J - 182 : How Amber - the "Gold of the North" conquered the Mediterranean World

There is no polished Amber on the Baltic Shores - it is a Fake Photo - but I still like it

At times, I come across topics I have not heard about for decades. Happened to me a week ago when talking about the Etruscan trade with Northern Europe. The Etruscans exported high quality iron weapons and brought back amber from the Baltics. Not being entirely sure what amber was I looked it up on Google. Bernstein of course! German for amber. And back came the images of my geography classes at High School with our favorite teacher Prof. Brunner. For him, geography and geology was travelling the world. We learnt about Russia by slide shows from his trips on the Tran-Siberian Railway, about geology of the Swiss Alpes by mountain excursions - his famous bottle of hydrochloric acid always ready to proof that limestone bubbles when sprayed upon and his stories of the neolithic Bernstein Highway. The path from Poland to Italy crossed Switzerland following the Upper Rhein Valley to Chur, then over the San Bernard reaching Bellinzona, the Lago Maggiore and the Po River Valley.

To my Displeasure this Map shows the Trade Route via Brenner

instead via Switzerland. But it passes at least thru Etruscan lands

Could not find out how amber trading started but I guess it was connected to the neolithic trade in obsidian. As this lava glass reached Northern Europe, it became precious and a status symbol. How did the Northern Europeans pay for a material that gave an owner such an edge in hunting, fighting and making things? By paying with something equally precious. The neolithic natives on the Baltic Sea harvested the fossilized tree resin for millennia and used it for medical purposes, for jewelry, decoration and religious ceremonies. The ancient Greek which obtained amber via the Russian river system (Don and Dnjepr)  called amber “electron” comparing it to the beaming sun. We got the word “amber” from the Arabs.

Raw Amber Pellets washed up on a Sea Shore - Amber looks so different when unpolished

The Baltics are not the only place in the world where amber is found. In fact amber is collected in many other places. Anywhere where there was once - millions of years ago - a large forest. The Baltics are today the the world’s major source of amber. Around 40 to 50 million years ago, just after the dinosaurs disappeared, a huge conifer and oak forest covered the area. Droplets of resin captured insects and pollen and provide an excellent insight in our far and distant past - a feast for paleo-biologists.

The Key Amber Collection Areas have not changed much over the millennia

As the resin, a heterogenous composition of resinous substances, was covered by sediments and heated below the surface, it transformed. The lighter terpenes "evaporated". Protected from UV light, water and microorganisms, the resin droplets fossilizes. Amber is less dense than salt water. When sea currents or rivers eroded sediments, freed amber pieces float to the sea surface and wash up on beaches. This is where our neolithic ancestors found the first amber pieces. Today, amber is mostly mined in open pits

.

Amber Forest about 40 - 50 Miollion Years ago

Once collected, amber needs to be sanded and cleaned. The final polish is done with flannel towels. Cloudy amber – with air-filled pores - can be cured by gently heating the stone, submerging it into special oils which fill the pores and make it translucent again. The stone keeps the newly acquired clarity when the pores close during slow cooling. Amber is not a stable precious stone. It melts when heated above 200 C and dissolves in alcohol and chloroform which is possibly why our ancestors believed it had medical properties.

Polishing Amber is still a very Manual Process and requires Time and Experience

Amber and its extracts were used for centuries in medicine. The first modern Greek doctor, Hippocrates, prescribed amber as a cure against pain. Since most ambers contain a single digit percentage of succinic acid, they were used as external pain killers. Many necklaces and bracelets had a medical purpose. Amber kept its reputation in folks medicine. Modern medicine has more efficient painkillers though. I never met a doctor prescribing amber.

The Purpose of this Etruscan Amber Necklace from

600 BC is unclear. Medical Use or Jewelry?

Amber’s main use though was as jewelry and for religious purposes. As gold represented for our ancestors the sun so did amber. Its translucence even enhanced its reputation. Whilst its use goes far back into the neolithic, the amber trade takes off during Bronze time and reaches its peak with the Roman Empire. The “Northern Gold” was a luxury object loved by Etruscans and Romans – by 500 BC we already find the most elaborate jewelry in ancient tombs. Tried to find some tax statistics of the amber trade. Roman custom officers charged a 10% value tax on any import crossing into the Empire. The trade with India financed almost 80% of Rome’s annual budget. But I could not find any research on the question.

This most impressive Etruscan Amber Jewelry was found in a Tomb in Tuscany - today in the Metropolitan Museum in New York

The use of amber reached its peak in the early 4^th century under Emperor Constantine. Only declaring himself as a Christian on his death bed, he minted coins with his portrait as a sun God, crowned by a sun rays. Gold and amber were the materials used to represent this cult. In my view though, Constantine the Great used the cult as a transition from the world of ancient polytheism to monotheism. Under his reign, only 10% of Romans were Christians. But Constantine built churches, copied bibles, chaired meetings of bishops (First Council of Nicaea) and built Constantinople (Istanbul) as a Christian city. He had to manage somehow.

Coin with Constantine the Great - on the Flip Side is a

Depiction of him as the Sun King

Not surprisingly, amber, a symbol of the sun cult, was not liked by Christians and demand for it dropped sharply once Christianity became Rome's state religion. Still, it survived for its said medical properties and as a jewelry. As we sail along Italy’s west coast this summer, we shall remember that many ports made their money with trading amber. "Northern Gold" was one items everybody wanted at the time.

 Polished Amber Stones before being made into Jewelry - the Industry still exists