"Legend of silk" by simi in Dukascopy Forex Community
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Legend of silk

Legend has it that Leizu, Empress of China, was one day sitting in the sunshine, drinking tea. A cocoon spun by a caterpillar, fell from a tree into her cup. The warmth of the tea made it unravel, revealing an extraordinary length of fine thread, which the empress had woven into a lustrous lightweight fabric. Silk was born.

But it is no more than legend. Leizu lived in about 2700BC. The earliest traces of silk fabric found in Chine date from 800 years before, at a time when Western Europeans had just started spinning wool, thrilling to the cutting edge technology of comb.

Silk farming, done the traditional way is a brutal business. The caterpillars - silkworms - are carefully nurtured on a diet of mulberry leaves, then allowed to spin the cocoons in which they will metamorphose into moths. But before they have a chance to spread their wings, they are boiled and the cocoons unravelled for thread.

At times, the result was literally worth its weight in gold. The Roman senate tried several times to ban silk, but also because, they suspected, it's clinging, revealing nature was a threat to public morals.

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