Amber - History and Etymology

History and Etymology

The English word amber derives from the Arabic anbar, via Medieval Latin ambar and Old French ambre. The word originally referred to a solid waxy substance derived from the sperm whale (now called ambergris). The sense was extended to fossil resin circa 1400, and this became the main sense, as the use of ambergris waned. The two substances were confused, because they both were found washed up on beaches. Ambergris is less dense than water and floats, whereas amber is less dense than stone, but too dense to float. The word ambar was brought to Europe by the Crusaders. In French ambre gris (lit. gray amber), became used for ambergris, while ambre jaune (yellow amber), denoted the fossil resin we now call amber.

Amber is discussed by Theophrastus, possibly the first historical mention of the material, in the 4th century BC. The Greek name for amber was ἤλεκτρον (elektron), "formed by the sun", and it was connected to the sun god (Helios), one of whose titles was Elector or the Awakener. According to the myth, when Helios' son Phaëton was killed, his mourning sisters became poplars, and their tears became the origin of elektron, amber.

Another early reference to Amber was Pytheas (330 BC) whose work "On the Ocean" is lost, but was referenced by Pliny. According to The Natural History" by Pliny the Elder:

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.

While amber is not actually named, it is called the concreti maris purgamentum, "the leavings of the frozen sea" after the spring melt. Diodorus uses ēlektron, the Greek word for amber, the object that gave its name to electricity through its ability to acquire a charge. Pliny is presenting an archaic view, as in his time amber was a precious stone brought from the Baltic at great expense, but the Germans, he says, use it for firewood, according to Pytheas.

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas. It is generally understood to be the same as Abalus. Based on the amber, the island could have been Heligoland, Zealand, the shores of Bay of Gdansk, the Sambia Peninsula or the Curonian Lagoon, which were historically the richest sources of amber in northern Europe. This is the earliest use of Germania.

The modern terms "electricity" and "electron" derive from the Greek word for amber, and come from William Gilbert's research showing that amber could attract other substances. The word "electron" was coined in 1891 by the Irish physicist George Stoney whilst analyzing elementary charges for the first time.

The presence of insects in amber was noticed by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, and led him to theorize correctly that, at some point, amber had to be in a liquid state to cover the bodies of insects. Hence he gave it the expressive name of succinum or gum-stone, a name that is still in use today to describe succinic acid as well as succinite, a term given to a particular type of amber by James Dwight Dana (see below under Baltic Amber).

Heating amber will soften it and eventually it will burn, which is why in some Germanic languages the word for amber is a literal translation of burn-stone (nl. barnsteen, de. Bernstein, the latter of which the Polish word bursztyn or the Hungarian borostyán derives from). Heated above 200 °C, amber suffers decomposition, yielding an "oil of amber", and leaving a black residue which is known as "amber colophony", or "amber pitch"; when dissolved in oil of turpentine or in linseed oil this forms "amber varnish" or "amber lac".

Amber from the Baltic Sea has been extensively traded along the Amber Road since antiquity; and in the mainland, from where amber was traded 2000 years ago, the natives called it glaes (referring to its see-through quality similar to glass).

The Baltic Lithuanian term for amber is Gintaras and Latvian Dzintars. They, and the Slavic jantar or Hungarian gyanta ('resin'), are thought to originate from Phoenician jainitar (sea-resin). While most Slavic languages, including Russian, Slovak, and Czech, retain the old Slavic word, in the Polish and Belarusian languages, jantar, while correct, is used very rarely (even considered archaic) and was replaced by the word bursztyn, deriving from the German term, Bernstein.

In ancient times, well-established trade routes for amber originated from the Baltic countries (where amber was plentiful along the coast) that went to virtually every corner of Europe. Early in the nineteenth century, the first reports of amber from North America came from discoveries in New Jersey along Crosswicks Creek near Trenton, at Camden, and near Woodbury.