With 1.60 meters long, long-sleeved and as light as 48 grams, the plain voile Buddhist garment which was unearthed from Tomb No.1 of Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tomb is the lightest silk clothing in chinese history.
It is light as the mist and as fine as gossamer. Since it was so light, the upper class of that time always wore more than 10 pieces of this kind of clothing for formal occasions.
And why the cloth is so light? The research found out that “silk worms from that era were much smaller than today’s variety, thus they could spin silk that was much thinner and lighter than today’s silk worms.” (Thanks for Vi’s comment!) Scients even took 13 years to do the research. They fed the certain silk worms which were close to those in the ancient times and then used the silk they spun to make a duplicate.
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#1 by T on February 25, 2010 - 12:38 pm
Could it be possible that the aging of the garment made it lighter?
#2 by sharon on February 26, 2010 - 4:29 am
#3 by Vi on July 31, 2010 - 8:17 am
Actually, they managed to replicate something close to the garment they found, not nearly as light, but close. In this case, it really has nothing to do with craftsmanship. The people who replicated the garment figured out that the silk worms from that era were much smaller than today’s variety, thus they could spin silk that was much thinner and lighter than today’s silk worms.
#4 by sharon on August 4, 2010 - 2:34 am
Thanks, Vi. I did some search and found that what you said just the main reason for why the cloth is so light. Scients even took 13 years to do the research. They fed the certain silk worms which were close to those in the ancient times and then used the silk they spun to make a duplicate.
#5 by conveyancing on August 27, 2010 - 7:42 am
Lovely to read!