The History of Silk ~ Documentary ~ Ancient China

hello everyone thank you for checking

out my YouTube channel the study of

antiquity and the Middle Ages my name is

Nick barkdale and today I am excited to

announce that I'm bringing you yet

another episode from the China History

Podcast given to us by none other than

llo Montgomery if you remember his

earlier video that I posted on the early

years of the Silk Road if you enjoyed

that you are going to absolutely love

this one this one is titled none other

than the ancient history of silk I'm

incredibly excited about this one

because it gives you not only a cultural

history and of course more Chinese

history but it also dives into something

many of you have requested repeatedly

from me which is a study of Economics

from ancient China all the way into

ancient Rome and eventually across the

globe silk has played a vital role in

the textile industry and I'm really

excited to present this lecture to you

um it's absolutely amazing also don't

forget to check out the description

below this video because it contains a

variety of links where you can go to

explore the vast Treasure Trove of

information that the China History

Podcast provides it's absolutely

phenomenal you're not going to regret it

and definitely give this gentleman and

his podcast the best review possible and

as many stars as you can muster thank

you all so much and have a great

weekend hey everybody lla Montgomery

still no intro music and from the

responses I got from the inquiry I made

last episode into how all of y'alls

thought about it it's looking like there

will be no melodic tones forthcoming at

least in the N term this is the second

podcast in a row where the scheduled

topic was preempted by a sudden

inspiration from one of you my listeners

to do something else that happened last

time with William mesne and now again

with this silky smooth topic you

remember 40 episodes ago I did this 10p

part Series where I discussed the

history of te from shanong to the Ching

Dynasty well today's subject the history

of silk is a story that I instructed my

loyal interns to condense down to a

single episode you know me if I could

find some way to drag this one out or 10

episodes I'm more than happy to do so

but I think we could get this one told

in the usual 45 to 55 minute window that

these CHP episodes invariably come in at

when I came to that point where I

exhausted everything that was to know

about this subject that was worthwhile

to tell I couldn't help thinking the

whole story of silk really had a lot of

similarities with what I mentioned in

the history of

t as the narrative on furls I'll wander

off on my usual sidebars and show where

silk and tea shared a similar story or

history I can't guarantee I'll return

back to whatever the main point was that

I was making but we'll get to where

we're going by hooker by crook China is

a World Export Powerhouse gave me a

livelihood for 30 years didn't start

with the dung shell ping reforms in the

1980s that national network of design

ERS Artisans Engineers scientists

merchants and

laborers went way back to the earliest

days in Chinese history when a

sufficiently large enough economy

existed to support all these combined

talents all kinds of manufactured goods

of Chinese design and from designs

brought to China for reproduction have

been exported to the West since the Ming

Dynasty when ships from China and Europe

sailed back and forth between their

respective homelands in China trade with

other Asian countries that's been going

on since even before the tongue it was

all kinds of stuff that China had that

the world's Traders were happy to go to

the trouble to get and bring back to

wherever they had set sale from but

besides silk tea and Porcelain we almost

have to stop and think what else was

there garments textiles salt bullion and

whatnot but everything else combined all

those other raw materials manufacturers

semi-finished Goods that China

exported nothing touched the kind of

volume of those big three silk tea

porcelain long before you could fit the

world in the palm of your hand there was

nothing that evoked the whole idea of

China Cafe like those three products in

the consciousness of the common and

everyday people to the masses these

three things were China's primary

calling cards no matter whether you were

Rich poor somewhere in between this is

held true for as long as people from

other lands began coming to China in

great numbers since at least the Western

Han

Dynasty such wondrous products they were

to Silk tea porcelain the magnificence

of those three products alone gave face

and Prestige to China that was Universal

among users of these three manufactured

products everyone in the world going

