Silk has historically been associated with wealth, power, authority, social status, diplomacy, religion, exoticism, and comfort. Silk itself seems mysterious and almost magical—a textile produced by an insect larva, capable of being dyed brilliant colors, strong enough to be used in warfare, smooth and light enough for the most diaphanous garment. In antiquity the peoples of Western Europe believed silk came from the distant land of Seres, somewhere in the East, where it grew on trees. It was traded from east to west along the long, difficult trans-Eurasian overland trade routes, later romantically named the Silk Road. Eventually some peoples in the Levant and the Mediterranean began to produce their own silk textiles, using raw silk or thread imported from the East. However, the expense of the silk thread and frequent disruptions of trade led them to search for a way to produce the raw material locally. Sericulture—raising silkworms and harvesting the filaments from their cocoons to produce thread—would provide them with that raw material. The white mulberry tree, needed to produce the best silk, could not grow everywhere, so evidence of silk weaving in a particular area does not mean that silk fiber was produced locally.

Although sericulture is a critical link in the story of silk textile manufacture, the sources are rare, making its history a challenge for researchers. Sericulture and silk weaving west of China before 1300 can be roughly divided into five distinct phases of expansion. The first begins with the development of sericulture in China during the fourth millennium BCE and ends as China’s monopoly begins to unravel, some time around the mid-third century CE. During this period sericulture and silk weaving were confined to China and its close possessions. The next phase starts with the beginning of the overland Silk Road trade between China and the West during China’s early Han Dynasty (220 BCE to 202 CE).It ends with the beginning of the Islamic conquests of the mid- to late seventh century. This phase marks the spread of silk weaving and sericulture outside China to Central Asia, including Sogdian Transox-iana and the Persian Empire of the Sassanids. The third phase, which overlaps the second and the fourth, includes the introduction of silk weaving, and later sericulture, to the Greco-Roman world, including the Byzantine Empire. It ends with the Islamic conquests.