Cashmere originated the northern slope of the Himalaya-a cold and deserted Asian plain lying at the distant boundary of the earth and then migrated to Inner Mongolia and northern provinces in China by Chinese herdsmen from the 11th to 13th century. Cashmere gradually appeared in western trade when the emperors of Inner Mongolia Kublai and Genghis Khan built their Asian Empire, but it was still quite rare at that time. It was hardly recorded in western historical records.

Scientists found tools for woolcutting used in 2300 B.C during an archaeological discovery in Mesopotamia and cashmere cloth from around 200 A.D in Syria, but records in written about cashmere didn’t exist before the 16th century. However, there were once several legends regarding cashmere, among which the most famous one was that the lining of ark ( the case Moses laid the Ten Commandments in Bible) was made of cashmere. It is said that cashmere was called “the king of cloth” in the ancient Rome era because of the passions from the noble.

China has been using cashmere for weaving since Tang Dynasty. At that time, cloth made of fine and soft undercoat from goats was called cashmere brown. This kind of cloth was light but warm, making it highly desirable. The famous scientist Song Yingxing from Ming Dynasty particularly described how to produce cashmere cloth in his work “Explotation of the works of Nature”: