Chinese embroidery boasts a very long history. As the "Longevity embroidery" and "Token embroidery" unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province, indicate, it reached a rather high level of development some 2000-3000 years ago. Wang Jia of the Jin Dynasty wrote in Making Good Omissions: "In the period of Three Kingdoms, Madame Zhao, wife of His Lord the chief of Wu, could embroider the map of all kingdoms on a piece of silk fabric, with the mountain ranges, rivers and sees all clearly shown. People of that time described it as superb needle-work." The said map was perhaps the earliest recorded embroidery in China.
Embroidery, a folk art with a long tradition, has an important position in the history of Chinese arts and crafts. In its long development embroidery has been inseparable from silkworm raising and silk reeling and weaving.
China was the first country in the world to weave silk. Silkworms were domesticated as early as some 5,000 years ago. The production of silk threads and fabrics gave rise to the art of embroidery. In 1958, a piece of silk embroidered with a dragon and phoenix was discovered in a state of Chu tomb of the Warring Sates Period (475-221BC). More than 2,000 years old, it is the earliest piece of Chinese embroidery ever unearthed. Embroidery became widespread during the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) and many embroidered pieces discovered date back to that period.
Today, silk embroidery is practiced nearly all over China. The Four Famous Embroideries of China refer to the Xiang embroidery in central China's Hunan Province, Shu embroidery in western China's Sichuan Province, Yue embroidery in southern China's Guangdong Province and Su embroidery in eastern China's Jiangsu Province.
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