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ArtistThe Tomioka Silk Mill dates from the early Meiji period. With its related sites including two sericulture schools and an egg storage site, it illustrates the desire of Japan, a traditional silk producer, to rapidly access the best mass production techniques. The Japanese government imported French machinery and industrial expertise to create an integrated system in Gunma Prefecture. It included egg production, silkworm farming and the construction of a large mechanised raw silk reeling and spinning plant. In turn, the Tomioka model complex and its related sites became a decisive component in the renewal of sericulture and the Japanese silk industry, in the last quarter of the 19th century, and a key element in Japan’s entry into the modern industrialised world. The Tomioka mill illustrates the early and entirely successful transfer of French industrial sericultural techniques to Japan. This technological transfer took place in the context of a long regional tradition of silkworm farming, which it profoundly renewed. In turn, Tomioka became a centre for technical improvements and a model that enshrined Japan’s role in the global raw silk market at the beginning of the 20th centu