The Origin of Amber

35-40 million years ago in those places where today the Baltic Sea exists, grew very special pine species: Pinites succiniter. They were very resinous and made over 20 kilograms of resin per year. Resin stagnated and eventually fossilized. Amber is nice to touch, easy to handle, when polished it shines beautifully. It does not lose its shine even after a long time. Amber has been respected since prehistoric times; it was considered that it brings happiness. Indeed, it is only suitable for jewelry. The old Roman Emperor Nero used to wear jewelry made from amber. Amber was traded not only in ancient Roman times, yet in the past too: in ancient Greece, it was even transported to China. It was considered that the amber road flourished when the Roman Empire had enriched during the first centuries of our era.

At the end of the 19th century when Heinrich Schliemann discovered the ancient Greek king of Mycenae sarcophagus, he was appalled by the abundance of wealth: gold, precious stones, gold and silver vases, and bags of ground Baltic Amber. In particular, the Baltic, as Dominica and the Philippines have not been discovered yet. Schliemann believed that he found the tomb of legendary Agamemnon - Troy conqueror, Iliad hero. It appears that the tombs and the treasures were even older, a lot older. Studies have shown that the Mycenaean amber treasures were stacked two thousand years before our era. They are now four thousand years old. How could amber occur in Greece such a long time ago? Studies show that other amber road existed much earlier than had been expected, around two thousand years earlier than the Roman Empire. It was the Prussians. They collected the amber in water-meadows, processed and sold it to merchants. Well, not sold but exchanged to cereals, meat, salt, slaves which were brought by merchants. They carried it through the present-day Poland, Moravia, Slovakia, Austria, and the Balkans to Mycenaean. This system worked for a thousand years but eventually collapsed. Why? Wars, plague and hunger dissolved the Prussians.

Amber and its origin is very interesting and shows that even in the Stone Age era people loved to wear jewelry. Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire
http://www.balticamberroad.net/