Silk reference

[stellar_muddle]

Via jillweezul - surfing friend of friend of friend lists:

Original post here
Source: "Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the
Muslim World, and the Christian West" by David Jacoby, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers,
Vol. 58. (2004) pp. 197-240 (available on jstor for those who have access)

Page 208, in reference to qualities of silk:

"The quality of the cloth also varied widely, depending on the raw materials
used and the nature of the weave. Each domesticated silkworm produces a
continuous filament 900 to 1200 m long. Several of them were twisted together
to increase the tensile strength of thread entering into the weaving of high-and
medium-grade textiles. At the lower end of the scale, silk cloth was woven of
greige, the silk filament still surrounded by gum sericin, the adhesive holding
several filaments together, which prevents proper dyeing.

Since silk was an expensive raw material, most of it regardless of quality was
exploited to maximize profits. Short fibers coming from damaged cocoons and
surface floss, as well as waste silk discarded in the process of turning raw
silk into thread, had first to be spun like wool, flax, cotton, or hemp before
being woven into a silk fabric of a coarse and uneven quality known in Byzantium
as 'koukoularikon'. In the tenth century the ceremonial garments and leggings
of some contingents in the imperial army were made of that cloth. In 1022 a
Jewish bride from a modest household living in the Anatolian city of mastaura
received from her mother a "double red koukoularikon garment" worth 1 1/2
nomisma. When the famous Marco Polo died in Venice in 1324, he owned a piece of
green chocholario and two bedcovers of that same material, one yellow and the
other blood-red, the provenance of which is not stated. The few examples
adduced here, taken at random from consecutive periods,
different regions, and different social and cultural settings, clearly hint at
the wide diffusion of that type of low-grade silk cloth."

Definitely sounds as though the article may be of interest - I miss access to accademic libraries...

Comments

[cataragon.livejournal.com]

If you'd like a copy of the article in PDF, drop me an email at cataragon at gmail dot com.
I have high quality (7.2MB) and lower (2MB)

:-)

C.