A stone that is warm rather than cold, light as wood, honey-gold in the light – and sometimes carrying within it an insect from a world millions of years old: amber is the strangest treasure of the Baltic coast. From the Stone Age to the Vikings it was prized, worn and traded. A look at the “gold of the sea.”
Amber is not a mineral but fossilised tree resin – flowed from primeval forests millions of years ago, hardened in the ground and the sea. On the Baltic, above all in Samland, it is still washed ashore or dug from blue earth. It is warm to the touch, very light, and charges electrically when rubbed – the ancient Greeks called it elektron, hence our word “electricity.”
Already in the Stone Age people wore amber on the body. For millennia the famous Amber Road carried the Baltic gold to the Mediterranean, to Rome and beyond. The North thus had something half the world desired – a raw material that brought trade and wealth long before the Vikings set out on their voyages.
The Roman historian Tacitus knew of the amber-gatherers on the Baltic:
“They also search the sea, and alone of all peoples gather amber, which they themselves call glaesum, in the shallows and on the shore.” Tacitus, Germania 45 (on the Aesti; free translation, public domain)
In the Viking Age amber was everywhere. From it people carved beads, pendants, gaming pieces – and small Thor's hammers as protective amulets. In the trading towns of Ribe, Haithabu and Birka whole workshops with amber waste were found. The warm gold of the sea was jewellery, trade goods and probably a piece of good-luck charm in one. Beside amber stood black jet – more on it in our piece on jet.
The appeal has remained: a warm, living stone from nature, beautiful worn on the body. What the Vikings loved about amber – the real, the grown – is still the finest thing about natural jewellery. If you like, find more stones of the North in our piece on the carnelian beads.
Amber is fossil tree resin (mostly many millions of years old); on the Baltic (Samland) it is washed ashore and mined. It is light, warm to the touch and charges electrostatically (Greek elektron). Amber was traded since the Stone Age along the “Amber Road” as far as Rome. In the Viking Age people made beads, pendants, Thor's-hammer amulets and gaming pieces; workshop finds come from Ribe, Haithabu and Birka, among others. Tacitus (Germania 45) describes the amber-gatherers on the Baltic.
Amber is strictly speaking not a “gemstone” but hardened resin – an organic material. The lovely reading “amber is the tears of Freyja” is also not clearly attested in Old Norse: Snorri says Freyja weeps gold, not expressly amber; the equation is probably later/poetic. What is certain are the origin, the trade and the rich Viking-age use – the symbolism remains interpretation.
Jet – the black gemstone · Carnelian – the Vikings' red beads · Hacksilver – silver as currency · Viking jewellery · Norse gifts for women.