Do you know where amber comes from? But this story has long since exceeded 50 million years.
It all started in the Paleogene period, when the thermometer scale began a sharp rise towards total heat. Warming and humidification of the climate has turned the planet into a botanical garden filled with strange plants. Climate change affected the plants in such a way that they began to leak resins through the bark. Oxidized by oxygen, the resin hardened and fell into the soil of the “amber forest.”
The inexorable movement of the earth's crust plates has led to the fact that today the “fruits of the amber forests” are mined in 11 places on the planet. The largest reserves of sunstone are concentrated in Russia, in the Kaliningrad region: here, according to experts, about 90% of the world's total amber reserve is located.
Participants went on an expedition to the main amber places of our country Russian Amber - a creative association inspired by amber and other Russian natural resources.
What does the modern “amber” path consist of?
(Total 29 photos)
We go to the village of Yantarny in the Kaliningrad region, which until 1946 was called Palmniken. Here, in 1871, the wealthy Mr. Becker founded the first enterprise for the industrial extraction of amber, opening two mines - “Anna” (1873) and “Henrietta” (1883). Both mines have been closed for a long time, and today the main amber mining in the region takes place in the Primorsky quarry.
The Primorsky quarry was put into operation in 1976 on the basis of the Kaliningrad Amber Combine. This is the only enterprise in the world engaged in amber mining. The mine life under the project is 90 years, and the average depth of the amber layer is 50 meters.
The most effective way to extract amber is open, using the principle of hydromechanization.
The photo shows a walking excavator ESH-10 (or “eshka”, as prospectors lovingly call it). Using a ladle, amber-bearing blue clay is extracted. At one time, the bucket of an almost 700-ton machine scoops up about 20 tons of rock.
Particularly valuable large fractions are caught with nets from the eroded blue clay. The remaining liquid is sent through a pipeline to the processing plant located at the plant, where the amber is cleared of the host rock, sorted and transferred for further processing.
In July 2014, new equipment was launched at the plant’s second large field, Palmnikenskoye, which operates on a similar principle. The main difference: the installation is assembled in one place, and not spread out over a vast territory, thereby saving energy in the region.
The Anna mine operated until 1931. They say that it is here, deep in the mine, that the lost Amber Room is located. However, this place is famous for another reason - far more sad. On January 31, 1945, 4 days after the liberation of Auschwitz, from 3 to 9 thousand Jewish prisoners from the Lodz and Vilnius ghettos and Hungary were shot here. Now a monument to the victims of the Holocaust has been erected on this site with funds from the Kaliningrad Jewish community.
Amber is first sorted by quality, color and volume. Depending on these parameters, the fate of the rock is decided: the mined stone is divided into ornamental, pressed and varnished.
Next on the plan is sawing and cutting.
The amber is then drilled and polished.
Amber can be melted in a furnace. Depending on the selected temperature, a different color of amber is obtained. After the amber acquires the desired color and texture, the process of finishing the amber to the desired shape and appearance begins.
The last stage is the assembly of finished products.
The factory has a workshop where amber jewelry with individual cutting is created using painstaking manual labor.
From time immemorial, Amber has attracted talented artists, and we were able to visit one of them - the Emelyanov and Sons manufactory. Luxury items and exhibition pieces for major international furniture exhibitions are created here.
Amber has been known to mankind since ancient times. "Sun Stone"
found in the ruins of ancient policies and tombs of Egyptian pharaohs.
ancient times was of great importance for the territory of the present
Kaliningrad region. However, local residents have learned to appreciate this “gift of the sea.”
not right away. According to archaeologists, the further from the deposits
amber, the more “sunstone” is found in burials. Exactly like this
the same dependence also applies to the cost of amber - the further away from the mining sites, the
It is more expensive. The Prussians themselves did not cultivate the main wealth of their land
were engaged, for them it was only an object of trade - and the price that
paid them for unprocessed pieces of “sunstone” sometimes seemed too much to them
high, which surprised them.
Amber was first used in the Paleolithic era - about 450,000-12,000.
