Incidentally, that site is wrong about why silk was so expensive. The problem wa... | Hacker News

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		pg on Feb 8, 2009 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: What things cost in ancient Rome Incidentally, that site is wrong about why silk was so expensive. The problem was not lack of machines, but that in Roman times it was imported overland from China.

bd on Feb 8, 2009 [–]

Indeed, in these times China had a monopoly for silk production [1].

It would be also interesting to know prices of spices, other luxury product driving international trade in ancient times [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_silk

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incense_Route, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

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