Pliny states explicitly that the Germans exported amber to Pannonia, from where the Veneti distributed it onwards. It is assumed that there were well-established trade routes for amber connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean (known as the ' Amber Road'). Given the presence of amber, the island could have been Heligoland, Zealand, the shores of Bay of Gdańsk, the Sambia Peninsula or the Curonian Lagoon, which were historically the richest sources of amber in northern Europe. Close to Gdańsk, Poland.Įarlier Pliny says that Pytheas refers to a large island-three days' sail from the Scythian coast and called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus (author of a fanciful travel book in Greek)-as Basilia-a name generally equated with Abalus.

Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones.įishing for amber on the coast of Baltic Sea. 330 BCE), whose work 'On the Ocean' is lost, but was referenced by Pliny the Elder (23 to 79 CE), according to whose The Natural History (in what is also the earliest known mention of the name Germania): Theophrastus discussed amber in the 4th century BCE, as did Pytheas ( c. The word elektron gave rise to the words electric, electricity, and their relatives because of amber's ability to bear a charge of static electricity. According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios (the Sun) was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron, amber. The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον ( ēlektron), are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ ( ēlektōr) meaning 'beaming Sun'. Ambergris is less dense than water and floats, whereas amber is too dense to float, though less dense than stone.

The two substances ('yellow amber' and 'grey amber') conceivably became associated or confused because they both were found washed up on beaches. As the use of ambergris waned, this became the main sense of the word. At first called white or yellow amber ( ambre jaune), this meaning was adopted in English by the early 15th century. In the Romance languages, the sense of the word had come to be extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin) from as early as the late 13th century.

The word was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century as referring to what is now known as ambergris ( ambre gris or 'grey amber'), a solid waxy substance derived from the sperm whale. The English word amber derives from Arabic ʿanbar عنبر (ultimately from Middle Persian ambar ) via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre.

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