Magazine / Precious stones / Amber
Magazine / Precious stones / Amber
The history of amber is an epic of human walk.
Myths, wars and superstitions interlace with aesthetical pleasure of world jewelries and with palaeontological researches.
A stone unique for its talk about the earth which goes beyond the time.
The ambers are gems known since prehistorical times: discoveries of manufactures dated at the stone age are appeared in the actual Central Europe.
At that epoch the amber was associated to supernatural powers, weared in jewels and adored.
Assiryans, Egyptians, Phoenicians and Grecians recognized in it great value and meaning.
From Ovidio:
Fetonte, son of the sun Febo, obtained to be able to drive for one day the chariot of the sun; he passed too near the Earth and setted it on fire. Giove saved it, hitting with a thuderbolt Fetonte which died precipitating from the sky. The pain of the mother and of the sister transformed Fetonte in trees, but they continued to cry him; their tears, dried by the sun, are the amber.
The Greek name of amber is "èlectron", and with it the Grecians discovered the electricity: at the beginning of VI century B.C. Talète of Milèto observed its electrostatic properties wiping it with a cloth.
In the Odyssey are presented jewels of amber as princely gifts; they are earrings and a necklace, elements of classical jewelries.
For Nicia the amber is the juice of the sun which set congealed in the sea and thrown on the shore.
The Romans called it "succinum" (juice); they controlled the producer regions and the sale with their armies. A small amber was worth more than a slave in good health, writed Plinio.
The actual Brennero way was known as "Amber way". For the ancient Germans the stone was known as "glessum" (transparent) or even as "stone to burn": they burned it as the incense and made the characteristic aroma to spring out of it.
The amber is fossilized pine resin.
Ancient and precious as a testimony jewel which arrives to us from a previous history.
The ambers are warm to the touch; of very variable colour from more common yellows to reds, greens, blues; aromatic when burned.
At times they include inside them biological fossils perfectly conserved. The paleontology has observed in ambers more than one thousand species of insects proceeding from the primordial phases of life on Earth.
At that purpose, we observe that tha major part of amber has at maximum 25-50 millions years; in 1994 has been found one of 120-135 millions years.
In the past beyond in the jewelry the amber has been employed in medicine: one thought it could cure illnesses and defend from the evil eye.
Lutist Masters utilized it in dust to polish in their laboratory particularly valuable musical instruments.
The authenticity of an amber jewel can be ascertained valuing its chemical-physical properties (specific weight, electrostaticity, and others).
The sale prices vary from 15€ - 20$ to more than 30000€ - 40000$. Excetional the recovery of a nodule of 6kg, appeared at the end of last century in the Dominican Republic.
Today the zones with major production are the Baltic Countries, with more ancient stones, and the Dominican Republic, with more frequent included fossiles.
One can find the amber in certain beaches; carried by the sea and leaved by the wawes to reflect the solar rays on the sand.