BC. At the first sites of primitive man in the Pyrenees region, and
pieces were also found on the territory of modern Austria, Romania and Moravia
unprocessed amber. When asked how the “sun stone” got to these places,
quite distant from the Baltic coast, historians give the following answer:
it is believed that the ancient hunters who went far to the north, pursuing
migrating animals, picked up pieces of stone as a curiosity. During the Mesolithic era
(12000-4000 BC) the oldest three-dimensional works of amber appeared in
Northern Europe, these were mainly anthropomorphic and zoomorphic objects
religious cult. Six thousand years ago, humanity entered an era
Neolithic. Historians believe that it was at this time that amber began to be processed into
Baltic Sea region. The most common products made from solar
stone" - cylindrical, round or oval beads. To the major finds
date back to clay pots with amber, which were used as
ritual objects. Moreover, there was quite a lot of amber - in one treasure
counted 13 thousand beads with a total mass of 4 kilograms, in another - 4 thousand beads,
which weighed 8 kilograms. Amber beads in this era are also found in
burials, but in smaller quantities than in altars. Most of
amber products of that time served as military amulets. Amber pieces
often found in Egyptian burials of the early dynasties, as well
in Mesopotamia. However, not all amber in those finds matches the composition
Baltic The Egyptians fumigated their tombs with amber-like local resins,
Also in Mesopotamia, figurines were found not only from the Baltic sun stone,
but also from local resins of the Middle East. Europe did not lag behind the east -
amber products were found in England, but in Ancient Rome the “solar
stone" was an undeniable symbol of luxury. The main center for import and
The city of Aquileia was the processing center of amber in the Roman Empire. Particularly popular with
citizens of Rome used rings decorated with figures of Venus or Cupid, and
a little later - women's heads with complex hairstyles. The Romans decorated with amber
shoes and clothes, bottles for incense and vessels for wine were made from it. And in
During the time of Emperor Nero, they even decorated the amphitheater with amber for holding
gladiator fights. An increase in interest in amber is typical for bronze
century: now it was set in necklaces, and, in addition, improved technology
made it possible to drill more accurate holes in the beads.
More or less organized trade in amber arose about 3 thousand years ago
back. The main trade routes were waterways. There were many “Amber Routes”, but
There are five main ones. The first - mixed water-land - began
at the mouth of the Elbe, the caravans went to the Weser River (Germany), in the area of modern
Paderborn the road turned west and went out to the Rhine. Via Duisburg
caravans along the Rhine followed to Basel, and from there by land - to the Rhone River, through which
ended up in the Mediterranean Sea. The second originated in the Gdansk Bay and went along the rivers
Vistula and Warte, through Poznan and Wroclaw. Then through the Sudetenland and Brno
the Morava River, and further along the Danube to Vienna, where the amber was loaded onto the land
transport and taken to the Adriatic coast. The third path went along the Vistula,
San and Dniester and ended at the Black Sea, thus amber came to
markets in Egypt, Greece and southern Italy. The fourth way is also mixed
water-land - went from the Baltic along the Neman and tributaries of the Dnieper, and ended at
Black Sea. This path was called “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” Fifth way
laid at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 4th century, passed along the Neva and through the Dnieper
connected the Baltic Sea with the Roman colonies and Byzantium.
At that time, the technology for extracting amber was primitive and boiled down to a simple
collecting gems on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Amber's density is equal to
water or even less, so during storms it was often thrown onto
shore. As a rule, the production was small, but even the new history
recorded several large “amber storms”. So, in 1862, together with
About 2 tons of amber were washed ashore by algae, and in 1914 - about 870 kilograms.
In calm weather, another ancient method was used - scooping amber from the bottom
sea, large nuggets were simply lifted from the bottom of the sea with a net.
In the 6th century, a new Avar state emerged - the Kaganate, based on
forced labor and transit trade. This state has attempted
seize the amber industry into their own hands and sent small
armed groups. Having captured the Masurian amber mines, they tried
close the trade in “sunstone” to themselves, their main counterparty in this
became Byzantium. Prussian culture, of course, tried to correct this situation.
