Amber

Fossilized pine resin, a transparent yellow, orange, or reddish-brown material from coniferous trees. It is amorphous, having a specific gravity of 1.05-1.10 and hardness of 2-2.5 on the Mohs scale, and has two varieties - gray and yellow. Amber was appreciated and popular in antiquity for its beauty and its supposed magical properties. The southeast coast of the Baltic Sea is its major source in Europe, with lesser sources near the North Sea and in the Mediterranean. Amber is washed up by the sea. There is evidence of a strong trade in amber up the Elbe, Vistula, Danube, and into the Adriatic Sea area. The trade began in the Early Bronze Age and expanded greatly with the Mycenaeans and again with the Iron Age peoples of Italy. The Phoenicians were also specialist traders in amber. The soft material was sometimes carved for beads and necklaces.

Fossilized resin. It is soft and easily carved into jewellery and other artefacts. Amber is normally yellow or orange and transparent, but may be clouded due to the presence of many tiny air bubbles. The main source of European amber is as nodular fragments in the Tertiary sand deposits of Prussia. These deposits are eroded by the sea, and the amber washes up on the shores of the Baltic and the coasts of eastern England and the Netherlands. There are other sources in the Mediterranean, but Baltic and Mediterranean sources may be distinguished by infra-red absorption spectrometry (see chemical analysis). Amber was utilized in Europe from the Mesolithic period onwards, and was widely traded during the Bronze Age.

Fossilized pine resin, a transparent yellow, orange, or reddishbrown material from coniferous trees. It is amorphous, having a specific gravity of 1.05-1.10 and a hardness of 2-2.5 on the Mohs scale, and has two varieties - gray and yellow. Amber was appreciated and popular in antiquity for its beauty and its supposed magical properties. The southeast coast of the Baltic Sea is its major source in Europe, with lesser sources near the North Sea and in the Mediterranean. Amber is washed up by the sea. There is evidence of a strong trade in amber up the Elbe, Vistula, Danube, and into the Adriatic Sea area. The trade began in the Early Bronze Age and expanded greatly with the Mycenaeans and again with the Iron Age peoples of Italy. The Phoenicians were also specialist traders in amber. The soft material was sometimes carved for beads and necklaces.