back to the beginning of the Common Era

and even before then everyone who was

aware of these three Commodities knew

these wonders of mankind came from China

or whatever in their day they called

that exotic and mysterious place to be

able to claim that they were first to

Market with something as important to

mankind as tea is already an incredible

achievement in China's case they not

only had bragging rights to being the

first to cultivate tea they were also

the first to figure out how to cultivate

silk and how to create durable but

eggshell thin translucent porcelain that

was so Exquisite that only a son of

Heaven himself was good enough to sip

from it dang no one could take that away

from China silk tea porcelain talk about

Global Soft power these three products

were the primary link between China and

the Western World they were the whole

reason for the Silk Road in the case of

tea a war would even be fought over it

and you remember from that history of

tea series there was more to the whole

tea making process than simply picking

leaves from a tea bush and steeping them

in a teapot it was slightly more

complicated porcelain too I mentioned in

one of those episodes that Europeans had

been ogling over Chinese made porcelain

since the day they first laid their

hands on it and it took Europeans fresh

out of the Renaissance with all those

Brilliant Minds and new learning until

bertiger in

1709 to figure out how to make porcelain

the way the chines did it t the British

East India Company by the 19th century

still hadn't figured out how to turn tea

leaves into a beverage the way the

Chinese could they had to send Robert

Fortune to China in 1846 to go dress up

like a Chinese Mandarin and sneak into

the tea producing regions of Anu and

fuen to Steel seeds plant cuttings knoow

and a few Consultants then he brought

all this back to the company's

experimental Farms up in the hills of

Northern India and with all the secrets

he had surreptitiously secreted away

from China he helped Kickstart the whole

tea industry in Northern

India the secrets of how to make tea and

porcelin the Chinese managed to hang on

to those secrets from Antiquity all the

way into the Modern Age but silk that

secret didn't last long it wasn't as

difficult to figure out as tea and

Porcelain was tea took thousands of

years to evolve from its crudest state

to the point of the tributes of the Song

Dynasty but silk one someone tipped you

off about where silk came from and you

were told exactly what kind of moth laid

the eggs that made the worms you needed

and that they only ate one kind of leaf

and once you saw how Mother Nature did

her thing and observed everything very

closely you could get the main idea

pretty quick and once you knew the

basics all you had to do was simply

apply your current spinning and weaving

Technologies to this new material it

wasn't easy but it wasn't rocket science

either historically what gold was to

metal silk was to fabric still Rings

true just because it was easy how to

figure out to produce didn't mean it

became a cheap commodity as we'll see as

readily available Fabrics go anywhere in

the world quality top grade silk is RAR

found hanging on the markdown racks at

TJ Maxx of silk te porcelain

silk came first yeah just like opium

somehow the way that everything unfolded

and the development of civilization

those two things were one of the

earliest gifts humankind managed to

stumble

into being an organic material and all

silk doesn't have the staying power that

stone and metal do so it's hard to find

Silk relics and the kind of volume of

those two materials but under the right

conditions silk can last for millennia

berri

deep underground and the proof that Silk

existed on this planet was found as far

back as 5,000 years ago the time of Yang

sha culture in China I sometimes get

yanga culture in yanga County mixed up

Yang is the place where those gorgeous

cursed peaks of Guin are located yanga

culture Yang sha WIA lasted from 5,000

to 3,000 BCE roughly speaking it was

discovered and first excavated by

archaeologists in the town of yanga just

Northeast of jungo in Hunan on the

Yellow River in

1984 you know how it goes someone was

digging somewhere always happens that

way this was in a village called chai

the northwest corner of chungo on the

South Bank of the Yellow River one of

the things they Unearthed was a coffin

for a child and the Shroud used to wrap

the body was made from silk this was

dated to about 3630

BCE this whole region surrounding that

location in China was Ground Zero as far

as

Coria Han Chinese civilization goes so

by any accounts this was a long time ago

that time was contemporary with ancient

Sumer pre- Dynasty Egypt

Jericho one of the oldest cities in the

