People have collected and worn amber for well over ten thousand years. Baltic amber reached the Mediterranean in the Bronze Age, Roman demand made it a prized luxury, and medieval rulers controlled its collection along the Baltic coast. The Amber Room, made in Prussia and given to Russia in the 18th century, became the most famous amber work ever made. Folk beliefs about amber run through this whole history.
Stone Age amber
Amber washes up on Baltic and North Sea beaches after storms, so people found it long before anyone mined it. Archaeologists have recovered worked amber from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites around the Baltic and in Denmark. Finds include beads, pendants and small carved animal figures, such as bears and elk, along with buttons and discs. Some pieces were buried with the dead, which suggests amber had social or spiritual meaning.
Shaping amber needed no metal tools. Its softness let early people drill and carve it with flint and bone, and polish it with sand or leather. The page on prehistoric jewelry puts these finds in the wider story of early adornment.
The Amber Road
By the Bronze Age, Baltic amber was moving south across Europe. Archaeologists use the name Amber Road for a set of overland and river routes that linked the Baltic coast with the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. One well-known route ran from the coast near modern Gdansk, through central Europe, to Aquileia at the head of the Adriatic.
Amber appears in Mycenaean graves in Greece, including the shaft graves at Mycenae. Chemical analysis based on succinic acid content can show whether amber came from the Baltic, which helps trace these trade links. In return, metal goods and other southern products moved north.
Greece and Rome
Greek writers knew amber well. Their word for it, elektron, is the root of "electricity," because rubbed amber attracts light objects. A Greek myth held that amber formed from the tears of the Heliades, sisters of Phaethon, who were turned into poplar trees as they mourned his fall.
In the Roman Empire, amber became a luxury material. The writer Pliny the Elder wrote about amber in some depth in his Natural History in the first century AD. He reported earlier theories about its origin and concluded that it was the hardened sap of pine trees, which is close to the modern view. He also recorded that a small amber figurine could cost more than a healthy slave.
Pliny described an expedition sent north during Nero's reign to obtain amber from the Baltic coast. Roman workshops at Aquileia turned the raw material into carved vessels, figurines, rings and toilet items. Amber was also worn as an amulet, and Romans attached protective beliefs to it, especially for children.
Medieval control of the Baltic coast
In the Middle Ages, the Teutonic Knights, a German crusading order, took control of Prussia and claimed a monopoly over amber found on its shores. Collecting amber without permission was harshly punished. The order sold the raw amber to guilds of amber turners, mostly in towns such as Bruges and Lubeck, which made rosary beads in large numbers. Demand from the Church for paternoster beads kept the trade going.
After the order's power declined in the 16th century, control passed to the Dukes of Prussia and later to the Prussian state. Local amber guilds grew up in Konigsberg and Gdansk, and the skill of carving amber into boxes, cabinets, chess sets and religious objects reached a high level in the 17th century.
The Amber Room
The Amber Room began as a set of carved amber wall panels commissioned by King Frederick I of Prussia in the early 18th century. In 1716, his son Frederick William I gave the panels to Tsar Peter the Great of Russia as a diplomatic gift. The panels were later installed in the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo near St Petersburg, where they were expanded with more amber, gilding and mirrors.
During the Second World War, German forces took the room apart and moved it to Konigsberg, where it was displayed in the castle. It disappeared near the end of the war, and its fate has never been settled. Soviet and Russian restorers spent more than two decades building a reconstruction, which opened in the Catherine Palace in 2003.
Amber beyond Europe
Amber was also valued in Asia. Chinese carvers worked it into snuff bottles, figures and beads, and much of their raw material came from Myanmar. In Qing dynasty China, amber appeared in court beads and personal ornaments. In parts of the Islamic world and Central Asia, large amber beads were used in prayer beads and in women's jewelry.
Mexican amber has its own long history. The Maya and their neighbors in what is now Chiapas collected and traded it before the Spanish conquest.
Amber in folklore
Many traditions attached special powers to amber. These are beliefs, not established facts.
- In Lithuanian legend, amber is the remains of an undersea palace built for Jurate, a sea goddess, which the thunder god Perkunas destroyed in anger.
- In parts of northern and eastern Europe, mothers put amber necklaces on teething babies, a custom that medical authorities now warn against because of choking and strangulation risks.
- Medieval writers listed amber among substances believed to ward off illness, and it was burned as incense.
- Roman and later European sources treated amber as a protective charm for travelers and children.
The page on gemstone meanings and folklore covers similar beliefs about other gems.
Modern amber
By the 19th century, mining in the Sambia Peninsula replaced beach collection as the main source, and the page on how amber is mined describes this shift. Amber became popular again in Victorian jewelry, and pressed amber made pipe stems and cigarette holders affordable. In the 20th century, synthetic plastics such as Bakelite were often used to imitate it. Since the 1990s, amber with insect inclusions has drawn both collectors and scientists, and amber from different deposits is now studied for what it shows about ancient forests.
Amber sits within the wider history of organic gems, and Victorian jewelry shows how it fit into 19th-century fashion.
Frequently asked questions
What was the Amber Road?
It was a network of trade routes that carried Baltic amber south to the Adriatic and Mediterranean from the Bronze Age through Roman times. The best-known route ended at Aquileia in northern Italy.
What happened to the Amber Room?
German forces removed it from the Catherine Palace during the Second World War and took it to Konigsberg. It went missing at the end of the war, and a reconstruction opened in 2003.
Why did the Greeks call amber elektron?
Amber gains a static charge when rubbed and attracts light materials. The Greek word elektron later gave its name to electricity.
Who controlled amber in the Middle Ages?
The Teutonic Knights held a monopoly on amber in Prussia and punished unauthorized collection. They sold amber to guilds that made rosary beads.