Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is no ...

that is made from the long silky filaments or

byssus A byssus () is a bundle of filaments secreted by many species of bivalve mollusc that function to attach the mollusc to a solid surface. Species from several families of clams have a byssus, including pen shells ( Pinnidae), true mussels (Mytili ...

secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells (in particular ''

Pinna nobilis ''Pinna nobilis'', known by the common names noble pen shell and 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 ...

''). The byssus is used by the mussel to attach itself to the sea bed. Sea silk was produced in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

region from the large marine

bivalve Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

''Pinna nobilis'' until early in the 20th century. The animal, whose shell is sometimes almost a metre long, adheres itself pointed end down to rocks in the

intertidal zone The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various ...

using a tuft of very strong thin fibres. These byssi or filaments (which can be six centimetres long) are spun and, when treated with

lemon The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...

juice, turn a golden colour, which never fades. The cloth produced from these filaments can be woven even more finely than silk, and is extremely light and warm; it was said that a pair of women's gloves made from the fabric could fit into half a

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...

shell and a pair of stockings in a

snuffbox A decorative box is a form of packaging that is generally more than just functional, but also intended to be decorative and artistic. Many such boxes are used for promotional packaging, both commercially and privately. Historical objects are u ...

. The cloth attracts

clothes moth Clothes moth or clothing moth is the common name for several species of moth considered to be pests, whose larvae eat animal fibres (hairs), including clothing and other fabrics. These include: * ''Tineola bisselliella'', the common clothes mot ...

s, the larvae of which will eat it. ''Pinna nobilis'' is also sometimes gathered for its edible flesh and occasional

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle (mollusc), mantle) of a living Exoskeleton, shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pear ...

s of fair quality.

History

Egypt

The Greek text of the (196 BC)

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt, Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts ...

records that

Ptolemy V Ptolemy V Epiphanes Eucharistus (, ''Ptolemaĩos Epiphanḗs Eukháristos'' "Ptolemy the Manifest, the Beneficent"; 9 October 210–September 180 BC) was the King of Ptolemaic Egypt from July or August 204 BC until his death in 180 BC. Ptolemy ...

reduced taxes on priests, including one paid in ''byssus'' cloth. This is thought to be fine

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong and absorbent, and it dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. Lin ...

cloth, not sea silk. In

Ancient Egyptian burial customs The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of funerary practices that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals included mummifying the body, casting magic spells, and burials with specific grave goods ...

, ''byssus'' was used to wrap

mummies A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and Organ (biology), organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to Chemical substance, chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the ...

; this was also linen and not sea silk.

Greece

The

sophist A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...

author

Alciphron Alciphron () was an ancient Greek sophist, and the most eminent among the Greek epistolographers. Regarding his life or the age in which he lived we possess no direct information whatsoever. Works We possess under the name of Alciphron 116 fict ...

first records "sea wool" in his (c. 2nd century AD) "Galenus to Cryton" letter. Sea silk has been suggested as an interpretation of the nature of the golden fleece that was sought by Jason and the Argonauts but scholars reject this hypothesis.

Roman Empire

The early Christian

Tertullian Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive co ...

(c. 160–220 AD) mentions it when justifying his wearing a

pallium The pallium (derived from the Roman ''pallium'' or ''palla'', a woolen cloak; : pallia) is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the pope, but for many centuries bestowed by the Holy See upon metropolitan bish ...

instead of a

toga The toga (, ), a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tra ...

Nor was it enough to comb and to sew the materials for a tunic. It was necessary also to fish for one's dress; for fleeces are obtained from the sea where shells of extraordinary size are furnished with tufts of mossy hair.

Several sources mention ''lana pinna'' ("pinna wool"). Emperor

Diocletian Diocletian ( ; ; ; 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed Jovius, was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia. As with other Illyri ...

's (301 AD) ''

Edict on Maximum Prices The Edict on Maximum Prices (Latin: ''Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium'', "Edict Concerning the Sale Price of Goods"; also known as the Edict on Prices or the Edict of Diocletian) was issued in 301 by Diocletian. The document denounces greed ...

'' lists it as a valuable textile. The Byzantine historian

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea (; ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; ; – 565) was a prominent Late antiquity, late antique Byzantine Greeks, Greek scholar and historian from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman general Belisarius in Justinian I, Empe ...

's c. 550 AD ''Persian War'', "stated that the five hereditary

satrap A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median kingdom, Median and Achaemenid Empire, Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic period, Hellenistic empi ...

s (governors) of Armenia who received their insignia from the Roman Emperor were given

chlamys The chlamys (; genitive: ) was a type of ancient Greek cloak. It was worn by men for military and hunting purposes during the Classical, Hellenistic and later periods. By the time of the Byzantine Empire it was part of the state costume of the ...

