The Silk Museum is housed in the traditional Kourtidis Mansion, in Soufli. The renewed permanent exhibition presents the history of silk, the different stages of silkworm farming, the processing of silk, as well as the broader socio-economic context of silk manufacturing in Greece. To view the relevant presentation (in video form), please click here  (gr).





Reeling (unwinding the silk filament)

The traditional system of reeling comprises:
A «bak'ra» (small cauldron) with water at 60oC (140oF) on a trivet; a small brush for stirring the cocoons, so as to locate the beginning of the silk filament; a «givgir», a kind of ladle used to remove the cocoons from the hot water; a «tava» (shallow baking pan) for the cocoons that the mastorissa (the master craftswoman) is going to work on. An «eye» and a «mandziliki»

Two parallel laths (kontskes) suitably attached to the wall, three porcelain bobbins and an «eye», where the filament of three or more cocoons become a single thread, which is then wound into a skein (doura) on the «mandziliki», a wooden hand-driven wheel.

       


The process of drawing the thread is carried out by: the «mastorissa», who draws the thread, a young female assistant (locally called «patozi»), who stirs the cocoons and locates the filament's end, and an elderly person of a child, who turns the mandziliki.