitful harvest. The silkworm larvae, called silk seed, are reared on bamboo trays and fed a steady diet of mulberry leaves day and night for about six weeks. As the larvae increase in size, they outgrow their skins and molt. By the fourth molting they will have grown to a little over three inches in length. At this point the silkworms are removed from the feeding trays and placed on tiers of shelves covered with straw or a similar material to which they can attach their cocoons. The larvae settle onto individual stalks, and over the space of four days they completely surround themselves with a viscous secretion emitted in a single strand. This substance, which hardens on contact with the air, is the silk filament.

When the cocoons are completed, the larvae inside begin their metamorphosis into chrysalises. At this stage, the cocoons are sorted. Defective cocoons are carded and spun immediately, and a certain number of perfect cocoons are set aside for reproductive purposes. When the cocoons have been sorted, the final harvest can be estimated. Approximately twelve pounds of cocoons are needed to make one pound of raw silk.
After sorting, the cocoons are placed on new trays in a temperature-controlled room. Just before their final

metamorphosis, the chrysalises are killed by suffocation to prevent them from piercing the cocoons, which are then dipped in a bath of scalding water to soften the filaments and make them easier to reel. Since the filament from a single cocoon would not be strong enough to withstand the rigors of weaving, four to six filaments are twisted together before being run through a tracking eyelet and reeled onto a bamboo rod. On contact with the air, the separate filaments solidify into a single thread. After the raw silk has been reeled, it is wound into separate skeins for dyeing. In ancient China, solid-color and small-patterned silks were woven on pedal looms, and those with more complex patterns on draw-looms. Weavers sold their silks to private customers, reserving their highest-quality cloth for the local tailors who supplied members of the imperial court with magnificent robes.

600 B.C. - A.D. 200 : pioneers of the Silk Road

By the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia (558 B.C.-529 B.C.), the Achaemenids had established themselves as rulers over western Asia. Their empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to India, and encroached ever nearer to China. The Persian Empire erased old borders. Suddenly goods, people, and ideas could travel freely over long distances. The roads built to link this vast empire together proved crucial to the success of Alexander the Great's campaigns of conquest, and they also opened the way for the caravans that, two centuries later, were to carry raw and woven Chinese silks to Antioch and Alexandria.

Like Cyrus before him, Alexander of Macedonia attempted to fuse all the peoples of Central Asia into a single Greco-Persian melting-pot. The major trading centers along the Silk Road came into being as a result of Alexander's insatiable thirst for conquest. New cities sprang up in his wake, and the roads built between them linked distant civilizations.

140 - 87 B.C. : the beginning of the Silk Road

It was by order of the Western Han emperor Wudi (140 B.C.-87 B.C.) that General Zhang Qian was sent as envoy to establish diplomatic contacts between China and "the countries of the West" in order to protect the roads of Central Asia against incessant attacks by Xiongnu nomads. This period marks the beginning of the Silk Road. In A.D. 97, Chinese General Ban Shao won control of the Tarim Basin, securing an overland caravan route extending as far as Khotan. The period of this pax sinica was a golden age for the Sino-Parthian silk trade. The oasis cities dotted along the Silk Road became focal points of contact between the religions and philosophies of East and West, immortalized first in the decorative motifs on Chinese, Persian and, later on, Byzantine silks.

53 B.C. : Chinese silk was first discovered by the Romans

Chinese silk was, it would seem, first discovered by the Romans during the battle of Carrhae in 53 B.C. At a critical point in the battle, the Parthian cavalry unfurled huge multicolored silk banners before the wondering eyes of Crassus's troops. The Romans ordered their spies to find out more about these banners, which they learned came from distant "silk peoples," the Seres, who traded with the Parthians over a mysterious route. However, silk fabric did not become common in Rome until the reign of Augustus (27-14 B.C.), by which time there were so many middlemen between Chang'an and Rome that a pound of silk was literally worth its weight in gold.

Sassanids monopolized the Chinese silk trade

Under the Sassanid dynasty, Persia became the hub of all existing civilizations, old and new. The Persian empire owed its pivotal position between East and West to its location (midway between Byzantium, China, and India), its size, its military power, and its cultural influence. Because the Sassanids controlled so many of the routes over which silk was transported, the empire soon monopolized the Chinese silk trade. The two great contemporary silk centers, Constantinople and Ctesiphon, were described by travelers who visited them as the "eyes of the world."

Neckties Silk history from 27 B.C. to 1204