In ancient times, silk was a textile woven from silk (mainly mulberry silk, but also a small amount of tussah silk and cassava silk). Due to the expansion of modern textile raw materials, all textiles woven with man-made or natural filament fibers can be called silk in a broad sense. Silk woven from pure mulberry silk is also called "real silk".
Value meaning
China is the hometown of silk, and silk is one of the important features of Chinese civilization, which has many connections with China's etiquette system, culture and art, local customs, science and technology.
The emperor used silk to show authority, and officials used silk to mark grades; Scholars write poems to praise silk, and painters splash ink on silk made of silk; The common people offered sacrifices to various silkworm gods and prayed for high yield of silk, while the imperial court issued decrees to persuade sericulture, so as to evaluate the achievements of local officials. Two of the four great inventions are directly related to silk.
The original meaning of "paper" is the deposition of wool in the process of making silk floss. The invention of printing is directly related to relief printing on silk. The printed silk unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb has been a large-scale color overprint, which is nearly a thousand years earlier than the official engraving printing in Tang Dynasty.
Therefore, it can be said that relief printing on silk is the originator of block printing in later generations. In addition, the development of the Maritime Silk Road directly promoted the practice and perfection of the compass.