In the prehistoric times of almost 5,000 years ago, silk emerged in the Yellow River valley in China. In the early dynasties the silk trade developed and reach an early peak during the Qing and Han Dynasty. Maidens from the Imperial Place picked the fine leaves from the Mulberry tree, tenderly fed them to silkworms and finally wove fabric out of the silk threads.
The Chinese Emperor wore and used silk to symbolize his royalty and wealth. Sericulture or silk production has a long and colourful history unknown to most people. For centuries the West knew very little about silk and the people who made it. For more than two thousand years the Chinese kept the secret of silk close to themselves.
Chinese legend gives the title Goddess of Silk to Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, wife of the mythical Yellow Emperor, who was said to have ruled China in about 3000 BC. She is credited with the introduction of silkworm rearing and the invention of the loom.
There are many indigenous varieties of wild silk moths found in a number of different countries. The key to understanding the great mystery and magic of silk, and China's domination of its production and promotion, lies with one species: the blind, flightless moth, Bombyx mori. It lays 500 or more eggs in four to six days and dies soon after. The eggs are like pinpoints: one hundred of them weigh only one gram. From one ounce of eggs come about 30,000 worms, which eat a ton of mulberry leaves and produce twelve pounds of raw silk.
The original wild ancestor of this cultivated species is believed to be Bombyx mandarina Moore, a silk moth living on the white mulberry tree and unique to China. The silkworm of this particular moth produces a thread whose filament is smoother, finer and rounder than that of other silk moths. In 221 B.C at the time of Emperor Hanwu, a large quantity of silk was transported west along the now famous Silk Road.
Thousands of years have passed since the appearance of silk and despite the advancement of science and technology, silk still has to be produced inch by inch by the industrious little silkworm.
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