After the launch of the "One Question" series, we have received many questions one after another. The question we will answer for you today is: Western silk was passed down from China, where did the weaving machine start, or did people in both China and the West think of using weaving machines to weave fabrics? The underlying meaning of the questioner is that before Chinese silk was introduced to the West, did the West already have their own weaving machines? How could people from both the East and the West think of using looms to weave fabrics? Are their looms the same as ours?
There are many ways to construct a surface using lines
What did humans wear the earliest? The general speculation is that it should be animal skins or similar. In Han Feizi's Five Worms, it is said that in ancient times, "women did not weave, but the skin, feet, and clothing of animals and poultry were also the same." The History of the Liao Dynasty states that the Khitan people in their early years were also "net fish, birds, and beasts, eating meat and clothing.". Later on, it was thought that materials such as fur and feathers would be used to replace animal hides, so this production process is a process of turning textile fibers into clothing fabrics, that is, a process of turning threads into surfaces.
Of course, sometimes weaving is not necessary to turn thread into a surface. The simplest way is to use non-woven materials to directly form a flat surface with certain wearability through laminating, bonding and other methods. Today, it is called non-woven fabrics. Most of the masks we have used most recently to prevent and control COVID-19 are non-woven fabrics. The paper we usually use most is also a non-woven fabric, but thick non-woven fabrics are blankets such as wool felt, which are mostly used for home decoration.
The second method of turning threads into surfaces is weaving, which involves weaving different fibers or threads through various possible structures to form a surface. People around the world envy the instinct of spiders to spin silk and weave webs, so many corresponding legends have emerged. The Song Dynasty poet Pu Shougui wrote in his poem "Spider": "Light silk comes out of the belly, and the mouth is woven without a shuttle.". There is also a legend of spider women in Peru, South America. However, more physical weaving will have various structures. What Eric Broudy mentioned are: coiling, twisting, winding, braiding, mat weaving, etc., all of which require manual weaving and do not yet fall under the category of textiles. But they should have all existed in early history around the world.