“The Spider, Flye, and Ant, being tender dissipable substances falling into Amber, are therein buryed, finding therein both a Death, and Tombe, preserving them better from Corruption than a Royal Monument.” Francis Bacon
Along with pearl but unlike other precious gems, Amber is not a stone – it is actually fossilized tree sap from pre-historical pine trees. Sometimes the sap oozed over live bugs or small animals and hardened, freezing them forever (unless maybe 10,000 years later it’ssold as a souvenir and subsequently broken by a clumsy child?)
What you should know about AMBER:
Amber is beautiful and unique so the Ancients were puzzled by it. Where did it come from? It is warm like the sun and when you burn it it smells delicious. It comes from the sea but sometimes it has little insects stuck in it.
To the Greeks, amber was elektron – sun-made. If you hold a piece in your hand it feels warm and no wonder it reminded them of solidify rays of the sun. But the ancient Greeks were also scientists and they noticed that when amber is burnt it smells suspiciously like pine tree resin… and so they have the myth of Phaeton (coming soon) that connects amber with both the sun & pine trees. Very clever.
To the ancient Slavic people came from the sea (i.e. those living along the Baltic Sea (North-East Europe – e.g. In the areas now of Lithuania and Poland). I’m not sure at what point the amber came to be in the sea but whenever there was a storm the people would find fresh pieces of amber along the shore. Even today whenever there is a storm in the Baltic Sea people immediately go fishing for amber afterwards and I’m told that even half an hour later there’s none of this precious material left.Maybe because of this the people of the area have a lovely myth involving poor fishermen, lovely women, sea kings and mermaids - there are a few different versions, such as a Polish and a Lithuanian but one of these will be coming soon!
Coming soon on amber:
Jurassic Park – Could we ever clone dinosaurs from DNA trapped in amber?
The story of the famous Amber Room