At the turn of the 7th-8th centuries in the eastern part of the Vistula delta, at the mouth of the river
Nogat, a trading post arose with a mixed population of Prussians and immigrants from
Gotland Island, called Truso. Truso managed to become famous in the Baltic
region with its trade connections - with the West by sea, with the South and East - by
the Vistula River. Prussian amber aroused great interest throughout Eurasia. Besides
local merchants participated in the transit trade of Eastern European products
masters Around 850 Truso was destroyed by the Vikings. But from the Baltic trade
the destruction of Truso did not bring the Prussians out. At the beginning of the 9th century, its new center became
settlement of Kaup in the southwestern part of the Curonian Spit. It became the center of amber
trade, and, according to historians of that time, its size reached
impressive scope., including Kaup had quite strong trade ties with
Russia. At the beginning of the 11th century, the heyday of Kaup came to an end, and also not without the participation of
Scandinavians - Danes who enslaved Samland, but their rule did not
lasted a long time. Apparently, the Danes' actions were not aimed at capturing
Sambia, and to destroy Kaup as a trade center, a competitor to the young
Danish kingdom.
A new page in the history of amber fishing in Prussia began with the capture of these
lands of the Teutonic Order. If before this the extraction and trade of amber was actually
was not owned by anyone and was not monopolized (despite the fact that a surge
amber trade led to the development of property inequality in
Prussian tribes), the knights of the Order immediately realized that they were dealing with a unique
wealth. The Order immediately monopolized the mining and trade of amber, sanctions for
violations of this law were very cruel. Thus, Vogt Anselm entered history
von Losenberg, who issued a decree that anyone caught doing something illegal
“back” of amber, they will hang it on the first tree they come across. Such cruelty
remained in the people's memory for a long time in legend. Believed that the ghost background
Losenberg wanders along the coast and shouts: “In the name of God, amber is free!”
Another Prussian legend says that the cruelty of the Teutons angered
the Prussian sea god Outrimpo, and the sea stopped giving people “solar
stone". In addition to severe sanctions for collecting and trading in amber, the order does not
allowed to create workshops for its processing, the first amber workshop
appeared in Königsberg only in 1641, that is, after the expulsion
Teutonic Order from this territory. But even then there were few concessions:
every shop foreman and apprentice took an oath that he would relentlessly
comply with all the instructions of the Elector, will purchase amber only from the Elector
or its tenants and process only legally purchased amber. Except
In addition, it was forbidden to resell unprocessed amber.
The Teutonic Order traded amber independently. Trading house of the order
entered into contracts for the supply of various goods, but the most profitable was sales
amber. The trading house bought raw materials and crafts from amber from the marshal of the order and
resold them at a much higher price to other countries. Marshall, in turn,
dealt with the ruler of the Lochstedt fortress subordinate to him. "Amber Governor"
as he was called, periodically delivered the sunstone to the castle. The greatest
profit came from the sale of rosaries (translated from German in the original
- “rose wreaths”, however, this is a mistake, Rosenkranz in German means
not a “pink wreath”, but a “rosary”), but they also traded
unprocessed gem. Most of it was exported in barrels to
Lubeck and Bruges and was sold to craft shops that made rosaries. On average for
year, Königsberg sales agents of the trading house delivered 30 barrels here
amber. They received for it about 2.5 times more than the house paid
to the marshal. By the way, an interesting fact. A significant blow to the amber trade
caused by the Reformation - the rosary, very common among Catholics, was covered with the lion's
share of the “sunstone” mined in Prussia. Having earned money for amber and others
goods, sales agents bought canvas, cloth, wine, rice, southern
fruits, spices, paper, iron and took it to Prussia. Part of the proceeds went to
maintenance of fortresses.
Amber Path
The Amber Route is an ancient trade route along which amber was transported from the Baltic states to the Mediterranean in antiquity. It was first mentioned by the “father of history” Herodotus, although the path was active thousands of years before his birth: products made from Baltic amber were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Tacitus in “Germany” describes the Aestii people living in the east of the Suebian Sea, who “scour the sea and on the shore, and in the shallows they are the only ones who collect amber, which they themselves call gles. But they, being barbarians, did not ask the question about its nature and how it arises and do not know anything about it; after all, it lay for a long time along with everything that the sea throws up, until the passion for luxury gave it a name. They themselves do not use it in any way; They collect it in its natural form, deliver it to our merchants in the same raw form and, to their amazement, receive a price for it.”
In the early Middle Ages, the road began in the land of the Prussians, at the trade and craft centers of Kaup and Truso, then went south along the Vistula, crossed the Danube at Carnunt, passed through the territory of the present Czech Republic, Slovakia (via Devin), Austria and Slovenia and ended as usually in Aquileia.
