Mandalay has been famous as a center of silk production for centuries, long clothing the kings of the various kingdoms of Myanmar. The complex tapestries they still weave there are awesome. And they still do it in the old way.

Here is the pattern one of them is following.

This lovely young woman is a master craftsman. The better they are, the more spindles of color they can take on in their pattern. Take a look at the fabric she’s weaving.

The patterns being woven are so intricate that even the job of connecting the heddles (the wires that pull up the warp threads each time a shuttle of silk is passed through to form the weft) to the shafts is a complicated affair. Here, a man is “programming” the heddles and shafts of a loom.  Below, a good view of the loom itself and of the machine that winds the shuttles used for the weaving.