world was the crossroads of the East

back then in Shia County in sheni

province in 1926 a silk cocoon was found

inside a tomb that was cut in half it

was dated from between 4,000 to 3,000

BCE a half centimeter piece of ribbon

was found in another tomb from 4700

years ago Unearthed in chin shanyang at

the south end of Lake Thai uh near

hoo and in the tombs of Shang Dynasty

Kings and Nobles they were already

adorning themselves with silk the sh

lasted from 1600 to 1046 BCE so silk has

been around since long before recorded

Chinese history like tea however silk

during the Shang was not nearly as

Exquisite and refined as it would later

get in some antiquarian book from 1845 I

dug up on the history of silk

other textiles had said quote the lawful

wife of Emperor hang D named shiing Shir

began the culture of silk it was at that

time that the emperor hang D invented

the art of making garments this great

Prince hangi was desirous that sheiling

Shir his legitimate wife should

contribute to the happiness of his

people he charged her to examine the

silk worms and to test the

practicability of using the thread

sheiling had a large quantity of these

insects collected which she fed herself

in a place prepared for that purpose and

discovered not only the means of raising

them but also the manner of reeling the

silk and employing it to make garments

it is through gratitude for so great a

benefit that posterity has deified

sheiling Shir and rendered her

particular honors under the name of the

goddess of silkor worms end quote the

Shandong tea Legend and the silk legend

of sheiling sure have a lot in common in

fact as Mr Paul French says on his

website quoting Mark Twain They rhyme

you remember shanong there were a number

of Legends attributed to him that all

ended with the words uh and that's how

tea was discovered the DNA of that story

says tea leaves fell into his boiling

water and that's how he figured tea out

with sheiling sure and the story of how

silk was discovered same thing a cocoon

fell in her hot cup of tea and she

noticed the filaments unfurling sheiling

sh is probably better known in Chinese

myths and legends as Leu and as far as

her title of goddess of silkworms she's

also called

tanai a tan is a silkworm so Leu and the

yellow Emperor they were a couple the

yellow Emperor discussed a long time ago

and they had three sovereigns and five

Emperors episode CHP 60 he lived roughly

2700 to 2600 BCE contemporary with

Joseph from the Bible during his years

in Egypt according to no less a source

than confucious himself Leu discovered

the silk Secret in 2640 BCE this is post

yanga culture but not by much so the

timing of the legend and what

archaeologists have been able to

discover isn't off by that much the

number thrown around most sources I read

was 2700

BCE as to the beginnings of Sak culture

s culture the cultivation of silk worms

for producing silk sirum is Latin for

silk sose in the Greek the legend has it

that Leu was sitting under a mulberry

tree and a cocoon somehow Broke Free

from its scaffold and fell right into

her teacup she plucked it out and

immediately noticed how the loose end

when she began to unravel it just kept

going and going and going until it

reached from one end of her nice-sized

garden and back again and she carefully

inspected the tree she had been sitting

under and noticed it was filled with

these white cocoons she spent a lot of

time observing everything and figured

out these worms spinning these cocoons

loved eating mulberry leaves

so she went to her husband and the

yellow Emperor arranged for a whole

Grove of malberry trees to be planted

and before long she domesticated all the

worms and then for an encore she

designed the Reel that could

mechanically unravel the cocoon in one

single nearly 1 kilometer long filament

and if that already wasn't enough she

invented the first silk loom that spun

it into cloth another ladu story says

that she was kicking back in the yellow

Emperor's magnificent garden and

couldn't help but notice one day how the

leaves of the mulberry trees seemed to

be disappearing at an alarming rate and

that led her to go check this situation

out personally and from this

observation it led her to discover the

worms the cocoons and the whole

metamorphosis thing and again if you

could sort out how it works from the

worm to the unraveling of the C

the rest is easy so Leu she is I guess

you could call her the Shandong of silk

or perhaps we should call Shandong the

Leu of tea the silkworm goddess she's

given credit for the whole shebang

noticing the cocoons how to unravel them

how to turn the filaments into thread

and how to turn that into garments and

other useful items so said Kung fuza and

