ABSTRACT
References to sea silk, often called sea wool and the manner of its employment persist in Arabic literature until and beyond the fourteenth century, sometimes citing older sources. Thus, for example, Ibn Fadl al-Umari, the Egyptian historian repeats the observations of one Ibn Said to the effect that divers in the Maghrib bring “tubers like onions” from the sea which burst, yielding hairs that “are combed and become like wool. Given the surreal nature of some of the gifts specified – among them birds that cry out when they look on poisoned food or drink, beads that painlessly extract arrowheads and spearheads when the flesh has swollen up around them – it might be thought that the kaleidoscopic sea wool is a creature of the Arab’s writer’s fantasy, hardly worth the attention of a serious student of silk.
