haixi'' ("West of the Sea") cloth made from ''shuiyang'' ("water sheep").
They have fine brocaded cloth that is said to be made from the down of "water-sheep". It is called ''Haixi'' ("Egyptian") cloth. This country produces the six domestic animals raditionally: horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs and pigs which are all said to come from the water. It is said that they not only use sheep's wool, but also bark from trees, or the silk from wild silkworms, to make brocade, mats, pile rugs, woven cloth and curtains, all of them of good quality, and with brighter colours than those made in the countries of Haidong (''East of the Sea'').
The c. 5th century AD ''
Hou Hanshu'' ("Book of the Eastern Han") expresses doubt about "water sheep" in the "Products of
Daqin
Daqin (; alternative transliterations include Tachin, Tai-Ch'in) is the ancient Chinese name for the Roman Empire or, depending on context, the Near East, especially Syria. It literally means "great Qin"; Qin () being the name of the founding dyn ...
" section. "They also have a fine cloth which some people say is made from the down of 'water sheep,' but which is made, in fact, from the cocoons of
wild silk
Wild silks have been known and used in many countries from early times, although the scale of production is far smaller than that from cultivated silkworms. Silk cocoons and nests often resemble paper or cloth, and their use has arisen independent ...
worms". The historian
Fan Ye (398–445 AD), author of the ''Hou Hanshu'', notes this section's information comes from the report that General
Ban Yong
Ban Yong (, died c. 128 CE), courtesy name Yiliao (宜僚), was the youngest son of the famous Chinese General, Ban Chao, and the nephew of the illustrious historian, Ban Gu, who compiled the ''Book of Han'', the dynastic history of the Former Han ...
(son of General
Ban Chao, 32–102 AD) presented to the Emperor in 125. Both Bans administered the
Western Regions
The Western Regions or Xiyu (Hsi-yü; ) was a historical name specified in the Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of Yumen Pass, most often Central Asia or sometimes more sp ...
on the
Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
.
The (945 AD) ''
Tang shu'' "Book of Tang" mentioned ''Haixi'' cloth from Folin (
Byzantine Syria
Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great.
Following the partition of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea into tetr ...
), which
Emil Bretschneider
Emil Bretschneider ( in Bankaushof (now Benkavas muiža, Saldus novads, Latvia) – in Saint Petersburg) was a sinologist of Baltic German ethnicity and a correspondent member of the Académie française. He operated in the Russian Empire. H ...
first identified as sea silk from Greece. "There is also a stuff woven from the hair of sea-sheep, and called ''hai si pu'' (stuff from the western sea)". He notes, "This is, perhaps, the ''Byssus'', a clothstuff woven up to the present time by the Mediterranean coast, especially in Southern Italy, from the thread-like excrescences of several sea-shells, (especially ''
Pinna nobilis
''Pinna nobilis'', common name the noble pen shell or fan mussel, is a large species of Mediterranean clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family Pinnidae, the pen shells. *''Pinna gigas'' Chemnitz
It reaches up to of shell length.Zavodn ...
'')."
The early 6th century AD ''Shuyiji'' ("Records of Strange Things") mentions silk woven by ''Jiaoren'', "
''jiao''-dragon people", which
Edward H. Schafer
Edward Hetsel Schafer (23 August 1913 – 9 February 1991) was an American historian, sinologist, and writer noted for his expertise on the Tang Dynasty, and was a professor of Chinese at University of California, Berkeley for 35 years. Sc ...
identifies as sea silk.
In the midst of the South Sea are the houses of the ''kău'' people who dwell in the water like fish, but have not given up weaving at the loom. Their eyes have the power to weep, but what they bring forth is pearls.
This aquatic type of raw silk was called ''jiaoxiao'', "mermaid silk", or ''jiaonujuan '', "mermaid women's silk".
Modern Europe
The earliest usage of the English name ''sea silk'' remains uncertain, but the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' defines ''sea-silkworm'' as "a bivalve mollusc of the genus ''Pinna''."
Alexander Serov
Alexander Nikolayevich Serov (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Серо́в, Saint Petersburg, – Saint Petersburg, ) was a Russian composer and music critic. He is notable as one of the most important music critics in ...
's 1863 opera ''
Judith'' includes an aria "I shall don my robe of byssus" (Я оденусь в виссон).
In
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...
's 1870 novel ''
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (french: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.
The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-J ...
'', the crew of the Nautilus wear clothes made of byssus (alternately translated as "seashell tissue" or "fan-mussel fabric").
''Pinna nobilis'' has become threatened with extinction, partly due to overfishing, the decline in
seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the or ...
fields, and pollution. As it has declined so dramatically, the once small but vibrant sea silk industry has almost disappeared, and the art is now preserved only by a few women on the island of
Sant'Antioco
Sant'Antioco (; sc, Santu Antiogu) is the name of both an island and a municipality (''comune'') in southwestern Sardinia, in the Province of South Sardinia, in Sulcis zone. With a population of 11,730, the municipality of Sant'Antioco it is the ...
near
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
. Chiara Vigo claimed on various media to be the sole person living today to master the art of working with byssus and the local people
helped her to open the Sea Silk Museum in Sant'Antioco. "Project Sea-Silk" from the
Natural History Museum of Basel
Natural History Museum Basel (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Basel) is a natural history museum in Basel, Switzerland that houses wide-ranging collections focused on the fields of zoology, entomology, mineralogy, anthropology, osteology and pal ...
is collecting extensive data and studies on the subject, and informs the public that a couple of other women still produce and work today with byssus in Sant'Antioco in Sardinia, such as the sisters Assuntina e Giuseppina Pes which contradicts the claims of Chiara Vigo who is credited as having "invented with an extraordinary imagination her own story of sea-silk and
pinning Pinning may refer to:
* Pinning, the effect of certain weapons that cause their targets to be pinned down
* Pinning ceremony (nursing), a symbolic welcoming of new graduates into the nursing profession
* Pinning force, a force acting on a pinned ...
it tirelessly and to the delight of all media on and on". In 2013, Efisia Murroni, a 100-year-old sea silk master weaver nicknamed "la signora del bisso" (born in 1913) died and her work is now shown in the Museo Etnografico di Sant'Antioco, with other artefacts being already on display in various museums throughout Europe.
See also
*
Coa vestis
Coa vestis is an ancient type of fabric named after its point of origin, the Greek island Kos.
''Coa vestis'' was made by the wild silk of '' Pachypasa otus'', a Mediterranean moth. , a textile made in ancient Greece from
wild silk
Wild silks have been known and used in many countries from early times, although the scale of production is far smaller than that from cultivated silkworms. Silk cocoons and nests often resemble paper or cloth, and their use has arisen independent ...
.
Footnotes
Citations
References
* Bretschneider, Emil. 1871
''On the Knowledge Possessed by the Ancient Chinese of the Arabs and Arabian Colonies and Other Western Countries'' Trubner.
* Hill, John E. (2009) ''Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE''. John E. Hill. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. . See Section 12 plus "Appendix B – Sea Silk".
* Hill, John E. 2004
A draft annotated translation of the 3rd century ''
Weilüe
The ''Weilüe'' () was a Chinese historical text written by Yu Huan between 239 and 265. Yu Huan was an official in the state of Cao Wei (220–265) during the Three Kingdoms period (220–280). Although not a formal historian, Yu Huan has been h ...
'' – see Section 12 of the text and Appendix D.
* Laufer, Berthold. 1915
"The Story of the Pinna and the Syrian Lamb" ''The Journal of American Folk-lore'' 28.108:103–128.
* McKinley, Daniel L. 1988. "Pinna and Her Silken Beard: A Foray into Historical Misappropriations". ''Ars Textrina: A Journal of Textiles and Costumes'', Vol. Twenty-nine, June, 1998, Winnipeg, Canada, pp. 9–223.
* Maeder, Felicitas 2002. "The project Sea-silk – Rediscovering an Ancient Textile Material." ''Archaeological Textiles Newsletter'', Number 35, Autumn 2002, pp. 8–11.
* Maeder, Felicitas, Hänggi, Ambros and Wunderlin, Dominik, Eds. 2004. ''Bisso marino: Fili d’oro dal fondo del mare – Muschelseide: Goldene Fäden vom Meeresgrund''. Naturhistoriches Museum and Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Switzerland. (In Italian and German).
* Maeder, Felicitas. (2014). "Irritating Byssus – Etymological problems, material facts and the impact of mass media." Paper presented at: Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe 1000 BC – AD 1000. Copenhagen, 18–22 June 2014, pp. 1–17.
* Scales, Helen. 2015. ''Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells''. Bloomsbury Sigma.
* Schafer, Edward H. 1967. ''The Vermillion Bird: T'ang Images of the South''. University of California Press.
* Turner, Ruth D. and Rosewater, Joseph 1958. "The Family Pinnidae in the Western Atlantic". ''Johnsonia'', Vol. 3 No. 38, June 28, 1958, pp. 285–326.
{{Bivalve anatomy
Animal hair products
Fibers
Mollusc anatomy
Silk
Woven fabrics
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