13 November 2027, Burridge Gardens, 14.00-16.00
Monthly Guild Meeting – The Silk Road, Chris Aslan
We explore the birth of the Silk Road and the role that heavenly horses, one-and-a-half humped camels played, as well as the reason you’re wearing trousers. We’ll discover how silk fuelled trade in goods, foods, art, inventions, commodities, religions, fashions and so much more, ushering in the first era of globalisation.
We then focus on silk production today in Uzbekistan, where more of the population is involved in sericulture than in any other country. How do you get from moth to cloth? We’ll learn how ikat, velvet and adras are made, and the role they played as fabrics in stratifying wealth, and how one particular item of clothing sparked a deadly culture war and led to mass burnings of silk.