page_title: History of silk
section_title: Myths and legends
hierarchical_section_title: History of silk / Early history / Myths and legends
caption_attribution_description: English: Lacquer painting from State of Ch'u (704–223 B.C.)　, buried in about BCE 316 中文（香港）‎: 荊門楚墓出土夾紵胎漆奩上之漆畫，內容來歷有「楚國車馬出行」一説，但有學者從人物動作、衣飾分析，認爲是描寫「聘禮行迎」，或稱「王孫親迎圖」。
context_page_description: The production of silk originates in China in the Neolithic. Silk remained confined to China until the Silk Road opened at some point during the later half of the 1st millennium BC. China maintained its virtual monopoly over silk production for another thousand years. Not confined to clothing, silk was also used for a number of other applications, including writing, and the color of silk worn was an important guide of social class during the Tang dynasty.
  Silk cultivation spread to Japan around 300 AD, and, by 552 AD, the Byzantines managed to obtain silkworm eggs and were able to begin silkworm cultivation. The Arabs also began to manufacture silk at the same time. As a result of the spread of sericulture, Chinese silk exports became less important, although they still maintained dominance over the luxury silk market. The Crusades brought silk production to Western Europe, in particular to many Italian states, which saw an economic boom exporting silk to the rest of Europe. Changes in manufacturing techniques also began to take place during the Middle Ages, with devices such as the spinning wheel first appearing.
context_section_description: The writings of Confucius and Chinese tradition recount that, in about 3000 BC, a silk worm's cocoon fell into the tea cup of the empress Leizu. Wishing to extract it from her drink, the 14-year-old girl began to unroll the thread of the cocoon.
  She then had the idea to weave some of it, so she kept some for herself. Having observed the life of the silk worm on the recommendation of her husband, the Yellow Emperor, she began to instruct her entourage in the art of raising silk worms, sericulture. From this point, the girl became the goddess of silk in Chinese mythology. Silk eventually left China via the heir of a princess who was promised to a prince of Khotan. This probably occurred in the early 1st century AD. The princess, refusing to go without the fabric that she loved, would finally break the imperial ban on silk-worm exportation.
  Though silk was exported to foreign countries in great amounts, sericulture remained a secret that the Chinese carefully guarded. Consequently, other peoples invented wildly varying accounts of the source of the incredible fabric.
  In classical antiquity, most Romans, great admirers of the cloth, were convinced that the Chinese took the fabric from tree leaves. This belief was affirmed by Seneca the Elder in his Phaedra and by Virgil in his Georgics. Notably, Pliny the Elder knew better. Speaking of the bombyx or silk moth, he wrote in his Natural History "They weave webs, like spiders, that become a luxurious clothing material for women, called silk."
caption: A lacquerware painting from the Jingmen Tomb (Chinese: 荊門楚墓; Pinyin: Jīngmén chǔ mù) of the State of Chu (704–223 BC), depicting men wearing traditional silk dress and riding in a two-horsed chariot
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