From the February 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here. The production of silk in China, from the cocoons of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori, dates back to the Neolithic period. According to myth, the first king, Fu Xi, taught the Chinese to cultivate mulberry bushes and raise silk moths, while Xi-ling Shih, chief wife of the Yellow Emperor Huangdi, discovered how to reel silk after
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