Sea silk

Sea silk is an extremely fine, rare, and valuable fabric that is made from the long silky filaments or byssus secreted by a gland in the foot of pen shells (in particular Pinna nobilis).

[11] The Byzantine historian Procopius's c. 550 AD Persian War, "stated that the five hereditary satraps (governors) of Armenia who received their insignia from the Roman Emperor were given chlamys (or cloaks) made from lana pinna.

The city of Tinnis on the Nile Delta was known for its garments made of sea silk, called buqalamun from hypokalamon the Greek name of the byssus mollusc.

It is said that they not only use sheep's wool, but also bark from trees, or the silk from wild silkworms, to make brocade, mats, pile rugs, woven cloth and curtains, all of them of good quality, and with brighter colours than those made in the countries of Haidong (East of the Sea).

He notes, "This is, perhaps, the Byssus, a clothstuff woven up to the present time by the Mediterranean coast, especially in Southern Italy, from the thread-like excrescences of several sea-shells, (especially Pinna nobilis).

[21][22] In Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, the crew of the Nautilus wear clothes made of byssus (alternately translated as "seashell tissue" or "fan-mussel fabric").

Chiara Vigo [gl] claimed on various media to be the sole person living today to master the art of working with byssus[24][25] and the local people helped her to open the Sea Silk Museum in Sant'Antioco.

"Project Sea-Silk" from the Natural History Museum of Basel[26][27] is collecting extensive data and studies on the subject, and informs the public that a couple of other women still produce and work today with byssus in Sant'Antioco in Sardinia, such as the sisters Assuntina and Giuseppina Pes, which contradicts the claims of Chiara Vigo who is credited as having "invented with an extraordinary imagination her own story of sea-silk and [spinning] it tirelessly and to the delight of all media on and on".

[28] In 2013, Efisia Murroni, a 100-year-old sea silk master weaver nicknamed "la signora del bisso" (born in 1913) died and her work is now shown in the Museo Etnografico di Sant'Antioco, with other artefacts being already on display in various museums throughout Europe.

[29] Catherine Joy White in her book, "This thread of gold," gives an account of the history of sea silk, and its modern divers off the island of Sant’Antioco, Sardinia.

[30] The byssus of Atrina pectinata, a shell of the same family, has been used near Sant’Antioco by Arianna Pintus as a substitute for Pinna nobilis, to weave sea silk.