Indo-Roman trade route
Indo-Roman trade was initially carried out overland routes through Armenia and Persia, which significantly limited its volume. Before the Roman conquest of Egypt, the Ptolemies had a monopoly on maritime trade. Augustus' annexation of Egypt intensified trade and cultural contacts between Ancient Rome and India.
At the beginning of our era, the Romans mastered maritime trade through the ports of the Red Sea, resorting to the Aksumites. Under Augustus, 120 merchant ships sailed between the Egyptian and Indian coasts annually.
The most detailed description of Indo-Roman trade is contained in a document believed to be from the mid-1st century AD. e. , known as the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea". It mentions not only the Roman harbors of the Erythraean Sea (Arsinoe on the site of modern Suez, Berenice and Myos Hormos), but also a whole range of Indian ports. Only a few of them can be identified from archaeological materials (Barbarik is probably modern Karachi), but from most of them only hapax names have been preserved.
Indian archaeologists are still finding treasures of Roman coins in South India. Some Tamil rulers replaced the profiles of Roman emperors engraved on coins with their own and put them into circulation. Even after the Arabs captured North Africa, Christians and Jews continued to live in India, but due to the cessation of commercial shipping on the Red Sea, the Indians had to redirect their trade to the east.
Great Amber Road
The golden gem, which day after day is washed ashore by the tireless waves of the Baltic Sea, began to be collected back in the ancient Stone Age. And already at the border of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, there was a developed trade in amber, covering a vast area from Scandinavia to North Africa. Stone from the Baltic coast is found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs and in treasures left on British soil by the mysterious builders of Stonehenge.
Amber
Photo: Wikipedia
The work of Herodotus (5th century BC) contains the first written mention of the Amber Road, a grandiose trade artery connecting the Baltic Sea with the Mediterranean. But the famous ancient Greek historian and geographer could not say anything about how long this artery has been functioning. Its history was lost in hoary antiquity already in the time of Herodotus. Archaeological evidence suggests that the sun-gold northern stone has been traveling south along the same routes for millennia. His path began on the southeastern coast of the Baltic and went upstream of the Elbe and Vistula rivers and further to the south. Along its route it had several branches, but the main trade route ended on the shores of the Adriatic, where the large and rich city of Aquileia grew up during the Roman Empire. At the intersection of the amber routes with a major waterway - the Danube - significant centers of trade in sunstone arose - the Gallo-Roman cities of Carnunt and Vindobana. The latter eventually turned into one of the most luxurious European capitals - Vienna.
Until the 13th century. The collection of amber on the seashore was apparently a free trade. This continued until the knights of the Teutonic Order came to these parts. In 1255, they founded the castle of Königsberg, the modern city of Kaliningrad, on lands taken from the pagan Prussians. The fortress, together with other strongholds of the crusader knights in Eastern Europe, asserted their power over the amber coast, and the Teutonic Order made the extraction and sale of the gem its monopoly. Attempts to independently engage in amber fishing were severely punished.
Production and deposits
It is estimated that the waves carry 38–37 tons of amber to the Baltic coast annually. Since the 13th century. This was considered insufficient, and the miners went to sea in boats, armed with nets on long handles. In clear water, clusters of gems entangled in algae are visible at a depth of up to 7 m. They were caught with nets, and women and children on the shore picked out fragments of the sun from heaps of sea grass and sand. In the XVII – XVIII centuries. Attempts were made to extract amber from coastal cliffs using mines. This method turned out to be dangerous and ineffective. Amber-bearing rocks are constantly washed away by the surf, which causes landslides. The method of extracting amber in open quarries turned out to be more promising. Nowadays, dredging machines are used for this.
No. 1. Digged. Fiji, 11.7 million years ago.
No. 2. Dominican amber with inclusion, 56-23 million years ago.
No. 3. Amber. Japan, 50-40 million years ago.
No. 4. I dug with inclusion. 2.6 million years ago.
No. 5. Digged. Kenya, 11.7 million years ago.
No. 6. Amber. Lebanon, 135-130 million years ago.
No. 7. Amber. Ukraine, 45-42 million years ago.
