The appearance of silk

The earliest evidence of silk was found at the sites of Yangshao culture in Xia County, Shanxi, where a silk cocoon was found cut in half by a sharp knife, dating back to between 4,000 and 3,000 BCE. The species was identified as bombyx mori, the domesticated silkworm. Fragments of primitive loom can also be seen from the sites of Hemudu culture in Yuyao, Zhejiang, dated to about 4,000 BCE. Scraps of silk were found in a Liangzhu culture site at Qianshanyang in Huzhou, Zhejiang, dating back to 2,700 BCE.^[1][2] Other fragments have been recovered from royal tombs in the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600 BCE - ca. 1046 BCE).^[3]

During the later epoch, the Chinese lost their secret as the Koreans, the Japanese, and later the Indians succeeded in discovering how to make silk. Allusions to the fabric in the Old Testament show that it was known in western Asia in biblical times.^[4] Scholars believe that starting in the 2nd century BC the Chinese established a commercial network aimed at exporting silk to the West.^[4] Silk was used,womens silk pajamas, for example, by the Persian court and its king, Darius III, when Alexander the Great conquered the empire.^[4] Even though silk spread rapidly across Eurasia, with the possible exception of Japan its production remained exclusively Chinese for three millennia.