A Passion for Silk - On the Road: From China to Europe

On the Road: From China to Europe

China has been exporting goods to Europe since Neolithic times, though then the desired commodity was jade. Silk only came to prominence during the Han dynasty, around 130-100 BCE, with the creation of various silk routes (by land and by sea), going to ancient Egypt, Persia, and the Greek and Roman empires.

China guarded the secret of silk production well, with heavy penalties (capital punishment) for infringement. A few tales attest to early industrial espionage. Around 440 CE a Chinese princess supposedly smuggled silkworm eggs to a prince of Khotan, a kingdom on the edge of the Taklamakan desert. And in the mid-sixth century CE, Emperor Justinian apparently hired Nestorian monks to smuggle silkworm eggs out of China, bringing sericulture to Constantinople and Byzantium.

Knowledge of silk production moved westward through various channels. By the end of the third century BCE, for instance, waves of Chinese immigrants had brought sericulture to Korea, and by the third century CE Japan had also learned the art of sericulture. Shortly after 300 CE, domesticated silkworms were bred in India; and by the sixth century, the Persians had mastered silk technology, as well as Islamic kingdoms around the Mediterranean. Sericulture finally arrived in Europe around the 10th century, with the Italians establishing important centres of silk cultivation in such key cities as Lucca, Genoa, Florence and Venice.