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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

Amber: an ancient treasure that grew on trees

By Mary Sibierski

Gdansk, Poland - In ancient Greek myth it was when Phaeton, the son of the god Helios decided to drive his father's horse-drawn sun chariot across the heavens that amber was first created.

When the joyride spun out of control, Phaeton perished. In their sorrow, his sisters turned into poplar trees and their tears became drops of amber.



The ancient Greeks first called amber Elektron, or "that which comes from the sun," while for the Syrians it was Kahrba or "a thief of straws." For the ancient Prussians it was Gentar, Jantar for the Slavs and Rav for the Danes. In the Germanic languages it is still known as Bernstein or "stone that burns" and Bursztyn in Polish.

The modern English term for amber is thought to have its linguistic roots in the Arabic Anbar, which oddly enough, means "sperm whale."

Throughout history, humans have mistaken amber to be the faeces of mythical beasts, a wax produced by giant ants, the fossilised spawn of huge fish or even elephant semen.

But to know the true origin of amber, particularly of deposits found in and around the Baltic Sea, one must turn back the clock an aeon or two.

Baltic amber has its origins in thick prehistoric coniferous forests which covered a land mass in the region of modern-day Scandinavia and parts of what is now the Baltic Sea a very distant 40 million years ago. Today we admire resins which oozed from the trunks of these massive prehistoric trees as amber.

Baltic amber.

Geologists believe an ancient river, which has been termed the Eridan, transported dead tree trunks caked in sticky resin to a sea which was a smaller precursor of the modern Baltic, which itself was formed only 10 000 years ago.

Rich deposits of fossilised tree resin or succinite, better known as Baltic amber, accumulated in the sea along what is now the Baltic coast between the Polish village of Chlapowo and the Sambian peninsula of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

They are among the world's most plentiful, with deposits in Poland alone estimated to be some 650 000 tons.

Other large amber caches around the globe are found in Canada, Columbia, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Myanmar, Siberia, Borneo, Australia and Japan.

In Poland, it is known as "Baltic gold" and is regularly washed up on beaches in the Gdansk area by storms.

With the first traces of amber crafting in Gdansk dating from the 10th Century, it is little wonder the city has become the world capital for amber work. It is home to hundreds of workshops producing jewellery as well as the annual Amberif amber fair, the largest event of its kind in the world.

To honour the epic history of amber in the region, Gdansk recently opened the Museum of Amber encapsulating 40 million years of history on five floors of a 14th century red brick tower in the heart of the city's picturesque old town.

Originally built as part of the city's ramparts, it was long used as a prison complete with torture chambers.

Museum director Joanna Grazawska beams with pride when she speaks of the jewel crowning the museum's rich collection of amber pieces.

A tiny white lizard frozen in a golden globule of amber roughly two centimetres in length and one centimetre in width is an unique time capsule of life from 40 million years ago.

It was found in 1997 locally in Gdansk by amber craftswoman Gabriela Gerlowska and is perfectly preserved.

"It cost a fortune," Director Grazewska reveals. "But it absolutely had to be part of our collection - we couldn't let it go elsewhere."

Indeed, the museum is home to an impressive collection of so-called amber inclusions of prehistoric vegetation and insect life and is more than likely the only place on earth where visitors can see two flies caught "inflagrante" aeons ago in a blob of resin, now turned into amber.

Other pieces showcase the aesthetic charm of this organic treasure.

Some resemble swirling mixtures of transparent golden honey and translucent rich, creamy butter that look good enough to eat. Others look like dark blobs of thick blackish-brown molasses with haunting ghost-like misty white smudges. Yet other specimens are the colour of champagne or pale beer which sparkle with tiny air-bubbles.

Information on the alleged healing qualities of amber is also available. The ancient resin is thought to ease respiratory problems when powdered and combined with alcohol and taken as a tonic.

Gdansk's Amber Museum is also home to the world's second largest piece of amber weighing in at 5.9kg. The biggest single piece of amber ever found weighs some 9.75kg and is on display at Berlin's Humboldt University Museum of Natural History.

