NEW EVIDENCE FOR EARLY SILK IN THE INDUS CIVILIZATION*

Irene Good · Jonathan Mark Kenoyer

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Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis Archaeology and ancient environmental studies Eurasian Exchange Networks

Abstract

Abstract Silk is an important economic fiber, and is generally considered to have been the exclusive cultural heritage of China. Silk weaving is evident from the Shang period, though the earliest evidence for silk textiles in ancient China dates to more than a millennium earlier. New study of fibers from Harappan bronze artifacts reveals surprising early evidence for knowledge of silkworking in South Asia, the earliest evidence in the world for any silk outside China, and roughly contemporaneous with the earliest Chinese evidence for silk. This important new finding brings into question the traditional historical notion of sericulture as being an exclusively Chinese invention.

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References

1987The Archaeology of Ancient China 2003The Indus civilization: a contemporary perspective 2005South Asian Archaeology 2001 2019The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective 1998Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization 2001Archaeological Textiles: A Review of Current Research

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