Books on amber

(...) The beauty of amber and also the fact that it was easy to process using primitive tools, led the peoples inhabiting the southern shores of the Baltic in the New Stone Age (4000-1700 B. C.) to use it as a raw material for making ornaments and talismans. People believed in the magic powers of these objects, because they had observed puzzling phenomena. For amber was a stone which not only shone in an unusual way, but when rubbed it had a pleasant scent and also had the power of attracting blades of dry grass. Moreover, it seemed to be warmer than the bed that it was found lying on. Maybe it is worth mentioning that as late as the 19th century, the inhabitants of sea-side fishing villages still collected amber barefoot before dawn. For before the first rays of the sun revealed the shining lumps, naked human feet felt the stone that was warmer than the sand on the sea shore.

Neolithic amber products are found primarily in territories connected with the area where natural deposits of the mineral occur. They are found in settlements of peoples from the Rzucewo group, for example at Suchacz and Tolkmicko in Elblag voivodship, or also in the famous Stegna hoard, which contained 47 amber ornaments with a characteristic opening in the shape of a letter "V". The hoard from Juodkrante, found in the mid-19th century when the off-shore belt of the sea-bed was being deepened in the Curonian Bay, contained similar beads and ornaments. Even today, near Sobieszewo on the Vistula Sand Bar the sea still throws up Neolithic oval ornaments with drilled holes, along with natural amber lumps. These originated in settlements which have been buried under the sea. Among finds from that period, there are also objects in animal or anthropomorphic shapes, such as the figurine of a wild boar found near Gdansk, or a bear from near Slupsk, or human figures found in Gdynia. Objects of this type have also been found in Finno-Ugrian sites in Lithuanian territory. Neolithic amber finds come also from regions distant from deposits of this raw material, extending deep into Polish lands, even as far as Silesia, or into Czechoslovakia, where for example, ornaments similar to those found in the Stegna and Juodkrante hoards have been uncovered from a bell beaker culture site at Slapanice. This is irrefutable evidence that amber already figured as a trading commodity at this time serving as a means of payment.

In the Early Bronze Age (1700-1450 B.C.) the Unetician culture covered the lands which were to form the Polish state. In this period, trading contacts increased and intensified, and here amber played a major role. The inhabitants of Pomerania paid for weapons, tools and ornaments with amber. It is probably for this reason that there were amber bead necklaces and bronze spirals among the varied objects found at Radzikow and Wojkowice in Silesia. Amber from Jutland at this time reached Bohemia by the trade route which ran along the Elbe or Vistula rivers upstream towards the Odra valley and thence through the Moravian Gate and Klodzko pass. The amber pearls found in Mycenaean pit burials dating from the 14th century B.C. prove that trading contacts were very far-ranging.

Amber beads are found on many sites dating from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (1200-700 B.C.) on Lusatian culture sites--a culture which survived unbroken over almost the whole territory of Poland until the early Middle Ages. These beads are also found on Lusatian culture sites in Moravia and Slovakia dating from the Early Iron Age (700 B.C.).

In this period. East Pomerania was inhabited by people of the Pomeranian culture, which had developed from one of the groups of the Lusatian culture. The ritual burial pottery which is found in this area is in the form of facial burial urns, in the handles of which blue glass beads are also found, indicating that imports from Syria, Egypt and the Red Sea region reached the Baltic lands. These ornaments were obtained in exchange for amber, which in this period reached centres of very highly civilized cultures, in far-distant Italy, the Alpine region or the Greek colonies on the Black Sea. Lusatian culture tribes inhabiting Great Poland and Silesia almost certainly acted as intermediaries in the import of amber from East Pomerania. On one of the best archaeological sites from this culture, at Gorszewice in Poznan voivodship, 186 amber objects were found, as well as bronze and iron tools, weapons, vessels, blue glass ornaments and beads, in other words, objects originating in the Hallstatt cultural zone, from Italy and also from the Pannonian Plain which was inhabited by the Thracian people.(...)