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Amber
Amber is a special kind of fossil resin that contains succinic acid. Found in The Baltic Sea
region, Amber is 40-55 million years old. It is superior in quality to any other fossil
resin or resins. Generations of scientists have studied real baltic amber but
the exact species of trees that produced amber are yet to be found.

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The name comes from the Arabic anbar, probably through Spanish, but this word referred originally to ambergris, which is an animal substance quite distinct from yellow amber.

Amber, which has no primitive uses, has been found at Neolithic sites far from its source on the shores of the Baltic sea, mute witness, like obsidian, to long-distance trade routes established before the Bronze Age. There is strong evidence for the theory that the Baltic coasts during the advanced civilization of the Nordic Bronze Age was the source of most amber in Europe, for example the amber jewelry found in graves from Mycenaean Greece has been found to originate from the Baltic Sea. Amber was mentioned by Homer, Aristotle, Plato and others. Pliny the Elder complains that a small statue of amber costs more than a healthy slave. Tacitus in his Germania talks about the Aesti people as the only ones to gather amber from the Baltic Sea.

During the 14th century, the Teutonic Knights controlled the production of amber in Europe, forbidding its unauthorised collection from beaches on the Baltic coastline under their jurisdiction, and punishing breakers of this ordinance with death.

 

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