The Archaeology of Early Silk

 

 By Irene L. Good

 

 

Centuries before the initiation of formal silk trade with Han China ca. 2oo BCE, silk appeared as far west as the Baden-Würtemberg region of Germany. The use of wild (Antheraea sp.) silks has also been documented for western Asia and the Mediterranean region since early medieval times, but the extent and antiquity of this fiber technology is presently unclear. The domesticated silkworm Bombyx mori is derived from a species native to northern India, Assam and Bengal, known as Bombyx mandarina  Moore. It was in China that this moth was domesticated, and the process of de-gumming developed at some point during the second half of the third millennium B.C.E. Accurate discernment between silk made from Antheraea  and that made from Bombyx sp. is thus essential to understanding the real extent of pre-Han silk exchange in antiquity. Study of ancient silk fragments based on morphological observations is often hampered by poor preservation. The employment of biochemical analyses offers definitive confirmation of silk in archaeological samples, as well as the identification of the silkmoth species from which they derived, allowing a more accurate reconstruction of the nature and extent of early sericulture, and of the long-distance exchange of this important luxury commodity.

           

This paper outlines the auithor's current research on early archaeological silks from sites in Europe, the Mediterranean and South Asia.  (20 minute format)

 

Irene Good is Hrdy Visiting Curator at Harvard University's Peabody Museum. She specializes in fiber analysis, the archaeology of textile production and exchange, and the later prehistory of Central Asia. Irene received her doctorate in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1999;  and her dissertation, 'The Ecology of Excange: Textiles from Shahr-i Sokhta, Eastern Iran", is in press. The archaeology of early silk is one of Irene's  particular interests. She is currently working on a project examining early silks in Western Europe and Asia.