Overview of Textile Technology in Ancient China 4

Overview of Textile Technology in Ancient China 4 Feng Zhao Contents 4.1 The Structure of Textile Industry in Early Times .... .. ... .. .. ... .. ... .. .. ... .. ... .. .. ... 108 4.2 Cultural Opportunity of Origin of Silk ................................................... 110 4.3 The Raw Materials of Textile and Its Warm-Keeping Function ......................... 116 4.4 Dress and Chinese Traditional Ritual System ............................................ 119 4.5 Three Main Development Stages of Chinese Textile Technology ....................... 123 4.5.1 Classic System .................................................................... 124 4.5.2 Traditional System ................................................................ 126 4.5.3 Modern Industrial System ......................................................... 128 Abstract Clothing, food, housing, and transport are basic necessities of life for human beings in any time at any places. By guaranteeing such basic needs, textile technology has become one of the most important components in our technological history. Textile technology occupies an important position in Chinese history of science and technology, among which silk technology particularly has made an extremely important contribution to the whole world’s history of science and technology. Keywords Textile technology · Ancient China · Traditional ritual system · Raw materials · Textile industry Clothing, food, housing, and transport are basic necessities of life for human beings in any time at any places. By guaranteeing such basic needs, textile technology has become one of the most important components in our technological history. As the F. Zhao (*) China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou, China © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 107 X. Jiang (ed.), A New Phase of Systematic Development of Scientific Theories in China, History of Science and Technology in China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7844-1_4 108 F. Zhao rest of the world, textile technology also occupies an important position in Chinese history of science and technology, among which silk technology particularly has made an extremely important contribution to the whole world’s history of science and technology, exerting significant impacts on development of the world’ technology and culture. 4.1 The Structure of Textile Industry in Early Times Cotton, wool, linen (fiberofhemp,flax, etc.), and silk are four main and general kinds of raw materials of natural fibers. Ancient civilizations in different regions had all created rich textile cultures in their own special natural environments. In the course of history, various textile cultures gradually took shapes with distinctive traits. Briefly speaking, the four great ancient civilizations in the Old World coincidentally had obvious corresponding relations with four textile fiber raw materials: flax widely used in Egypt, cotton mainly produced in India, wool primarily produced in ancient Babylon, and silk dominantly produced in China. Although it originated from the Near East, flax seemed to be utilized in textile first in Egypt. Flax braided fabrics of 5000 BC were found in Fayum and Badari, which were still quite crude. Besides, a massive volume of flax yarn and fabrics were found in Robenhausen, the earliest Neolithic period site (3750 BC) found along the banks of lakes of Alps located at the border of Switzerland and Italy. Sheep and goats were first domesticated in the middle and lowest reaches of Tigris and Euphrates of West Asia, but it was widely used in textile in different areas, covering the whole West Asia, Central Asia, North Asia, and Europe in early periods. However, wool textile in Central Asia might be introduced from West Asia. In India, a country with profound history, cotton textile was developed from a very early time. Cotton fibers and cotton textiles of 5500 years ago were unearthed at Mohenjo-Daro site located in the valley of the Indus River in today’s Pakistan. These cotton fibers were identified as fibers of cultivated cotton, proving that cotton was the main textile raw material in India. But, shortly thereafter, cotton textile technology was gradually introduced into Persia and Europe and Africa before the Common Era and finally the northwestern areas of China around the Common Era. However, China, a country located in the east, mainly used silk as their textile raw material. According to archaeological references, silk originated from the Yellow and Yangtze River Valleys in China more than 5000 years ago. The earliest known solid evidence of using silk was found in 1926, when Li Ji, one of the first generations of Chinese archaeologists, excavated a site of Yangshao culture at Xiyin Village, Xia County, Shan Xi, where half of a silkworm cocoon was unearthed. After verification by many scholars, this half of a silkworm cocoon was deemed as an important material evidence of the fact that silkworm cocoons and silk were used in ancient China. Currently, this silk worm cocoon has been kept in Taipei’s