During the late Bronze Age 2000 - 1200 BCE and after, the Amber Roads form passage for trade, merchants, craftspeople, criminals, soldiers, refugees, travelers, the common and elite. Amber has already been in circulation since the middle Neolithic.
The versatile route led from the shores of the stormy Baltic Sea in the north to seafaring Greeks to the south, the lands of the Pharaohs, and later the dazzling jewel of Venice in Italia. As time went on, one could follow a main route or one of the many side roads, rivers or coastal waterways. At first, the going was rough.
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The Amber Road began before it was named. After the depletion of amber from Sicily in the Bronze Age, the continued arrival of Baltic amber on the hungry market was delirious. Golden, fossilized resin, amber may have inclusions or insects but even if not, still contains life within, as it carries the essence of the tree.
Also called succinite, Baltic amber in quantity originally formed in a vast forest covering Sambian Peninsula, north east of the current town of Gdansk, Poland. Although amber was previously known for centuries, it was the Roman Pliny the Elder who solved its origin. In the first century CE he concluded amber was tree sap because of its smoky properties and coniferous scent when burned.
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Dubbed Gold of the North, Baltic amber was harvested during the Bronze age by simple net fishing from the rocks, or by gathering nuggets where they washed ashore with the action of the briny sea. It was highly prized for ornaments for it seemed to glow with the light of the Sun. Royal quantities of amber were found in the tombs of Egyptian Kings from the late 2nd century BCE.
The Amber Road began, conceptually, on the Baltic coast c 1600 BCE. Today it runs from St. Petersburg in Russia down to Venice, Italy. During the Bronze Age, amber merchants left the North Sea and Baltic Sea from various trails and inland river systems.
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There were no organized communities yet apart from fishing villages and clan habitations. Near the North Sea coast lived the Elp, Hilversun and Kummerkeramik cultures, with the Collared Urn culture extending into southern Britain. On the Baltic coast the Lusatian Culture resided, pondering the origin of these translucent golden gems polished by the sea.
It was a hard land to settle. Shores were unstable and weather fierce. Despite developing trade routes, helped by the arrival of the horse in Europe c. 2000, and the technology of the Bronze Age, the Baltic Coast remained a rough, windswept place.
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Beset by destructive winter storms, the Baltic regions were inhabited by people pushed north by inland migrations. The people lived by fishing and some summer agriculture. While Italy languished in a balmy Mediterranean basket of fruitful summer, the Northern people laughed in the teeth of the blizzard and went out about their business.
It was said the ferocious storms threw forth golden nuggets of amber, gifts from the Earth and Sea. The stones seemed to carry the light of the sun inside, significant for the settlers of a land where the sun rose only a short time in winter.
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Before the establishment of the Amber Road, this fascinating gemstone was already making trails to the South. The Amber Road would develop from the early trade, and continue for centuries. When the Silk Road began in c. 130 BCE, the Amber Road hooked up with it at the Black Sea.
The early amber trade was small scale, but as demand grew production ramped up. The Norse Bronze Age facilitated the trade of amber as ships were built better and lasted longer. Overland and river routes were well traveled and kept reasonably safe by contingents of people who used it, including the Greeks at one end and the tribes of the Nordic Bronze Age at the other.
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Much of the early Baltic amber made its way south to the Egyptian and Arabian countries and has been found in the tombs of Pharaohs. It would later grace the ring fingers of powerful Roman emperors. In the Bronze Age, Rome wasn't even a gleam in the eye of prehistory yet. That power would begin its meteoric rise in the 8th century BCE.
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