Korean Silk with Long History

Our country is one of cradles of silk.

Korean silk with a long history is light and hard-wearing, and famous for beautiful patterns, soft touch and others.

Our ancestors started domesticating wild silkworms very long ago.

Drawn on the bottom of lots of earthenware pieces unearthed at the house sites of Namgyong Site in Pyongyang were mulberry leaves, silkworms’ favorite fodder, and earthenware pieces with silkworms drawn on them were also discovered in the Chitap-ri Site in Pongsan County.

These show that our country has a long history of silkworm culture.

From of old, we have bred three molt silkworms and produced silk with their cocoon thread.

Three molt silkworms in our country grew up very fast and had a strong resistance against diseases and great viability.

In particular, their cocoon thread could produce soft and light silk, which was easy to dye and could bring out beautiful colors.

We can know that our country’s silk was produced with cocoon thread of three molt silkworms not only from old documents but also from silk left of our ancestors.

The Korean silk in the ancient times was weaved with double-ply thread or others.

In Koguryo, high-class silks with different textures, colors and patterns were produced.

In the period of Koryo, a further development was made in silk production and the varieties of silk were greatly increased.

The silk was also high in quality and was exported as far as to the Middle East as well as the neighboring countries to renown itself as Koryo silk.

Indeed, the Korean silk is an independent and characteristic one with a long history.

Rodong Sinmun