No. 8. Amber. Borneo, 20-10 million years ago.
No. 9. Amber in scattering. Germany, 56 million years ago.
No. 10. Amber. Jordan, 145-100 million years ago.
No. 11. Amber. Switzerland, 50 million years ago.
No. 12. Amber with an imprint of a leaf of a higher plant (Angiospermae).
No. 13. Amber with inclusion (caterpillar). 40 million years ago.
No. 14. Dominican amber. 34 million years ago.
No. 15. Amber in the host rock. Spitsbergen, 56 million years ago.
Photo: Wikipedia
Continuation:
No. 16. Amber. Arkansas, 40 million years ago.
No. 17. Amber in scattering. Africa, 56 million years ago.
No. 18. Digged. Madagascar, 11.7 million years ago.
No. 19. Saxon amber. 56-23 million years ago.
No. 20. Amber. Mexico, 34-23 million years ago.
Photo: Wikipedia
Contrary to popular belief, the shores of the Baltic are by no means the only place in the world where sunstone is found. The Baltic deposits are the richest, but amber is also found in Alaska, the Taimyr Peninsula, and in the Cretaceous deposits of Lebanon. The second richest deposit is located in Ukraine, in the Rivne region near the village of Klyosovo. Amber was also mined in small quantities on the Dnieper, not far from Kyiv.
However, amber from different deposits varies quite greatly in chemical composition, and for a modern archaeologist it is not difficult to determine where exactly the gem discovered in ancient burials came from, so the trade routes of bygone times can be clearly traced. Most of the amber archaeological finds come from Baltic deposits. Nowadays, the Baltic region supplies about 90% of the world's amber production.
Strictly speaking, amber is not a stone or a mineral at all. This is an organic substance with a very complex structure, a natural polymer. Amber contains hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, forming dozens of compounds, some of which are still a mystery to chemists. On average, per 100 g of amber there are 81 g of carbon, 7.3 g of hydrogen, 6.34 g of oxygen. It may also contain impurities - up to 24 different chemical elements. Almost all amber contains aluminum, silicon, titanium, calcium, and iron.
The density of amber is slightly more than one, so it sinks in fresh water and floats in a saline solution (10 teaspoons per glass of water). By the way, this is the simplest way to distinguish genuine amber from fake one. Sea waves easily carry sunstone, it rarely rubs against the bottom, and therefore on the shore it is found not in the form of rounded pebbles, like other stones, but in the form of uneven pieces, often with sharp edges.
The most common shades of amber are the same as those found in bee honey, from almost white linden, through sunny yellow from forbs, to dark brown buckwheat. But there are also unusual samples, colored much more diversely. Amber can be both green and black. In China and Japan, cherry-red amber, called “dragon’s blood,” has always been highly valued. Rare and expensive is bluish opal-shaped amber. In total, experts count from 200 to 350 different shades of this gem.
The transparency of ambers also varies. They can be transparent, like a tear, translucent, or completely opaque, like ivory. The ability of a gem to transmit light depends on the presence of tiny air bubbles inside it. Completely transparent amber either does not contain bubbles at all, or they are rare and so large that they are easy to distinguish with the naked eye, like individual inclusions in the translucent thickness of the stone. In translucent amber, bubbles with a diameter of tenths of a millimeter occupy up to 30% of the volume. The diameter of the bubbles in opaque amber can be thousandths of a millimeter, and they occupy up to 50% of the total volume. By the way, the rare blue color of amber is often the result not of mineral impurities, but of the scattering and refraction of white light among tiny bubbles.
Baltic amber - “Hair of Venus”
Photo: Wikipedia
As a rule, transparent gems are most highly valued, and methods of “ennobling” not entirely transparent amber were known back in ancient times. To do this, the gem was boiled in vegetable oil or animal fat. As a result of such boiling, air bubbles in the thickness of the amber disappear.
The origin of amber has long intrigued man. There were many versions, from the very beautiful (amber - the tears of the daughters of the Sun, mourning the death of their brother Phaethon), to the completely unaesthetic, expressed by the materialist Democritus (amber - the petrified urine of animals, mainly, for some reason, lynx). But Aristotle already suggested that the golden northern gem is of plant origin, and Pliny came close to solving the mystery of the origin of amber. He wrote that the gem was formed from liquid resin (resin) of coniferous trees, which hardened from the cold. Tacitus expressed a similar thought when he spoke about the Lithuanian tribes:
“They are the only people who collect amber in shallow places of the sea on the shore, which they call “glaze.” Amber itself, as you can easily see, is nothing more than the juice of plants, since animals and insects are sometimes found in it, enclosed in what was once a liquid juice. It is obvious that these countries are covered with lush forests, which, like the mysterious countries of the East, emitted balsam and amber. The rays of the low sun expelled this juice and the liquid dripped into the sea, from where it was carried by storms to the opposite shore.”
Despite the fact that ancient scientists already expressed guesses that were close to modern views, the issue was not considered resolved for a very long time. Both in the Middle Ages and in modern times, the theory of the inorganic origin of amber had many supporters.
There was an opinion that this was a type of bitumen that flowed through cracks from the bowels of the earth and solidified at the bottom of the sea. It was also assumed that amber is of animal origin. The famous naturalist J. Buffon argued that amber was formed from the honey of bees, and the researcher H. Girtanner considered it a product of the vital activity of large forest ants.
The modern theory of the origin of amber is very close to Pliny’s theory, but with some amendments and clarifications. It has been established that once (about 50 million years ago) in the territory now occupied by the Baltic Sea, luxurious forests grew, where there were many coniferous trees. A sudden strong warming of the climate caused a particularly abundant release of resin, which quickly hardened in the air. But hardened resin is not amber yet. Already in the 11th century. the remarkable Arab scientist Al Biruni drew attention to the difference between simple fossil resins and real amber. The melting point of the former is about 200 degrees, the latter – 350.
The second stage in the formation of a solar gem is the burial of resin in forest soils. It is accompanied by a number of physicochemical transformations. The hardness of resin buried in dry soil with free access to oxygen increases over time.
The final transformation of the resin into amber occurs with the participation of oxygen-containing, potassium-enriched alkaline silt waters, which, when interacting with the resin, contribute to the appearance of special substances in it: succinic acid and its esters. As a result of the entire process, the small molecules that make up the fossil resin are combined into one macromolecule. The resin is converted into a dense and durable high-molecular compound - amber.
An important argument in favor of the “resin” theory of the origin of amber has always been the flies, bugs, spiders, blades of grass, and flower petals enclosed in the thickness of the gem. Mikhailo Vasilievich Lomonosov, who was an ardent supporter of this theory, wrote:
“Whoever does not accept such clear evidence, let him listen to what the worms and other reptiles included in the amber say. Taking advantage of the summer warmth and sunshine, we walked through the luxurious wet plants, looked for and collected everything that served our food; They enjoyed among themselves the pleasantness of the good time and, following various fragrant perfumes, crawled and flew over the grass, leaves and trees, without fear of any misfortune from them. And so we sat down on the liquid resin that flowed out of the trees, which, binding us to itself with its stickiness, captivated us and, constantly pouring out, covered and enclosed us from everywhere. Then, due to an earthquake, our forest place, which had sank down, was covered with an overflowing sea; the trees were covered with silt and sand, together with resin and us; where, over the long course of that time, mineral sands penetrated into the resin, gave it greater hardness and, in a word, turned it into amber, in which we received tombs more magnificent than noble rich people in the world could have.”
The amber “tomb” is absolutely airtight. Even drops of dew are preserved in ancient resin for millions of years without evaporating. In addition, amber has embalming properties. For a long time it was believed that it was not the insect itself that was preserved in fossilized resin drops, but its exact relief image. The tissues of the fossil animal decay, leaving voids in the amber that unusually accurately depict the slightest hair on a paw, the smallest vein on a wing. This idea turned out to be not entirely correct. In some cases, amber actually stores only an image that gives the complete illusion of a whole insect, spider or plant. But fossil tissues are also preserved in it, at least partially. From their frozen golden drops, the remains of chitinous cover, internal organs and muscles, spores and plant pollen were extracted.
Thanks to the remains encased in amber, about 3 thousand species of fossil insects and about 200 species of plants have been identified. Of the 800 thousand species of butterflies known to science, more than 50 were found in amber.
The University of Königsberg once possessed a unique collection of animals and plants embalmed in amber. There were beetles of several hundred species, clusters of bees, wasps, flies and ants, dragonflies with outstretched wings that barely fit in a piece of amber, bumblebees, centipedes, land mollusks, many spiders, some of them with cobwebs. In total, the Koenigsberg collection consisted of 70 thousand specimens. Her pearl was a lizard encased in amber. Alas, this priceless collection was lost during the bombing of Königsberg during the Second World War.
The information recorded in amber is so detailed that it allows us to restore the appearance of not only individual species, but also the picture of the development of living nature as a whole. The age of Baltic amber is about 50 million years and the insects contained in it differ little from modern ones. But with insects found in amber on the Taimyr Peninsula, the situation is different. The age of the fossil resins there is 120 - 130 million years. The small living creatures that lived at the same time as dinosaurs have a number of significant differences. This gives reason to assume that in the last 60 - 50 million years a period of relative rest has begun in the development of insects. The main “achievements” of evolution during this period were the rapid development of mammals and the departure of large reptiles from the scene. The number of extinct insect species gradually decreases from the Upper Jurassic to the Cenozoic and fell especially sharply in the second half of the Cretaceous period.
By studying inclusions in amber, scientists seemed to be able to see with their own eyes a forest that grew fifty million years ago where the waves of the Baltic Sea now rage. At that time, the climate of Northern Europe was much warmer than today, reminiscent of the climate of modern subtropics. The average annual temperature did not fall below 18 degrees. About 70% of the trees in the amber forest were pine trees, and the predominant species were the so-called pinus suncinifera – amber pine. These were mighty trees up to 50 m tall, but they constituted only the second highest tier of the ancient forest. Occasionally, above the continuous canopy formed by the crowns of pines, sequoias rose to dizzying heights. These giant trees can reach 100 m.
But in the amber forest there were also deciduous trees characteristic of the subtropics: laurels, myrtles, magnolias. Arborvitae and tree-like junipers also grew. Four species of palm trees characteristic of the amber forest have been identified. At the same time, elderberry and wolfberry grew there in abundance - the flowers of these shrubs are often found in amber. On the edges and clearings, bushes and trees were entwined with light-loving vines, in the shady thickets the trunks were decorated with long beards of lichens, and colorful orchids were colorful among the branches.
In Old Slavonic sources, amber is called alatyr-stone or white-flammable stone. The modern Russian name comes from the Lithuanian “gintaris”, which means “cure for all diseases”. Indeed, amber is one of the few decorative stones whose healing properties are recognized by orthodox medicine. The succinic acid contained in the gem is a universal stimulant that helps the body fight a wide variety of ailments. In principle, doctors do not exclude the beneficial effects of contact of amber jewelry with the skin, but the population of amber-bearing areas usually prefers a more radical method. Vodka infused with amber crumbs is used as a traditional healing remedy. In the Rivne region it is called “burshtinivka”. But succinic acid is not only found in amber. The fruits of gooseberries and grapes are rich in it, and you can achieve a healing effect by eating these fruits in large quantities.
The Amber Route is an ancient trade route along which amber was delivered from the Baltic states to various countries, primarily the Mediterranean.
Thanks to developed trade relations, a lot of Baltic amber was found on the territory of ancient states. Products and jewelry made from it were found during excavations on the island of Crete, in mine tombs of the Mycenaean culture, built around 1600-800. BC e. In Ancient Greece, amber was in fashion only during a relatively short period of close trade relations with the North. It is not found in Greek graves of classical times. In Italy, a lot of amber was found in the Po Valley and in Etruscan tombs. In Rome, amber came into use around 900 BC. e. At the beginning of our era in Rome, amber was so fashionable that it is customary to talk about the then dominant “amber fashion.” It was worn in the form of beads by all segments of the population. The beds were decorated with amber, and small vessels, busts, figurines, and balls were made from it, which were used to cool hands in the summer. According to Pliny the Elder, the Romans already at that time knew a way to color amber red and clarify it with fat.
The imported nature of amber in the Mediterranean is confirmed by data on its elemental composition. It turned out that Baltic amber contains from 3 to 8% succinic acid, while in amber from the regions of Sicily, Italy and Spain the amount of this acid does not exceed 1%.