(or cloaks) made from ''lana pinna''. Apparently only the ruling classes were allowed to wear these chlamys."

Middle East

The

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

name for "sea silk" is ("sea wool"). The 9th-century Persian geographer

Estakhri Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-Istakhri () (also ''Estakhri'', , i.e. from the Iranian city of Istakhr, b. – d. 346 AH/AD 957) was a 10th-century travel author and Islamic geographer who wrote valuable accounts in Arabic of ...

notes that a sea-wool robe cost more than 1000 gold pieces and records its mythic source.

At a certain period of the year an animal is seen running out of the sea and rubbing itself against certain stones of the littoral, whereupon it deposes a kind of wool of silken hue and golden colour. This wool is very rare and highly esteemed, and nothing of it is allowed to waste.

Two 13th-century authors,

Ibn al-Baitar Diyāʾ al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Mālaqī, commonly known as Ibn al-Bayṭār () (1197–1248 AD) was an Al-Andalus, Andalusian Arabs, Arab physician, botanist, pharmacist and scientist. His main contribution was to sys ...

and

Zakariya al-Qazwini Zakariyya' al-Qazwini ( , ), also known as Qazvini (), (born in Qazvin, Iran, and died 1283), was a Cosmography, cosmographer and Geography in medieval Islam, geographer. He belonged to a family of jurists originally descended from Anas bin Mal ...

, repeat this inaccurate "sea wool" story. The city of

Tinnis Tennis or Tinnīs (, ) was a medieval city in Egypt which no longer exists. It was most prosperous from the 9th century to the 11th century until its abandonment. It was located at 31°12′N 32°14′E, on an island in Lake Manzala, southwest ...

on the

Nile Delta The Nile Delta (, or simply , ) is the River delta, delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's larger deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the eas ...

was known for its garments made of sea silk, called from the Greek name of the

mollusc.

China

Beginning in the

Eastern Han The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

dynasty (25–220 AD), Chinese histories document importing sea silk.

Chinese language Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...

names include "cloth from the west of the sea" and "mermaid silk". The 3rd century AD ''

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. Although not a formal historian, Yu Huan has been held in h ...

'' or "Brief Account of the Wei", which was an unofficial history of the

Cao Wei Wei () was one of the major Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic states in China during the Three Kingdoms period. The state was established in 220 by Cao Pi based upon the foundations laid by his father Cao Cao during the end of the Han dy ...

empire (220–265 AD), records '' 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 The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Late ...

'' ("Book of the Eastern Han") expresses doubt about "water sheep" in the "Products of Daqin" 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 independe ...

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 (son of General

Ban Chao Ban Chao (; 32–102 CE), courtesy name Zhongsheng, was a Chinese diplomat, explorer, and military general of the Eastern Han dynasty. He was born in Fufeng (region), Fufeng, now Xianyang, Shaanxi. Three of his family members—father Ban Biao, ...

, 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 Ancient Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of the Yumen Pass, most often the Tarim Basin in prese ...

on the

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

. 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, who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria. ...

), which Emil Bretschneider 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 ''

'')." The early 6th century AD ''Shuyiji'' ("Records of Strange Things") mentions silk woven by ''Jiaoren'', " ''jiao''-dragon people", which Edward H. Schafer 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 principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' defines ''sea-silkworm'' as "a bivalve mollusc of the genus ''Pinna''." Alexander Serov's 1863 opera ''

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

'' 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 ''

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' () is a science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may inclu ...

'', the crew of the ''

Nautilus A nautilus (; ) is any of the various species within the cephalopod family Nautilidae. This is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and the suborder Nautilina. It comprises nine living species in two genera, the type genus, ty ...

'' 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 (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and ...

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 (; ) 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 island's largest ...

near

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

. 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 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 and 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 pinningit 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. Catherine Joy White in her book, "This thread of gold," gives an account of the history of sea silk, and its modern divers off the island of Sant’Antioco, Sardinia. The

of ''

Atrina pectinata ''Atrina pectinata'' is a species of bivalves belonging to the family Pinnidae. The species is found in the Old World. They are important in commercial fishing in Asia. They have the common name of ''kijogae'' 'pen shells'' ''A. pectinata'' is ...

'', a shell of the same family, has been used near Sant’Antioco by Arianna Pintus as a substitute for ''

'', to weave sea silk.

Footnotes

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 ''

'' – 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 de:Byssus eo:Bisino it:Bisso lb:Byssus