if he said it it had to be true I happen

to know a distant ancestor of Leu she

lives in the Commonwealth of Virginia

and I have to give a shout out to Carol

for inspiring me to dust off this topic

and turn it into an episode finally so

we can say with a high degree of

certainty based on archaeological

evidence that at least 5600 years ago

silk existed and was being used as a

fabric that meant that some smart person

living along the banks of the Yellow

River back then near some mbery trees

presumably

somehow figured out how it all

worked this is really a great story of

how amazing humankind is here's what

either one person or maybe it was a

husband and wife team or a group of

people we'll never know but someone

figured out this one particular moth the

ancestor of what will one day be known

as bomix Mori emerged from these cocoons

and that these Moss would lay something

like 500 or a th000 pinpoint sized eggs

and aund of them would only weigh one

gram the eggs hatched they became larvae

and in 6 weeks The larva became full

grown silk worms that had been feasting

on mulbury leaves 24/7 and these tiny

worms will grow and increase their

weight 10,000 times before they start

the next phase of their metamorphic

process

and just like they had to do with tea as

the centuries passed these ancient

Chinese figured out what were the

optimum conditions to handle these eggs

and worms the temperature humidity how

much light was required and so on the

larger these silk worms became the more

they ate yet do you have a lot of leaves

30,000 silk worms can eat one ton of

malberry leaves I kid you not and from

all that my friends

all you get is 12 lbs of raw silk so

this isn't just a few trees in the

backyard to feed these worms you needed

forests of these Morris Alba or white

mulberry trees you know in China today

there are

6,260 square kilometers of land solely

dedicated to Growing Morris Alba to

support the silk industry China's number

one in the world

6,260 square kilometers of mulberry

trees that's bigger than Delaware our

first state plus you could throw La in

there

too this particular tree the white

mulberry Morris Alba besides the leaves

has other uses in traditional Chinese

medicine the actual mulberries

themselves are used to counter prematur

gray hair constipation and diabetes the

bark of the tree was used to treat

coughs wheezing edema fever headache and

red eyes and one other thing if you're

ever walking through the forests of

India and you get bit by a Russell's

Viper that mulberry tree has a leaf

extract that will get you out of that

jam then these yanga Farmers probably

noticed that the worms as they grew fat

on these leaves changed color shed their

outer skin three times and again a

fourth time inside the Cocoon but after

that third third time molting a

scientific process called

ectasis that meant it was time to start

spinning that cocoon once these silk

worms were big and fat with plenty of

energy stored up to carry out the whole

metamorphic process they really needed a

lot of special attention they have to be

carefully shielded from wind loud noises

pungent odors and must be kept at a

constant temperature and then when

everything is ready

the show begins some jellylike viscous

slime starts oozing out of a hole in

their head as soon as this goo comes in

contact with the air it starts to

harden three four days later of non-stop

waving their head in this figure8

pattern back and forth back and forth

these silk worms build this cocoon

around them and the amazing thing here

is that they do this with one single

unbroken strand almost a kilometer

long and one other interesting thing

when that silkor worm is squirting out

that protein out of its head a mixture

of two substances called fibroin and

sarasin the stuff exits through some

kind of natural triangular shaped

Extrusion mold so that when the liquid

hardens upon making contact with the air

the Strand is prism shaped so that when

light hits the silk and strands they

refract from different angles and this

gives silk its patented shimmering

colors that substance is a very long

chain of repeating sequences of a few

types of amino acids the silk molecule

is

400,000 amino acids long and quite

extraordinary in its strength if you let

that P Pupa inside that cocoon turn into

a moth sooner or later they will break

through the Cocoon and there goes your

one single kilometer long unbroken

filament so you had to kill that Pupa

before it did any damage inside the

Cocoon eight or nine days into the

process the cocoons are steamed or baked

to kill the

pupa then the cocoons are placed inside

boiled water they loosen up a little and

begin to unravel

there are tools that were created that

helps find the loose end and from each

