Now the deluge terminated A. M. 1657, and Noah lived after the deluge 350 years[13], and therefore died A. M. 2007; and as Fohi is said to have reigned 114 years, before Eohi Chun or Chinun succeeded him, he was contemporary, at least, with Noah. The ark rested on Mount Ararat, which is generally allowed to be one of the mountains of Armenia, to the east of the head of the Tigris. And here the same author remarks, that “in rather less than a century and a half, after the birth of Peleg, it is supposed that Noah, being then about his 840th year, wearied with the growing depravity of his descendants, retired with a select company to a remote corner of Asia, and there began what in after ages has been termed the Chinese monarchy.”[14] This view of the subject, we believe, coincides perfectly with the reputable testimonies presented by Mairan, Bailly, Guignes, and Sir William Jones, and demonstrates that the transit of more central aborigines, since the deluge, to the extremes of China, was perfectly feasible,[15] and a matter of even high probability.
[13] Gen. ix. 28.
[14] Clarke’s “Treatise on the Mulberry-tree, and Silk-worm,” pp. 14, 18, 20, 21, 27, and 34.
[15] See [chap. iv. p. 67]. Also [Plate VII.] (Map.)
The first ancient author, who affords any evidence respecting the use of silk, is Aristotle. He does not, however, appear to have been accurately acquainted with the changes of the silk-worm; nor does he say, that the animal was bred or the raw material produced in Cos. He only says, “Pamphile, daughter of Plates, is reported to have first woven it in Cos.” (See Chapters [ii.] [iii.] and [iv.] of this Part.)
Long before the time of Aristotle a regular trade had been established in the interior of Asia, which brought its most valuable productions, and especially those which were most easily transported, to the shores opposite this flourishing island. Nothing therefore is more likely than that the raw silk from the interior of Asia was brought to Cos and there manufactured. We shall see hereafter from the testimony of Procopius, that it was in like manner brought some centuries later to be woven in the Phœnician cities, Tyre and Berytus.
The arts of spinning and weaving, which rank next in importance to agriculture, having been found among almost all the nations of the old and new continents, even among those little removed from barbarism, are reasonably supposed to have been invented at a very remote period of the world’s history[16]. They evidently existed in Egypt in the time of Joseph (1700 years before the Christian era), as it is recorded that Pharaoh “arrayed him in vestures of fine linen.” (Genesis xli. 42.) Two centuries later, the Hebrews carried with them on their departure from that ancient seat of civilization, the arts of spinning, dyeing, weaving, and embroidery; for when Moses constructed the tabernacle in the wilderness, “the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen.” (Exod. xxxv. 25.) They also “spun goats’ hair;” and Bezaleel and Aholiab “worked all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and of purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver.” These passages contain the earliest mention of woven clothing, which was linen, the national manufacture of Egypt. The prolific borders of the Nile furnished from the remotest periods, as at the present time, abundance of the finest flax[17]; and it appears, from the testimony both of sacred and profane history, that linen continued to be almost the only kind of clothing used in Egypt till after the Christian era[18]. The Egyptians exported their “linen yarn,” and “fine linen,” to the kingdom of Israel, in the days of Solomon, (2 Chron. i. 16; Prov. vii. 16;) their “fine linen with broidered work,” to Tyre, (Ezek. xxvii. 7.)
[16] According to Pliny, Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, was believed to have been the inventress of the art of weaving. Minerva is in some of the ancient statutes represented with a distaff, to intimate that she taught men the art of spinning; and this honor is given by the Egyptians to Isis, by the Mohammedans to a son of Japhet, by the Chinese to the consort of their emperor Yao, and by the Peruvians to Mamaoella, wife to Manco-Capac, their first sovereign. These traditions serve only to carry the invaluable arts of spinning and weaving up to an extremely remote period, long prior to that of authentic history.
[17] Paintings representing the gathering and preparation of flax have been found on the walls of the ancient sepulchres at Eleithias and Beni Hassan, in Upper Egypt, and are described and copied by Hamilton.—“Remarks on several parts of Turkey, and on ancient and modern Egypt,” pp. 97 and 287, plate 23.
[18] Herodotus, book ii. c. 37, 81. (See [Plate vi].)