Editing Silk (section)

===China===
{{main|Silk industry in China}}
[[File:Meister nach Chang Hsüan 001.jpg|thumb|left|A painting depicting women inspecting silk, early 12th century, ink and color on silk, by [[Emperor Huizong of Song]].]][[File:Portrait of Eshing.jpg|thumb|right|Portrait of a silk merchant in Guangzhou, [[Qing dynasty]], from [[Peabody Essex Museum]]]]
Silk use in fabric was first developed in ancient China.<ref name=silkculture/><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0861091.html |title=Silk: History |encyclopedia=[[Columbia Encyclopedia|Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia]] |edition=Sixth |publisher=Columbia University Press |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216015422/http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0861091.html |archive-date=16 December 2008}}</ref> The earliest evidence for silk is the presence of the silk protein [[fibroin]] in soil samples from two tombs at the [[neolithic]] site [[Jiahu]] in [[Henan]], which date back about 8,500 years.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.livescience.com/57437-oldest-evidence-of-silk-found-china.html |title=Oldest Evidence of Silk Found in 8,500-Year-Old Tombs |language=en |website=Live Science |date=10 January 2017 |access-date=13 October 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013120410/https://www.livescience.com/57437-oldest-evidence-of-silk-found-china.html |archive-date=13 October 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kaogu.cn/en/News/New_discoveries/2016/1229/56642.html |title=Prehistoric silk found in Henan |language=en |website=The Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IA CASS) |access-date=4 October 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170104235151/http://www.kaogu.cn/en/News/New_discoveries/2016/1229/56642.html |archive-date=4 January 2017}}</ref> The earliest surviving example of silk fabric dates from about 3630 BC, and was used as the wrapping for the body of a child at a [[Yangshao culture]] site in Qingtaicun near [[Xingyang]], Henan.<ref name=silkculture>{{cite book |title=Chinese Silk: A Cultural History |last=Vainker |first=Shelagh |year=2004 |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |isbn=978-0813534466 |pages=20, 17}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.asianart.com/textiles/intro.html |title=Textile Exhibition: Introduction |publisher=Asian art |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070908231937/http://www.asianart.com/textiles/intro.html |archive-date=8 September 2007}}</ref>

Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress, [[Leizu]] (Hsi-Ling-Shih, Lei-Tzu). Silks were originally reserved for the emperors of China for their own use and gifts to others, but spread gradually through [[Chinese culture]] and trade both geographically and socially, and then to many regions of [[Asia]]. Because of its texture and lustre, silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants. Silk was in great demand, and became a staple of pre-[[industrial revolution|industrial]] international [[trade]]. Silk was also used as a surface for writing, especially during the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). The fabric was light, it survived the damp climate of the Yangtze region, absorbed ink well, and provided a white background for the text.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lyons |first=Martyn |title=Books: A Living History |publisher=Getty Publications |year=2011 |isbn=978-1606060834 |location=Los Angeles |pages=18}}</ref> In July 2007, archaeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk [[textile]]s in a tomb in [[Jiangxi]] province, dated to the Eastern [[Zhou dynasty]] roughly 2,500 years ago.<ref name="people's daily">{{cite web |url=http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6228297.html |title=Chinese archaeologists make ground-breaking textile discovery in 2,500-year-old tomb |access-date=26 August 2007 |work=People's Daily Online |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013190840/http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6228297.html |archive-date=13 October 2007}}</ref> Although historians have suspected a long history of a formative textile industry in ancient China, this find of silk textiles employing "complicated techniques" of weaving and dyeing provides direct evidence for silks dating before the [[Mawangdui]]-discovery and other silks dating to the [[Han dynasty]] (202 BC – 220 AD).<ref name="people's daily"/>

Silk is described in a chapter of the ''[[Fan Shengzhi shu]]'' from the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD). There is a surviving calendar for silk production in an Eastern Han (25–220 AD) document. The two other known works on silk from the Han period are lost.<ref name=silkculture/> The first evidence of the long distance silk trade is the finding of silk in the hair of an [[Egypt]]ian [[mummy]] of the 21st dynasty, c.1070 BC.<ref>{{cite journal
|doi = 10.1038/362025b0
|volume = 362
|issue = 6415
|page = 25
|last = Lubec
|first = G.
|author2=J. Holaubek |author3=C. Feldl |author4=B. Lubec |author5=E. Strouhal
 |title = Use of silk in ancient Egypt
|journal = Nature
|date = 4 March 1993
|bibcode = 1993Natur.362...25L
|s2cid = 1001799
|url=http://www.silk-road.com/artl/egyptsilk.shtml |access-date=2007-05-03 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070920193305/http://www.silk-road.com/artl/egyptsilk.shtml |archive-date=20 September 2007 |doi-access=free}})</ref> The silk trade reached as far as the [[Indian subcontinent]], the [[Middle East]], [[Europe]], and [[North Africa]]. This trade was so extensive that the major set of trade routes between Europe and Asia came to be known as the [[Silk Road]].

The [[emperors of China]] strove to keep knowledge of [[sericulture]] secret to maintain the Chinese [[monopoly]]. Nonetheless, sericulture reached [[Korea]] with technological aid from China around 200 BC,<ref name="Kundu2014">{{cite book |last=Kundu |first=Subhas |title=Silk Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=IgGjAgAAQBAJ |page=3}} |date=24 March 2014 |publisher=Elsevier Science |isbn=978-0-85709-706-4 |pages=3–}}</ref> the ancient [[Kingdom of Khotan]] by AD 50,<ref>Hill (2009). Appendix A: "Introduction of Silk Cultivation to Khotan in the 1st Century CE", pp. 466–467.</ref> and [[India]] by AD 140.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.seri.ap.gov.in/download/1_History%20of%20Sericulture.pdf |title=History of Sericulture |publisher=Government of Andhra Pradesh (India) – Department of Sericulture |access-date=7 November 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721155409/http://www.seri.ap.gov.in/download/1_History%20of%20Sericulture.pdf |archive-date=21 July 2011}}</ref>

In the ancient era, silk from China was the most lucrative and sought-after luxury item traded across the Eurasian continent,<ref name=gart>{{cite book |title=The Persians |author=Garthwaite, Gene Ralph |publisher=Oxford & Carlton: [[Blackwell Publishing Ltd|Blackwell Publishing, Ltd]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-55786-860-2 |page=78}}</ref> and many civilizations, such as the ancient Persians, benefited economically from trade.<ref name=gart/>

<gallery mode="packed" caption="Chinese silk making process" heights="85px">
 File:Women placing silkworms on trays together with mulberry leaves (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg |The silkworms and mulberry leaves are placed on trays.
File:Men preparing twig frames where silkworms will spin cocoons (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|Twig frames for the silkworms are prepared.
File:Weighing and sorting the cocoons (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|The cocoons are weighed.
File:Soaking the cocoons and reeling the silk (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|The cocoons are soaked and the silk is wound on spools.
File:Weaving the silk (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|The silk is woven using a loom.
</gallery>