cocoon the filament is unraveled and

reeled onto a spool the lucky few Pupa

that are allowed to live emerge from the

Cocoon lay their eggs and promptly die

their job is done you needed to twist

together five to eight of these

filaments to form the finest single

thread of silk and some heavier threads

require 48 individual silk filaments

then that thread is either woven into

Fabric or used for embroidery there were

about four main different kinds of silk

thread and depending on what you're

trying to make you use that

thread and from the earliest times this

is mentioned in both the Sher G and the

Le G the records of the grand historian

and the Book of rights in the parts of

China that were conducive to silk making

three generations of women in a single

household would toil side by side

tending silkor worms feeding them

unraveling them spinning weaving dying

always women and the deity Leu also a

woman and each year the Empress of China

wife of the emperor would perform a

ceremony in the spring to kick off the

silk racing

season yeah silk making was women's work

part of the Nong the feminine Arts if

the climate was right Farmers raised

these silk worms themselves and the

products they made from the silk were

used by themselves there were no malls

or department stores to go purchase

these things if you wanted to see your

son wearing some silk garment at Chinese

New Year you had to make it yourself and

that included making the silk too so

some clever enterprising Chinese person

living during the tail end of Yang sha

culture over 5,000 years ago figured

this all out and as I said the silk

produced at first wasn't as high quality

as what followed but that didn't take

terribly long to Perfect by the way very

recently weeks ago from when I'm

recording this episode archaeologists in

central Hunan found evidence of these

proteins in a couple of tombs excavated

from 8500 years ago that's like 6,500

BCE now there was no actual silk fabric

recovered from the site but they

isolated one of these two silk proteins

in the soil samples from the tomb so

while there's no fire there's sure a lot

of smoke so the secrets of silk might

have been revealed even long before

what's presently considered Silk's

Beginnings in time these silk brocades

coming out of sujo naning and chungu

would Astound the kings queens Nobles

and Highborn all living west of China

remember Chang Chen CHP episode 47 one

of my favorites from 138 to 126

BC during the time of the Han Emperor Wu

Han Wu D Jang Chien journeyed to parts

of Central Asia and among other things

he discovered he learned of other great

civilizations on plan planet Earth

besides the Great and Mighty Middle

Kingdom and back then people in China

thought they were the only Advanced

civilization they didn't know about

India Rome

Persia so we give credit to the Han

Emperor woo for seeing the big picture

and for championing the trade routes

that

1877 bear and Ferdinand Von reoven would

call this Iden Sten the Silk Roads it

wasn't called The Silk Road way back

when it was in use but if not for silk

it's doubtful these ancient trade routes

would be as famous as they are in our

day just like the first ones to taste

tea the first ones who handled silk knew

this was something special and again

just like with tea at first silk was

reserved solely for royalty and later to

other Nobles and once silk production

reached a certain level of efficiency

now pricing came down and before long

the more vulgar parts of Chinese Society

could also afford to wear silk but it

was never cheap and it wasn't everyday

wear for many of the lower classes who

could afford to buy it silk was always

reserved for special occasions only

weddings the spring festival and other

major holidays and

events the Chinese knew this material

was special and the same went with

people who came from lands east and west

of China silk was found in an Egyptian

tomb excavated at the Valley of the

Kings and thieves that was dated to 1070

BCE and that is about as far back in

history as we can go to show proof of

silk being traded or at least carried to

lands far away but it was the Silk Road

that provided the wherewithal to bring

vast quantities of silk from the markets

of China to other Central markets that

are today found throughout usbekistan

and

turkistan like a central Hub these

cities Tashkent Samaran buhara MV would

receive the silk and from there it would

be carried further south and west where

It ultimately ended up in Rome actual

Romans and a Chinese wouldn't meet face

to face until the time of Marcus

Aurelius in the mid 2nd Century

silk joined these two civilizations

together the demand in Rome was

insatiable and only China had the goods

so in order to get this high value but

