Asbestos was once mysterious enough to be a 'tribute to the emperor'



Asbestos (asbestos) is regarded as a harmful substance because it causes lung cancer when a large amount of airborne fibers are inhaled, and in recent years it has been prohibited to use it in many countries. However, long before asbestos was perceived as a health hazard, it was considered a 'mysterious material' due to its 'non-burning' nature, and was treated as a tribute to the emperor and the aristocrats. It seems that

When Asbestos Was a Gift Fit for a King | JSTOR Daily
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Since ancient times, asbestos has been used as a cloth mainly in ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, China and other parts of the world. The image below is the actual asbestos woven cloth.



Karl the Great , the first Holy Roman emperor , is said to have liked the white tablecloth spun from asbestos. When the Emperor Karl was entertaining his guests, it was customary to arrange gorgeous dishes on a tablecloth made of asbestos, and when the guests had finished eating, the Emperor Karl burned the tablecloth on fire. The tablecloth did not burn in the flames, only the remaining dishes burned, so this seemed to have the purpose of facilitating cleanup rather than performance.

In Europe, in addition to tablecloths of emperors and aristocrats, they were also used for lamp cores and asbestos-covered cloths to prevent ashes from mixing with cinders when cremating aristocrats. Even in ancient Egypt, asbestos-woven cloth is used as a cloth for wrapping a mummy.



Asbestos is often talked about in fairy-tale folklore, such as 'fireproof salamander fur,' ' phoenix feathers,' and 'threads spun from the hair of rodents that live in volcanoes.' In China, there is a folklore of a mouse that was said to have fur that produces asbestos, and one theory is that 'a mouse in the flame causes its hair to shine sapphire red. If a hunter drops a few drops of water. The mouse died and the hair faded to white.'

Historian Rachel P. Maines says that one of the reasons that asbestos was mysterious was not only the property that it did not burn, but that 'asbestos is a mineral'. Maines, in his book Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk, states that 'almost every fiber we use is Is derived from living things, whether animal or plant, with asbestos being the only exception and the only mineral that can be woven into cloth, so early naturalist Charles Bonnett We thought of asbestos as 'a missing link between inanimate rocks and life forms.'

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