silk manufacture in china gathering the threads the production of silk originates in china in prehistoric times silk remained confined to china until the silk road opened during the latter half of the first millennium bc china maintained its virtual monopoly over silk production for another thousand years this image is a colorization of an original engraving captioned the chinese method of winding the silk off the bags in warm water the engraving was published by carington bowles 1771 1785 t96me1.jpg from china 潮州细姨 姐夫小姨子1 View Photo