While the lower floors showcase amber's prehistoric origins, the Gdansk museum's top floors bring the ancient resin up to date, showing how local craftsmen and women skilfully transform it into glittering jewellery making an ultra-modern fashion statement.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=588&art_id=qw1158654243620R131

http://www.ub.es/dpep/meganeura/51amber.htm

[Solomon]

This reminds me of our other stories related to amber:

3,000-year-old Hoard of Treasure Unearthed by Detectorist
Archaeologists Find Traces of what May Be Legendary Viking Centre

Here is a background on the subject:
Amber

Amber pendants. The oval pendant is 52 by 32 mm (2 by 1.3 inches).

Amber is a fossil resin much used for the manufacture of ornamental objects. Although not mineralized it is sometimes considered and used as a gemstone. Most of the world's amber is in the range of 30?90 million years old. Semi-fossilized resin or sub-fossil amber is called copal.

History

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. True amber has sometimes been called kahroba, a word of Persian derivation signifying "that which attracts straw", in allusion to the power which amber possesses of acquiring an electric charge by friction. This property, first recorded by Thales of Miletus, suggested the word "electricity", from the Greek, elektron, a name applied, however, not only to amber but also to an alloy of gold and silver. By Latin writers amber is variously called electrum, sucinum (succinum), and glaesum or glesum. The Old Hebrew חשמל hashmal seems to have meant amber, although Modern Hebrew uses Arabic-inspired ענבר `inbar. The Polish word is bursztyn; the German word is Bernstein.

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, specifically from the Samland area. Amber was mentioned by Homer, Hesiod (Theogony 337f.) 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 and who call it glaes (the -um ending is the latinised version).

Since the 13th century craftsmen Paternostermacher also called Bernsteindreher guilds are recorded in the Hanseatic cities, such as L?beck, Danzig (Gdańsk), Elbing (Elbląg) and Stolp (Słupsk). Daniel Barholz, the city notary of Elbing, recorded in 1646, that the city council has in its employment Bernsteindreher (translation: amber turners).

During the 15th 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. The Teutonic Order transported amber from Prussian Samland (Sambia) coast to the other cities, to be worked on by these special craftsmen.

The Paternostermacher (translation: Lord's Prayer (bead) makers) were represented in Paternostermacher?mter (Guild Halls).

The German Bernstein comes from the Middle Low German bernen which means burning, this word is a cognate to Dutch barnsteen. This is likely related to the fact that amber can, indeed, burn.

In Poland and Germany today one can still go all along the Baltic Sea coastline and fish for amber with a net, the way it used to be fished for for many centuries. In the Deutsches Bernstein Museum (German Amber Museum) at Ribnitz-Damgarten one can watch the Bernsteindreher at work, as well as try doing some of the polishing.

Solomon

[Solomon]

Doc sent me this link on the etymology of amber:
Countries Names for Amber

"amber" is believed to derive from the Arabic word "Haur Rumi"
that means "Roman poplar tree": the following corrupted terms were Haurum,
Habrum, Hambrum and finally Ambarum and Amber. This origin is not
surprising, since in the mythology, after the death of Phaeton on the river
Eridano, his sisters, the Eliades, were transformed into poplars, and they
weeped tears of amber!!

Another opinion is that "amber" derives from the Arabic word "Anbar" or
"Ambar", that was formerly used to define "Grey amber", that is ambergris, a
product of secretion of the gut of a cetacean.

We might discuss more and more on the etymology of the term. I believe that
a smart thought to this regard is that reported by Gesner in 1753 (already
at the time...) in his book in Latin "De electro veterum": "Poetarum fabulis
impleta et deformata omnia ... de natura succini, de ortu illius et
qualitatibus nihil certi et explorati"; a free translation could be: "Poets
in their poems alter everything; on the origin of amber and its properties,
nothing is sure"!

[Solomon]

"Found in the Baltick Sea"

When Dr. Johnson wrote his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, he devoted a considerable amount of space to the word "amber". Asserting the word's Arabic derivation, he proceeds to give the following particulars: "Ayelloxv transparent substance of agummous or bituminous consistence, but a resinous taste, and a smell like oil of turpentine; chiefly found in the Baltick sea, along the coasts of Prussia. Some naturalists refer it to the vegetable, others to the mineral, and some even to the animal kingdom... Some have imagined it a concretion of the tears of birds; others, the urine of a beast; others, the scum of the lake Cephisis, near the Atlantick; others, a congelation formed in the Baltick, and in some fountains, where it is found swimming like pitch. Others suppose it a bitumen trickling into the sea from subterraneous sources; but this opinion is also discarded, as good amber having been found in digging at a considerable distance from the sea, as that gathered on the coast... Within some pieces of amber have been found leaves, and insects included; which seems to indicate, either that the amber was originally in a fluid state, or, that having been exposed to the sun, it was softened, and rendered susceptible of the leaves and insects. Amber, when rubbed, draws or attracts bodies to it; and, by friction, is brought to yield pretty copiously in the dark"

Everything Dr. Johnson knew about amber in 1755 was known by Herodotus in the 5th century B. G; the electrical properties of amber had been discovered even earlier, by Thales.

The trade in Baltic amber goes back to pre-historic times, and the discovery of amber beads in archeological sites throughout Europe and the Middle East has enabled pre-historians to map ancient trade routes linking the far north with southern lands. Although amber is found in a number of places, Baltic amber has always been the preferred trade article?except by the Chinese, who obtained their supplies from Burma.

Dr. Johnson's doubts about the origins of amber were shared by classical, Chinese, and Muslim authors. Of the classical authors, Pliny came closest to the truth: he describes amber as the resin of pines which has fallen into the sea, been hardened, and then thrown up on the shore. The Chinese, as might be expected, had much more exotic explanations for the origin of the mysterious translucent material. LiShih-Chen, author of a 16th century encyclopedia, thought that amber was the petrified soul of tigers. Another suggestion was that it was the residue formed from the burning of birds' nest. Not all Chinese authorities, however, were so imaginative. A certain T'ao Hung-Ching, who died almost exactly 100 years before the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, said:

    "There is an old saying that the resin of fir-trees sinks into the earth, and transforms itself in to amber after a thousand years. When it is then burned it still has the odor of fir-trees. There is also amber, in the midst of which there is a single bee, in shape and color like a living one.. At may happen that bees are moistened by the fir-resin, and thus, as it falls down to the ground, are completely entrapped... Only that kind which, when rubbed with the palm of the hand, and thus made warm, attracts mustard-seeds, is genuine"

The power of amber to attract was probably noticed by pre-historic man, and may explain the extraordinary diffusion of Baltic amber in the pre-historic world, for such a characteristic would surely have been regarded as magical. This magical quality is still faintly present in our word "electricity" which is of course derived from the Greek word for amber? electron. It is curious, and would have given great pleasure to Dr. Johnson, that ancient and medieval uncertainties about the nature of amber are nothing to the uncertainties of modern science with regard to the nature of the particle named after it.

Just as the Greek word electron gives us our word for electricity, so is the Arabic word for electricity?kahraba' ? the same as the word for amber. Al-Biruni, the great 11th century scientist and Indologist, gives this etymology for the word: "The name kahraba' is derived from its nature, because it attracts straw, and draws it to itself, as it does feathers, along with any dust adhering to them" Kahraba', justasal-Biruni says, is a compound Persian word meaning literally "straw-attracting" was borrowed by the Arabs from thePersians in the 10th century; the Persians formed their word for amber on the pattern of the Sanskrit trnagrahin - which means "grass-attracting"

If kahraba' is the Arabic word for amber, what of Dr. Johnson's statement that our word amber is derived from the Arabic? The answer to this excellent question is that it is, but that in Arabic, anbar (pronounced ambarj does not mean amber. It means "ambergris"? "gray amber"?as distinct from ambre jaune, "yellow amber" or amber proper. Ambergris is the oily perfumed substance secreted by the sperm whale and cast up on the shore; the fact that both substances were found on the beach added to the confusion.

This confusion between yellow amber and gray amber was made all the worse by the Middle Eastern practice of making necklaces of amber-colored wax scented with ambergris. These necklaces are still very commonly sold in North Africa, and are referred to as being of amber!

Very few examples of amber jewelry have survived from the Muslim Middle Ages, although we know from literary sources that amber beads and inscribed amber plaques were worn in the 10th century. For the medieval Muslims, the main use of amber was medicinal. Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in his Canon of Medicine, regards amber as an astringent and hemostatic, and wholeheartedly recommends its use.

This article appeared on pages 32-36 of the November/December 1981 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.

[Bart]

Because someone once admired amber, history has changed. What an impact a little glob of yellow stuff set in motion.

- Bart


     Around 600 BCE, in Greece, a mathematician named Thales discovered that amber rubbed with animal fur attracted light objects. Even though other people may have noticed this before, Thales was the first to record his findings. We don't have his writings, but from other people's reports of his work we can guess at his experiments. We think that Thales noticed static electricity from polishing amber with a piece of wool or fur. After rubbing the amber, which created a static electric charge, other light objects such as straw or feathers stuck to the amber. At this time, magnetism was confused with static electricity.

      About 300 years after Thales, a Chinese general named Huang-ti was supposed to be the first to use a lodestone as a compass. He might have had a polished piece of lodestone on a piece of wood so polished the stone could easily have turned to always point north. Another version of the story suggests that Huang-ti had a lodestone in a floating bowl. The lodestone would force the bowl to turn with it to face north. Chinese military commanders during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.) used compasses.   

     Compasses were used by generals and magicians (who had to find the right places for temples or burial sites) for hundreds of years before they were used on ships. Lodestones were not used for ship navigation until the 1200s, when Chinese navigators began to use a ship's compass.

     Many doctors during the time of Queen Elizabeth I of England (the late 16th century) were interested in magnetism. They thought magnets might have healing powers for the human body. William Gilbert invented a lightweight tool called a versorium that looked like a compass but didn't use a magnetized needle. The pointer was balanced and would spin in reaction to magnetic attraction even if there wasn't enough force to lift a light object. Nowadays we use a modern version of the versorium called the electroscope to study atomic particles. Gilbert also made up the term electricity. He called objects that attracted his versorium electrics and those that didn't attract the tool nonelectrics.

     Ben Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment in 1752. As a storm was about to break, Franklin flew a kite with a stiff wire pointing up that was attached to the top of the kite. He attached a metal key to the other end of the string, and let it hang close to a Leyden jar. Rain moistened the string, which began to conduct electricity. Sparks jumped from the key to the jar until the jar could not handle any more charges. Although there wasn't any lightning yet, there was enough electricity in the air for Franklin to prove that electricity and lightning were the same thing. Franklin also proved that pointed rods conduct electricity better than balls do. He invented lightning rods and sold them throughout colonial America. 

     In Italy, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, two professors made some interesting discoveries. Luigi Galvani discovered that a dead frog's muscles twitched when it was placed near an electrical machine. He conducted experiments to try to explain why a dead frog appeared to jump. Galvani thought the frog's nerves contained the electricity. Alessandro Volta was interested in Galvani's experiments but thought the electricity came from the metals, such as the steel knife or the metal table. Volta is best known for inventing the voltaic pile, now called an electric cell or battery, in 1800. He had made a stack of disks of zinc, acid- or salt-soaked paper, and copper. This was the first way to store and control the release of dynamic electricity. Volta did not know why his electric cell worked. The volt is named after Volta.

    While others concentrated on generating electricity, Charles de Coulomb was the first person to measure the amount of electricity and magnetism generated in a circuit. We still call the unit of electrical charge a coulomb in his honor.

     During the first half of the 19th century, Michael Faraday conducted experiments in England on electricity and magnetism. His work led to modern inventions such as the motor, generator, transformer, telegraph, and telephone. Faraday also created words we still used, including electrode, anode, cathode, and ion. He experimented with induction and discovered a way to generate a lot of electricity at once. We use his principle of electromagnetic induction for generating electricity today in electric utility plants. But, back then, Faraday was just interested in finding out why things behaved the way they did so he did not put his findings to any practical use.

     Many other scientists in the first half of the 1800s contributed a lot to our modern uses of electricity. They include Andre Ampere, of France, who contributed to the measurement of electric current and who experimented with electromagnetism. Joseph Henry, an American, worked with electromagnetic induction, as did Faraday. Henry's, Faraday's, and Ampere's work all contributed to the development of the telegraph. Karl Gauss created a set of units to measure the amount of magnetic induction. The unit is called a gauss. We degauss or demagnetize our computer monitors so that residual magnetism doesn't spoil the image. Georg Ohm, a German, discovered the relationship among voltage, current and resistance in a circuit using direct current. The relationship is called Ohm's Law.

[Bart]

New Jersey Has Treasure Trove of Amber

   An American Museum of Natural History expedition to New Jersey has uncovered one of the richest deposits of amber ever found, with fossils of 100 unknown species of insects and plants trapped in the fossilized sap.

The fossils include:

   -A tiny bouquet of miniature flowers from an oak tree that lived 90 million years ago,

   -the world's oldest mosquito, with mouth parts tough enough to feed on dinosaurs,

   -the oldest moth in amber, with mouth parts suggesting it was in transition from a biting insect to one that fed on the nectar of flowers,

   -a feather that is the oldest record of a terrestrial bird in North America,

   -the oldest mushroom,

   -bee and biting black fly to ever be found in amber.

   The biting black fly is the only such insect known from the Cretaceous period, and it, along with the mosquito, may have counted dinosaurs among its victims.

   David Grimaldi, curator and chairman of entomology at the American Museum of Natural History, said the species, all extinct, were found in 80 pounds of amber drawn out of deep mud in a complex of sites in central New Jersey. At one secret site in particular the clay is especially deep and rich. The clay contains streaks of peaty black material that are the remains of plants and other organic material. It is in these streaks that the amber was found.

   The amber dates to 90 Ma to 94 Ma, meaning all the preserved species came from the "Age of the Dinosaurs" and from the era when flowers first evolved and began to spread through the ecosystem. At the time, insects were beginning to use flowers as food, and the flowers were beginning to use the insects to carry pollen from flower to flower.

   An article describing the world's oldest preserved flowers, written by Grimaldi and his colleagues, Kevin Nixon and William Crepet of Cornell University, is to be published in The American Journal of Botany. It notes that the three flowers in the little bouquet are the only known flowers preserved from the Cretaceous period, which ended 65 Ma ago.

   Until now, the study of plants from the Cretaceous has depended solely on the fossil impressions of flowers and pollen. Curiously, the flowers and some of the other fossils found at the New Jersey site are miniatures: the flowers and their stem together are no more than half an inch long.

   Recent interest has focused on the DNA of plants and animals locked in amber. George Poinar, now at Oregon State University, one of the scientists credited with the discovery that bits of DNA exist in fossils inside amber, said that the material "is the best preserved protein on the face of Earth."

   Such preservation was great enough to have kept even muscle tissue intact in a 125-million-year-old Lebanese weevil that Poinar studied. To date, scientists believe they have successfully extracted bits of DNA from half a dozen amber drops.

   But a dispute has arisen about how to handle amber specimens: whether to open them to get at their DNA, how to open them, and whether there should be rules guiding expeditions and the use of existing collections.
There are tens of thousands of pieces of amber with fossil insects and other items in collections around the world, and most are common varieties of ants and flies. The rarest pieces contain lizards, frogs or the hairs of mammals. Several thousand of the specimens contain the only examples of now-extinct species.

   Grimaldi said that because all creatures on Earth are classified according to their physical features, and it is this that scientists use to study how evolution has created or shaped the entire history of life, no specimens in amber should be tampered with unless they are quite common and others of the same species, era and location can be found to replace them. Grimaldi has criticized the extraction work of scientists such as Poinar, pointing out that the weevil from Lebanon was probably the only one of its kind.

   Grimaldi said his approach is becoming more common in science, from archaeology to paleontology, in which large parts of discovery sites are left unexcavated, so as not to destroy things that might be useful to, or better extracted and preserved by, future scientists.

   All amber fossils, Grimaldi says, should be coded, as at the American Museum of Natural History, according to rarity, and only those with more than two or three duplicates should be subjected to DNA extraction.

   Poinar agrees that very little damage can be tolerated, but he said he and others have developed techniques to enter specimens in amber through a tiny hole, use a needle to extract tissue, and reseal the hole.

   "This work will be going ahead, and people will be opening amber anyway, whatever we say, so we must develop ways to prevent or minimize damage to the specimens," Poinar said.

http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/misc/amber.htm

[Solomon]

These tree crickets probably ate leaves on the trees that produced the amber.

Amber: Window to the Past

Amber is a form of tree resin -- exuded as a protective mechanism against disease and insect infestation -- that has hardened and been preserved in the earth's crust for millions of years. Often regarded as a gem, amber is actually an organic substance whose structure has changed very little over time, unlike that of other fossilized material, in which organic matter is replaced with minerals.

Because amber oxidizes and degrades when exposed to oxygen, it is preserved only under special conditions. Thus it is almost always found in dense, wet sediments, such as clay and sand that formed at the bottom of an ancient lagoon or a river delta. While hundreds of amber deposits occur around the world, most of them contain only trace amounts of the substance; only about twenty deposits in the world contain amounts of amber large enough to be mined.

Amber has preserved ancient life to such infinitesimal detail that it even captures fragments of DNA of the organisms entrapped in it. Such a wide variety of creatures has been found in Dominican amber, for example, that scientists are able to reconstruct this ancient ecosystem with amazing intricacy.

Pictured above is one of the highlights of AMBER: Window to the Past -- a re-creation of a 23- to 30-million-year-old Dominican amber forest. Everything in this reconstruction derives from direct evidence provided by the amber fossils or is inferred on the basis of plant-feeding forms of insects, such as fig wasps, which specifically pollinate fig trees.

[Bart]

   The ancients treasured amber for it's beauty and it's ease of craft recreation. Like diamonds, the quality and value was likely based upon it's lack of inclusions. Today it is as much or more highly prized for it's inclusions. Partial dinosaur DNA has been extracted from some pieces, ala Jurassic Park. If and when DNA advances to a higher science, and if complete dinosaur DNA is ever found, then we may be closer to the possibility of something like Jurassic Park, but we have a long way to go, as I see it.

   Every so often I like to check amber on Ebay, what is offered, what it looks like in the different forms offered, what it is made into. I learned some important things regarding amber by asking questions of different sellers. Research is very important here also, know what you are looking at, know what you will be getting. Ask the seller if you will be getting the exact item depicted.

1. Some jewelry items are heated and shaped into uniform/ matching sizes, such as for a bracelet for example. That is not necessarily a bad thing at all.

2. Some pieces have no inclusions other than a scorpion, spider, or other organic or nonorganic item. That generally indicates it is not ancient, Baltic, or any type of genuine organic amber. Especially if the seller is from Russia or China. It is claimed by some sellers that much of the Chinese 'amber' is merely plastic. Watch prices for the item, and always check the shipping charges, this is where a lot of sellers make their profit. One seller boldly declares Ebay knowingly allows foreign sellers to sell fake amber.

3. If the insect, frog, spider, or scorpion in 'amber' has no other inclusions in the piece, and looks to be perfectly preserved, it is probably fake, and the creature inside was probably alive last month. If that is the sort of item you want, great, buy it. Just don't seriously expect it to be genuine ancient amber. Watch for carefully worded descriptions, some I have seen are very deceptive, and determine their return policy. Even with all sweet assurances from a foreign seller regarding genuineness, guaranteed money back policy, etc., once they have your money, chances are slim that you will get it back if you are dissatisfied. Caveat emptor is the rule here. So far, we have shown here in this thread what can be described as the 'real McCoy', genuine ancient amber.

For more information, vist - The World of Amber

- Bart