TechnologyEast Asia
Silk invented
A caterpillar becomes China's best-kept secret
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Silk was long China's one product no one else could make, and it served as payment, tax and diplomatic gift. Demand from Rome was so great that Roman writers complained of the silver draining eastwards. The knowledge finally leaked — smuggled in a staff, according to legend — but by then the trade routes it created had already shaped Eurasia.
For children
The silkworm spins its cocoon from a single unbroken thread up to a kilometre long. Someone in China worked out how to unwind and weave it. How it was done the Chinese kept secret for over three thousand years.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org