"The oil-cloth umbrella was out of the market all of a sudden, and our annual demand slumped from 40,000 to just 10,000. Many umbrella factories went out of business rapidly," Zheng said.

CHICAGO — The oldest known piece of cloth, woven 9,000 years ago near the headwaters of the Tigris River, is helping archaeologists weave together the still incomplete story of humanity&#8217… ...

The Shroud of Turin is shrouded in mystery. Viewed as a holy relic for centuries, this artifact is not what it looks like ...

Handmade cloth shoes are also called qian ceng di (shoes with a thousand layers), which originated more than 3,000 years ago in the ancient Zhou Dynasty (1050-221 BC).

After his death, his body was burned, the bones wrapped in cloth and transported in an urn. 2,800 years later, the remnants of that urn and cloth were discovered by modern-day researchers in Denmark.

Photography has injected more vitality into this old craft. The wonderful combination of ancient factory buildings, professional craftsmen and ancient oil-cloth umbrellas makes the factory among the ...