Discoveries

DISCOVERIES

AGRICULTURE

Cashmere wool: The fiber is also known as pashm or pashmina for its use in the handmade shawls of Kashmir, India. The woolen shawls made from wool in Kashmir region of India find written mention between 3rd century BCE and the 11th century CE. However, the founder of the cashmere wool industry is traditionally held to be the 15th century ruler of Kashmir, Zayn-ul-Abidin, who employed weavers from Central Asia.

Cotton cultivation: Cotton was cultivated by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization by the 5th millennium BCE - 4th millennium BCE. The Indus cotton industry was well developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be practiced till the modern Industrialization of India. Well before the Common Era, the use of cotton textiles had spread from India to the Mediterranean and beyond.

Indigo dye: Indigo, a blue pigment and a dye, was used in India, which was also the earliest major center for its production and processing. The Indigofera tinctoria variety of Indigo was domesticated in India. Indigo, used as a dye, made its way to the Greeks and the Romans via various trade routes, and was valued as a luxury product.

Jute cultivation: Jute has been cultivated in India since ancient times. Raw jute was exported to the western world, where it was used to make ropes and cordage. The Indian jute industry, in turn, was modernized during the British Raj in India. The region of Bengal was the major center for Jute cultivation, and remained so before the modernization of India's jute industry in 1855, when Kolkata became a center for jute processing in India.

Sugar refinement: Sugarcane was originally from tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species likely originated in different locations with S. barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea. The process of producing crystallized sugar from sugarcane was discovered by the...