What is amber?
- Ryan Zschomler
- Nov 25
- 3 min read
To answer the question what amber is, we will focus on the Baltic Coast and Baltic amber. On the Baltic Sea coast where people today and over the centuries have found amber washed up on the shore. This amber came from ancient trees that were buried by encroaching sands. The sea is to the right, the sands move in and bury the ancient trees with their sap. The sap on those trees became petrified. This petrified sap is amber, a resin.
Today amber is dredged from the land under these trees. The sap, when polished, is beautiful. Sometimes the sap trapped insects, which are called amber inclusions.
This is what amber looks like when made into necklaces. These necklaces were important in Europe over the years. Royalty often gave them to the church. They were highly prized, valued both as jewels and for their medical powers. Amber was controlled. Common people could be put to death if found possessing amber.
The head of the Amber Road was in Malbork, a castle just south of Gdansk. The Amber Road was the trade route that transported amber down through Poland to southern Europe and around the world, including the Far East. Malbork lies on the Vistula River, but the river flows north, so product could not be shipped easily south. It was transported overland down the Amber Road.
This is a piece of the Amber Road that exists today. It is in Zaki, Poland, and it also had a control point where amber was monitored as it came south. The monitoring was intense. As you go south on the Amber Road, you look up to a church, a well known parish church in Zium. This was typical of what amber went through as it moved south.
This is natural Baltic amber. Petrified tree sap. Raw amber floats. It stones. These are amber chips, pieces broken up. This is a natural raw amber bead as made in earlier times. Today you can see raw amber, tumbled amber, and processed amber. It is made into bracelets, necklaces, and baby teething necklaces in many shapes and forms. All of it comes from tree sap that is many millions of years old, often over 250 million years.
A Dominican monk named Albert the Great, born in 1193, called amber “sucin” and said it was one of the most effective medicines of its time. It was used for everything from stomach aches to rheumatism. During the Middle Ages amber became more important. Amber smoke, both aromatic and irritating, was used for fumigation.
A Prussian priest, M. T. Praetorius, wrote in 1680 that during the plague not a single amber man from Danzig, Königsberg, or Lithuania died of the disease. This petrified tree sap from ancient trees that grew in northern Europe, now defined by the Baltic Sea coast and once called “cinium” by the ancients, was well understood for its medicinal powers.
Natural Baltic amber contains up to 8 percent succinic acid, or amber acid. It is highly valued in Europe for its medicinal properties. If you plan to buy amber for medicinal use or beauty, Baltic amber is the unique amber. It is in demand worldwide. Even Chinese herbalists prefer Baltic amber because of its high succinic acid content.
This is a unique amber. There is nothing like it. We hope you consider Baltic amber, as many have for centuries, as the best. See our other videos on amber. Have a good day.
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