China 360 Online - A Post-Visit Activity from the China Institute Gallery

A Post-Visit Activity from the China Institute Gallery

NOBLE TOMBS AT MAWANGDUI:

ART AND LIFE OF THE CHANGSHA KINGDOM,

THIRD CENTURY BCE – FIRST CENTURY CE

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Chinese raised silkworms and made silk as early as the fifth or fourth millennia BCE. By the time of the Mawangdui tombs sericulture, the making of silk, was a highly developed craft involving raising silkworms, making silk thread from their cocoons, and weaving cloth.

The padded gown (right, No. 48 in the exhibition) is from Tomb No. 1. It’s dyed with herbal or mineral dyes and embroidered with plant and animal designs symbolizing long life. The illustration below shows how this garment was draped and worn.

The second section compares the gown with the character for “clothing,” yi. Notice and discuss the striking resemblance between the gown and the writing. The numbers on the character indicate the stroke order; the arrows indicate the direction the stroke is written. Students can write the character and become familiar with its shape and structure by using the third section as a practice sheet. The fourth section is a description of how silk is made.

Other activities for younger students could include modeling Han dynasty dancers in clay. Also, relevant global studies issues for older students concern how fashion expresses social divisions in different cultures, past and present.

EMBROIDERED SILK PADDED GOWN

MAWANGDUI TOMB NO. 1

(EXHIBITION NO. 48)

THE CHARACTER FOR “CLOTHING” (YI )

HOW DOES THE CHARACTER COMPARE TO THE GOWN?

WRITING YI
(right click on the image and choose save as to download)

SERICULTURE—THE MAKING OF SILK

Raw silk thread, called a “filament,” is drawn from the cocoons of several moth species. The caterpillars that spin the cocoons are commonly called “silkworms.”

Silk production involves growing mulberry trees to provide food for the silkworms, which eat more than fifty thousand times their weight in mulberry leaves. It also involves caring for the silkworm as an egg, a caterpillar, and as a chrysalis within a cocoon. The chrysalis is the final stage before the silkworm emerges as an adult moth.

The female moth lays hundreds of eggs, each about the size of a pinhead, before dying almost immediately after. The eggs are stored through the winter and allowed to hatch only the following spring.

About four to six weeks after hatching, the caterpillars reach maximum size and begin to spin their cocoons. This takes about four days. Glands on the caterpillar’s head secrete a liquid that becomes the silk filament. Each cocoon is made of a single filament, two to three thousand feet long.

In order to kill the chrysalises, the finished cocoons are either steamed, put in jars layered with salt, or boiled. The caterpillars have to be prevented from becoming full-grown moths in order to preserve the cocoon and its thread. The only moths allowed to live are those selected as breeding stock for future generations of silkworms.

Each cocoon is made of a single filament two or three thousand feet long. This is called “floss,” which is twisted to make silk thread.

Although the Chinese used other raw materials such as hemp to make cloth, silk was the most useful and valued fabric for many centuries. It was only with the spread of cotton production in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that silk was eclipsed as a fabric for daily use.

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