Reference: MA, Debin. “The Great Silk Exchange: How the World ...

Roman empire (Bentley 1996: 763). Although long-distance trade became riskier and
diminished as various Hunnish, Turkic and Mongol peoples divided and raided Central
Asia, trade between Persia and Byzantium flourished.
One of the most important developments between the 4th and 6th centuries was that
the growth of a large silk trade stimulated the establishment of silk weaving industries in
both Byzantium and Persia (Needham 1988: 418; Lopez 1945). The Byzantine and Persian
importation of raw silk from China and Central Asia became much more important than
that of the finished silk fabrics. Although the superior quality of silk material and the
vigorous long-distance trade led to the early widespread diffusion of silk consumption on
the Eurasian continent, diffusion of the knowledge of sericulture lagged far behind largely
due to the difficulty of contacts between China and the outside world. The Romans, for
example, with no clue to the origin of the silk materials, expended enormous amounts of
treasure on importing Chinese silk, which was claimed to be worth more than its weight in
gold in Rome (Boulnois 1966: 45-6; Fang 1983: 165).
The high price of silk, due to worldwide demand and high transaction costs as well
as constant disruptions in trade, provided a strong incentive for regions and states to acquire
the knowledge of sericulture. Slowly, the knowledge of how to make silk threads began to
unravel beyond Chinese territory along the trade routes. Understandably, details regarding
the timing and mechanism of the early technological diffusion of silk were largely lost in
the long lapse of time, except perhaps in the form of legends. One such legend was the
acquisition of the Chinese secret of sericulture by a Central Asian Kingdom located in
Khotan, (now Hotan) in the Western part of China, the province of XingJiang. The legend
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