Palace Museum. In 1958, archaeologists in Zhejiang found a bamboo basket at Liangzhu culture site at Qianshanyang in Huzhou. There were some textiles and strip lines and other material objects in the bamboo basket, which were identified as 4 Overview of Textile Technology in Ancient China 109 tough silk sheets, silk thread, and ribbons by Zhejiang Textile Institute back then and later by Zhejiang Technology University. Later, Archaeological Institute of Zhejiang also found some silk ribbons which were made around 4000 years ago at this site. The third material evidence was debris of silk and linen fabrics of around 5500 years ago unearthed at the Neolithic site at Qingtai Village, Xingyang City, in the 1980s, which was the most direct material evidence of ancient Chinese producing and using silk 5000 years ago. According to the above findings, we can see that Chinese silk boasts a history of at least 5000 years. China’ s silk was also introduced to other countries afterward, such as Japan and South Korea, making it a key feature in the textile culture of East Asia. Besides the feature of using silk, China’ s textile raw material in the early time also included a great amount of wool and hemp-fiber. The majority of wool fabrics were found in Xinjiang, a place closely linked with textile culture of Central and West Asia. A large sum of wool fabrics with different varieties were found at sites of early Bronze Age (around 3000 years ago) in Xinjiang discovered by archaeologists, including Xiaohe Cemetery in Lop Nor, Wubao and Yanghai Cemeteries in Turpan, and Zagunluke Cemetery in Qiemo, although these findings have yet to be appraised thoroughly. Cellulose fibers of plants were also widely used in China in early times, and there were many choices. For example, kudzu fabrics of around 5000 years ago were unearthed at Caoxieshan Site in Wuxian County, Jiangsu, as said in Shijing-Zhou Nan-Ge Tan (Classic of Poetry-Odes Of Zhou And The South-Ge Tan): How the dolichos spread itself out, Extending to the middle of the valley! Its leaves were luxuriant and dense. I cut it and I boiled it, And made both fine cloth and coarse, Which I will wear without getting tired of it. Dolichos in the poem is the kudzu vine, with the Latin name of Pueraria lobata (Willdenow) Ohwi.It’s a kind of perennial herbaceous liana of Leguminosae, featuring thick and long stems. Besides, it’s a type of sarmentous plant, always spreading on the ground or winding on other plants. Kudzu fibers can be extracted through “Cutting off and cooking”; “Chi” (fine cloth) and “Xi” (coarse cloth) are all fabrics made of kudzu fibers. In addition, among hemp-fibers, Northern part of China mainly used hemp, which has a scientific name of Cannabis sativa L. It’s a kind of annual dioecious herbaceous plant. Southern part of China, however, used ramie with the scientific name of Boehmeria nivea (Linn.) Gaudich. As mentioned in Shijing-Chen Feng (Odes Of Chen)-Dong Men: The moat at the east gate, Is fit to steep hemp in. That beautiful, virtuous, lady, Can respond to you in songs. The moat at the east gate, Is fit to steep the boehmeria in. That beautiful, virtuous, lady, Can respond to you in discourse. The moat at the east gate, Is fit to steep the rope-rush in. That beautiful, virtuous lady, Can respond to you in conversation. 110 F. Zhao The “Ma” and “Zhu” in the poem refer to hemp and ramie, respectively, and “steep” means a process of soaking skin of hemp in the water to obtain fibers. “Rope- rush” in the last paragraph means sedge, a kind of cogongrass, which was used for making rope back then. 4.2 Cultural Opportunity of Origin of Silk The most distinctive fiber in the textile industry in early China, however, was silk fiber. The main silkworm species used in Chinese textile history was Bombyx mori L., which was a kind of economic insect feeding on leaves of mulberry trees and spinning their cocoons, and also called mulberry silkworm. This is a kind of insect with complete metamorphosis. It will go through four development stages in its life cycle: silkworm egg, silkworm, chrysalis, and silk moth featured by completely different forms and physiological functions (see Fig. 4.1). Silk egg is the stage when the embryo develops and grows into a larva of silkworm. During the larva stage of silkworm, the silkworm grows up by absorbing nutrition from food, commonly known as “Can” or “Can’er” in Chinese. In the silkworm stage, or the caterpillar stage, the silkworm will go through four skin molts. When it sheds its old skin, it will not eat; hence, it was also called dormancy. After four times of dormancy, the silkworm is called a matured silkworm, whose body becomes completely transparent, and it stops eating and begins to spin itself in a silk cocoon. After the silkworm spins its cocoon, it sheds its skin and becomes a chrysalis, and about seven days later, the silkworm moth, also known as the adult silkworm, emerges from the cocoon, which is also the copulation stage when male silk moths and female silk moths mate and female moths lay eggs for reproducing offspring.

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