Amber - just so pretty

Of course we do not see too much amber in South Africa, but it is still possible to buy as jewelry.

It looks just good, and it feels good. The deep brown gold colour is just so inviting and when we can find a piece of amber with something inside it (like an ant or insect or flower) it just makes it even better.

But how old is amber and where does it come from?

Amber is fossilized tree resin. That means that there must have been trees when it formed and that sets the age of most amber. It cannot be too old – like before there were pine trees around and so on. The typical age of amber is some 150 million years.

We tend to identify amber with coming from the Baltic and North Sea. It is true that the bigger deposits (and where it is still washed up on the beaches) are indeed the Baltic and North Sea coast lines.

But not exclusive! Lebanon and Jordan have some of the oldest and most remarkable amber finds. Somehow, the insects trapped in the amber from Middle East display a variety of even extinct insects. It is a ‘gold mine’ for early discoveries.

Burmese amber might be younger (only 99 million years old) but plenty of species have now been identified.

Although 90% of amber is coming from Russia’s Baltic coast line, there are also amber mines around.

So what is the process? It is really simple. Here is a pine tree (as we see them today, really). A big animal (a dinosaur?) scrapes the tree which ‘bleeds’. Here is the resin. It slowly runs down the tree and as it is sticky it can easily trap an insect. Or it can drip to the forest floor, entrapping a flower or some pollen or those things.

This drop of resin hardens and now we just wait some 10 million years for it to become a fossil! The tree rots way. The water is rising and the newly formed amber is slushing around in the Baltic until one day it is washed ashore and found.

Is amber always this nice dark yellow golden colour and is amber expensive?

No, Amber is not expensive. But it is such a beautiful piece especially if it has an insect inside. It just looks good.

Raw amber as found on the beach looks like pebble. But if any amber collector picks it up, it is easy to determine. Amber is not heavy at all.

And the ultimate test is to just sink your teeth in it (don’t bite!) just enough to know it is not a rock, but something else. Then it is typically amber.

When to collect amber, at least from the North Sea? Well, after a couple of days with the wind blowing onto the shore and then shifting to blowing away from shore, the amber is there! It has been washed up and there can be plenty of it.

After a bit of cutting and polishing we find those magnificent pieces of amber. And who would not like to display a piece that is like 150 million years old.

Now colour, There are plenty of different colours. But the blue one can be most expensive. And the clear amber is sought after rather than the cloudy ones.

… and of course if there are ‘things’ in it.

So amber is easy to cut and form, we see amber being used for all kind of thing.

It is also claimed that amber has ‘healing properties’.

Amber necklaces are a traditional European remedy for colic or teething pain with purported analgesic properties, although there is no evidence that this is an effective remedy or delivery method.

In ancient China, it was customary to burn amber during large festivities. The oils were combined carefully with nitric acid to create “artificial musk”.

Modern products, such as perfume, do not normally use actual amber because fossilized amber produces very little scent.

In perfumery, scents referred to as “amber” are often created and patented to emulate the opulent golden warmth of the fossil.