More or less organized trade in amber arose about 3 thousand years ago. The main trade routes were waterways. There were many “Amber Routes”, but five of them were the main ones.
2 Rhine
The first path began at the mouth of the Elbe and went along its eastern bank. After a break near the modern city of Sade, he turned south, walking through dense forests and marshy areas. After several years of travel, the caravan reached the modern city of Verdun and walked along the left bank of the Vasère. In the area of the present city of Paderborn, the “amber” road turned to the west, went at the foot of the mountains and went out to the Rhine. The city of Duisburg was one of the ancient centers of amber trade. Then the path followed the Rhine, and at the location of the modern city of Basel it branched: along the Aaru River (a tributary of the Rhine), along the Swiss plateau, north of Lake Geneva, and then down the Rhone (ancient Rodaiu) or through the so-called Burgundy Gate, along the rivers Doubs and Saone, and subsequently down the Rhone valley to the Mediterranean Sea to Massalia.
The second route began in Gdansk Bay and had several branches. The main route ran along the Vistula to the Notec River, then went to Warta, passed through Poznan, Moszyn, Zborow, Wroclaw and overland to Kłodzko. After passing through the Sudetenland, the path of amber branched: its western branch went through the city of Svitava, along the river of the same name in Brno and further along the Morava River, and the eastern branch along the Morava River, from its upper reaches to the city of Hohenau, where both branches converged again. Further the path passed along the Danube to the Celtic town of Cornunt (now Bratislava) located in Pannonia. Along this route was the ancient Roman colony of Vindobna, which laid the foundation for modern Vienna. Then the amber, through the cities of Sopron and Szombathely (Hungary), Ptuj and Tsale (Slovenia), arrived by land on the Adriatic coast to the city of Aquileia, famous for the production and trade of amber products.
The third route passed along the Vistula, San, Dniester and ended at the Black Sea, from where amber entered the markets of Egypt, Greece and Southern Italy.
The fourth route, about 400 km long, went from the Baltic along the Neman, then the caravans were dragged to the tributaries of the Dnieper, and then for almost 600 km the amber floated down the Dnieper to the sea. It was a “long-suffering and terrible” path, as historians called it, “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” Through river arteries, amber penetrated beyond the Ural Stone, into the Kama region and beyond. Beads made from Baltic amber were repeatedly found in burial grounds on the Kama and in a number of Mongolian burials.
The fifth route, laid at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 4th century, passed along the Neva and through the Dnieper, connecting the Baltic Sea with the Roman colonies and Byzantium.
3 Ron
The appearance of amber in Rus' is associated with the last three paths. Baltic amber was sold at the markets of Veliky Novgorod and other cities. The Russians not only traded amber, but also processed it. The remains of a workshop for amber products were discovered during excavations of old Ryazan. Recently in Novgorod, during excavations on ancient Lubyanitskaya Street, interesting finds were discovered indicating trade relations between the Novgorodians and the Baltic states. The estate of the master of amber crafts is of greatest interest: a large number of fragments and semi-finished products from amber have been preserved there. The estate dates back to the beginning of the 14th century.
Trade in amber, like any other product, had periods of revival and decline. So, in the 4th century. BC For a number of reasons, one of which was the expansion of the militant Celts, trade ties between the Roman Empire and the Baltic states were interrupted and resumed only in the 1st-2nd centuries. p.e. Amber came back into fashion in Rome at that time. However, at the end of the 2nd century. n. e. Due to the wars of the Romans, the trade routes for amber were again sharply reduced and never reached their former heyday.
4 Mediterranean
Speaking about amber trade routes, one cannot fail to mention “amber hoards” - significant quantities of unprocessed Baltic amber hidden by wholesalers or their intermediaries in order to later profitably sell the goods to the buyer. One of the largest centers of amber trade was located on the territory of present-day Wroclaw, the second was on the site of the city of Kalisz, which grew out of the ancient Roman colony of Kalisia. Near Wroclaw, before the Second World War, three large warehouses of unprocessed amber were found with a total weight of 2750 kg. In 1867, a 50-liter barrel filled with amber was discovered on the Zemland Peninsula. In 1900, a clay pot containing 9 kg of amber was found near Gdansk. All these finds of raw amber intended for export indicate a great demand for Baltic amber.