Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In the 20th century, Japan and China regained their earlier dominant role in silk production, and China is now once again the world's largest producer of silk. The rise of new imitation silk fabrics, such as nylon and polyester , has reduced the prevalence of silk throughout the world, being cheaper and easier to care for.
Paper lantern: The paper lantern is a lighting device made of paper. Early lanterns in China were constructed with silk, paper, or animal skin with frames made of bamboo or wood. [364] One of the earliest descriptions of paper lanterns is found in records from Khotan, which describe a "mounting lantern" made of white paper. [364]
Silk spinning mill, Suzhou, China The filaments of six cocoons are used to form one thread for spinning silk (Suzhou, 1987) Women weaving silk. Kashgar. Local governments have and are continuing to introduce new facilities that are expected to bring in latest high-end silk manufacturing machinery that will elevate both the quality and the quantity of the silk being produced in China.
The production of silk originated in China in the Neolithic period, although it would eventually reach other places of the world (Yangshao culture, 4th millennium BC). Silk production remained confined to China until the Silk Road opened at some point during the latter part of the 1st millennium BC, though China maintained its virtual monopoly over silk production for another thousand years.
Silk is believed to have first been produced in China as early as the Neolithic period. Sericulture has become an important cottage industry in countries such as Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Thailand. Today, China and India are the two main producers, with more than 60% of the world's annual production.
The Chinese invention of woodblock printing, at some point before the first dated book in 868 (the Diamond Sutra), produced the world's first print culture. According to A. Hyatt Mayor, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "it was the Chinese who really invented the means of communication that was to dominate until our age."
500 AD – jia xie method for resist dyeing (usually silk) using wood blocks invented in China. An upper and a lower block is made, with carved out compartments opening to the back, fitted with plugs. The cloth, usually folded a number of times, is inserted and clamped between the two blocks.
The alchemist Hu Gangzi, of the Eastern Han dynasty, is claimed to have invented the technique, as recorded in Chu jin Kuang Tu Lu. [1] Silk fabric metallized with gold powder was unearthed from Tomb 1 at the Mawangdui site. [1] Gold metallization of silk was also used in the Tang dynasty.