# Past Chinese presence in Africa  
It is not known precisely when Chinese goods reached Africa for the first time. Archaeological research provides a number of clues. An Austrian expedition excavating in Thebes, at Deir el-Madina, found the remains of silk in the hair of a 30-50 year-old female mummy discovered in the burial ground of the kings' workers. The burial is dated to the Hyksos period, belonging to the Twenty-First Dynasty, i.e. 1075-945 BCE (Li Anshan, 2005; Lubec et al., 1993). The silk industry certainly originated in China, where archaeologists have found textiles in a mysterious tomb dating back nearly 2,500 years in eastern Jiangxi Province, the oldest to be discovered in China's history. The silk industry,  
trade and consequently the Silk Road, are thus much older than thought, and probably reached Egypt through Persia. Trade and cultural exchange between China and Egypt were well established during the Han dynasty (206 BCE 220 CE) (Sun Tang, 1979 in Li Anshan, 2005). According to Li Anshan (2005, p. 60), Du Huan, a Chinese soldier of the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) and war captive in Baghdad, where he spent several years, visited Africa in the eighth century, sometime around 762. His book, Jingxingji [经行记, Record of My Travels], was lost and is now known only through quotes in other books. It is therefore not known which part of Africa he may have visited, although Egypt and Northeast Africa appear to have been the most reachable.