MUSEOS DE LA SEDA / SILK MUSEUMS

Sericulture in Georgia and the State Silk Museum NINO KUPRAVA Director at State Silk Museum of Tbilisi (Georgia) SERICULTURE IN GEORGIA Sericulture has been an essential part of Georgian culture and economy since ancient times. Georgian silk production traditions have recently been listed among the intangible cultural heritage of the country. This fact underlines the importance of silk for the nation- al identity. The documented history of silk making in Georgia starts from the 5 th century A.D. The hagiographic novel “The Passion of Saint Shushanik” has a passage where imprisoned Shushanik is reading Psalms instead of working on “Chichnaukhti,” the old name for silk in Georgian (Iakob Khutsesi, Sabanisdze, Giorgi Merchule 2016). The word “Abreshumi” (silk in Georgian) itself comes from a Persian word and is used in Georgian literature since the 11 th century. Based on the historical sources, in the 5 th century King Vakhtang Gorgasali brought silkworm eggs from his trip to India (Javakhishvili, 1907), assuming that Georgia was already introduced to this field. However, some scholars think that Georgia could have been introduced to sericulture even earlier, as mulberry is en- demic to the region and unique species of silkworms have been found here. One of the routes of the Great Silk Road went through Georgia, suggesting that silk trade also took place locally. The Silk Road was a trade route contributing not only to economic relations, but also to cultural and intellectual interaction among the countries, which also contributed to Georgian culture a lot. Remarkable are the notes of famous Italian traveler Marco Polo (2007), mentioning that lots of golden textiles were weaved using silk threads in Georgia. The works of Arcangelo Lamberti (1991), Jean Chardin (1935) and other international travelers also talk about seri- culture in Georgia. 18 th -century Georgian historian Vakhushti Batonishvili suggests that sericulture was mostly developed in Kakheti and Samegrelo regions (Batonishvili 1904). 125