Amongst beautiful olive groves and gardens, discover the secrets of silk at The Silk Museum - Bsous - caza of Aley.

The Museum evokes images of scented spice routes, the famous ‘Silk Road’ and the ancient exchanges of silk between the Land of the Cedar and the East and the West. It is also a gentle reminder of the interaction between humans, insects and plants and the rewards that this brought to Lebanon for hundreds of years.

Silk production in Lebanon goes back to the Middle Ages and in the 19th century it became the main activity for a large section of the population, creating great social and economic change in the lives of the Lebanese.

The Silk Museum has become an important reference of ecological, cultural and economic history.

The Silk Museum is owned by George and Alexandra Asseily.

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What is an Eco-museum?

The Eco-museum is a space of culture that includes in its program the environment where men live and their relations with that environment. Three elements must always be present: a population, a land and a period of time. Those elements will relate the story of this land from its origins to today. The Eco-museum is in a way the collective memory of a whole region. It aims at leading a population to look at its past, present and future in a new and different way. 

Living Silk

The silkworm grows from a tiny egg weighing half a milligram to 10,000 times its original weight in just one month. In Lebanon, the silkworm breeding was a woman's responsibility. The task included receiving the eggs, the gathering of cocoons as well as the feeding, surveillance, and handling of silkworms. That's why, in villages, they say that a woman who breeds caterpillars "tshil harir, tshil azz". 

(Aida KANAFANI-ZAHAR, The Sheep and the Mulberry Tree)

Weaving 

Contrary to other artisanal activities, weaving in Lebanon was practiced by many families throughout Lebanon. This artisanal activity formed an important part of Lebanon's history as it involved a large number of people (as also did sericulture and cocoon unreeling). At the beginning of the 20th Century, there were hundreds of silk weaving looms. Today this artisanal activity hardly survives

fonte: @edisonmariotti #edisonmariotti 

http://www.museedelasoie.com/Homepage/Homepage_en.html

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