extremely light material from China to

Rome the Silk Roads emerged and as I

mentioned in that previous Silk Roads

three-part series it wasn't just silk

and other precious Commodities being

traded in all these Central Asian

trading centers there emerged the great

City cities where some of the smartest

and most talented people from different

lands in the known world would meet up

and exchange ideas and knowledge and

this whole process would act as a

catalyst to speed up the dissemination

of knowledge and culture you know which

acted as a as a lubricant that hastened

the ongoing development of

humankind around the 4th Century BCE

before Jang Chan's Adventure the Greeks

and Romans began mentioning this land

called Siris or the kingdom of silk and

the first Chinese they either laid eyes

on or heard about were referred to as

the silk

people I read that it was Marcus crus

during his disastrous governorship in

Syria who was the first Roman to get his

hands on silk whether or not that's true

I can't say but certainly in the time of

the late Roman Republic and into the

time of Augustus silk became wildly

popular in Rome they knew it came from

this place far away plen the Elder wrote

in the year 70 quote silk was obtained

by removing the down from the leaves

with the help of water end quote Virgil

said that Silk came from quote fluff

combed out of unknown Chinese leaves end

quot these guys had no idea yet what

silk was the hand feel of the fabric is

like nothing else of course nowadays the

great textile manufacturers of the world

have produced all kinds of synthetics

through the amazing power of genomics

Engineers and scientists have come up

with ways to produce silk in bulk

without the hassle of carrying out the

whole silkworm and mulberry Leaf

chores silk filaments are five times

stronger than steel in tensil strength

and three times tougher than Kevlar it's

one of the strongest five

known to man or woman and because of its

low density compared to other Fabrics

like wool or cotton it's much more

absorbent being able to absorb as much

as onethird its weight and

moisture Yeah by reputation it's the

fabric that keeps you cool in the summer

and warm in the winter so te according

to the ancient historical record claims

2737 BCE is the time shanong discovered

it and we know silk went back almost a

thousand years earlier and believe it or

not the Chinese people were able to hold

on to the Monopoly on silk for about

3,000 years China was the only place

from mythical times and into the

beginnings of Chinese recorded history

that had the process down and knew about

the magic of the bomix Mory and the

Morris Alba but like I said the process

of making silk didn't require the

thousands of years it took for tea to go

from bitter medicine to the tasty Rock

teas of the woi mountains pretty much as

soon as people from other lands began to

come to China they got hooked up with

silk merchants and just prior to the

Silk Roads and all throughout its early

growth and its

Hayday the countries to the west of

China no matter how expensive it was the

demand for silk was always high before

those guys far to the west of China got

to feel that fabric with their fingers

for the first time there were people

closer to China who got to see it and

feel it first these were of course

China's neighbors to the east Korea and

Japan they like Silk too around the time

of the founding of the Han Dynasty

Chinese migrants brought the secrets of

silk making to Korea and before long

they developed their own s culture about

100 years later around 300 ad Sarah

culture was well under development in

India and around the same time in Japan

they too figured out the whole thing

there's also a story that says that in

the year 440 the king of kotan that's

present Dayan in shinjang he had won the

hand of a Chinese princess no details on

how that came about but this princess

was informed by a representative of the

king who told her if she was expecting

to continue enjoying the pleasures of

silk she had better bring some with her

so as this Legend went this princess

from China secreted some mulberry tree

seeds and some silkworm eggs and her

hairpiece and brought them to this great

Silk Road trading center and the people

of kotan launched their own sah culture

industry and protected their secret no

less vigorously than the Chinese did the

next great leap and the spread of silk

production happened in 550 when two

nestorian monks were sent on a mission

to retrieve silkworm eggs and in the

hollow of their walking staffs they

brought them back and presented them to

Emperor Justinian the at the court in

Byzantium they must have taken the

Concord and by the way this time in

China basically the Gin Dynasty up to

maybe the sway this was a real Great

Leap Forward in China as far as taking

the science of culture to a higher level

of refinement during the tong and Song

dynasties sujo was the center of the

silk trade in China there was an old

saying that said that the yardage of

silk produced in sujo every two weeks

could be used to pave the Silk Road from

changan to Rome by the time of chenlong

in the Ching Dynasty there were 12,000

silk Looms in operation and Su Joo emplo

employing over a 100,000 workers and

Artisans chungu by the way as far as the

silk industry was concerned was the sujo

of the West and by this time when the

indigenous Byzantine silk industry had

ramped up and was operating at full

capacity World silk prices finally

became low enough for more people to

purchase and enjoy it in Persia they

also love Chinese silk within 200 years

of the king om of kotan getting their

silk industry up and running the Persian

textile Masters too threw their hat in

the ring by the 7th Century the Arabs

had wrestled the secrets of sah culture

from the Persians and set up their own

Arab silk industry and by the 10th

Century Andalucia in southern Spain was

the center of the European silk trade as

I said the whole science behind culture

isn't that difficult to learn by the

time the secret had made its way to the

Middle East it didn't take long for

everyone else to get in on it so again

like te silk started off because of its

scarcity as something enjoyed only by

the Royals and Aristocrats then to the

moneyed class and finally when prices

came down low enough it became more

common place among urban and rural

dwellers and starting in the Han Dynasty

silk began to be used as a quasi

currency standards existed that

determined how many yards of silk of a

certain width roll would be worth you

know a certain amount of gold or silver

even foreign countries accepted Silk's

payment around 1147 during the Crusades

2,000 skilled workers from the Byzantine

silk industry took a ship from

Constantinople to Italia and there began

the European continent's first silk

industry and once silk production landed

in Italy it was only a matter of time

before anybody who could get into the

business got into it some places Rose

higher in achievement and prominence in

the industry than others by the 15th

century Leon became the center of the

European silk trade Francis I granted

the city of leyon a monopoly on silk

trading and the fourth Arison laus is

where it was centered

with so many cities producing silk

market prices fell but if you had the

money and only wanted the best quality

the most cuttingedge fabrics and

brocades you still had to buy from China

those Chinese silk brocade designs they

loved them in all the great fashion

capitals of Europe and in all their

colonies as well there was just

something about those Chinese designs

that so attracted Western tastes but she

had to be loaded to afford them and it

wasn't just the popularity of the

designs it was the quality of the fabric

nobody could do it like China and today

well the silk industry is so complex and

like tea again so many countries now

produce it there are synthetics now that

can fool anyone except the experts

despite all that if you wanted the real

thing it still takes about 2500 silk

worms to yield you one pound of raw silk

that's been the bottleneck for 5,000

years silk on average is about 20 times

the price of cotton today's worldwide

production of silk is about 200,000

metric tons that's a lot of silk worms

that's a lot of mulbury leaves but as

big as that number seems of the overall

total worldwide trade in textiles silk

only makes up 0.2% of the total China is

by far in a way at about 80% the largest

silk producer in the world India at 10%

market share is a distant second with

usbekistan an even more distant third

Thailand is fourth and Brazil the only

non-asian major producer is fifth so

that is going to be that as far as my

encapsulation of the history of silk

into a single podcast episode I guess

now I'll have to do porcelain since tea

and Silkk are now behind me I want to

thank everyone who took my humble

request to Heart last episode and wrote

me a stellar iTunes review and thanks to

all of you who didn't write me a review

but gave me a fstar rating anyone else

willing to help me out and get me to the

top of the pops if you live in an iOS

world go give me a nice review so that's

going to be it ladies and gentlemen's

this is lla Montgomery signing off from

a not ice wet and wild Los Angeles

California we got drenched these past

few weeks so you won't be hearing me

signing off from any bone dry

locations join us again next time if

you're so inclined for another

informative and entertaining episode of

the China History podcast