The Ancient Transport of Amber There is evidence for the movement of amber as early as back an extraordinary amount of the precious material, the Paleolithic era. Rough pieces have been found in which was used to extravagantly decorate the arena. Like ancient dwelling caves in Britain and northern Europe at the rare animals that were sometimes displayed at such some distance from amber sources.110 Early on, amber events, amber nourished the idea of exotica from afar— likely was transported to the Mediterranean via a chain of visible affirmation of Rome’s domination of the world.113 exchange—there was no defined long-distance amber trade until the mid-second millennium B.C., when it NOTES probably was acquired in both raw and more finished forms.111 It is likely that amber traveled overland to the 110. Unworked pieces have been found in dwelling caves in Europe Mediterranean via the long route between north and at the Grotte d’Aurensan in the Hautes-Pyrénées, at Judenes in south Europe, along the Oder, the Elbe, the Vistula, the Austria, at Kostelik and Zitmy in Moravia, at Cioclovina in Rhine, the Dniester, and other main European rivers. Romania, and at Gough’s cave near Cheddar, Somerset, England, all of which are far from natural sources of fossil It also traveled eastward. For a long period it, like tin, was resin. An upsurge in the quantity of amber in the carried by sea through the Gates of Hercules; Phoenicians archaeological record is observed in the Early Neolithic. White were likely the main transporters. The Adriatic appears to 1992, p. 549, has shown that there is a source-to-distance have been the main destination for amber intended for gradient for Aurignacian personal ornaments and that they are the markets of the Italian peninsula.112 Once at the frequently manufactured from exotic materials. Shennan 1993, Adriatic, amber must have been moved by water along pp. 62–66, discusses amber’s value in light of its acquisition by the Italian coast, finding its way inland along river valleys political-religious elites living far from amber sources. Citing and mountain passes. It was likely traded from farther Helms 1988, Shennan summarizes: west and welcomed along with the Aegean and eastern The spatially distant material, because of its strangeness, has Mediterranean goods that were transported to the central great power, and experience of it can increase the power and and western Mediterranean. The existence of raw and prestige of those who acquire that experience.… The ultimate worked amber from sites around the Mediterranean and goal of those seeking such goods (shields or shell or stones farther afield—on the Iberian peninsula, in Mesopotamia, or holy incense [or amber]) may well be directed towards in Anatolia, at Ugarit on the Syrian coast, and in Egypt— obtaining (maintaining) access to material manifestations of from the Bronze Age onward attests to its widespread the power and potency that imbues their cosmos, thereby value and transmission. Trade in amber was likely a continuing their close association and inclusion with the series of short-range transactions from the sources dynamics of the universe of which they are an integral part.… Many exchanged items have inherent magical or religious onward, with a few outstanding exceptions. We should significance as “power-charged” treasures acquired from imagine seekers traveling to the northern amber deposits extraordinary realms outside their own heartland. to obtain the precious material and learn its secrets. The “knowledge” that accompanies a highly prized substance 111. Not all students of the material agree that it was traded in both was as important as the thing itself. finished and unfinished forms. There is no literary evidence for direct trade between 112. In Pliny’s day, he relates (Natural History 37.11) that amber was Italy and the north until the first century A.D. Pliny the previously “conveyed by the Germans mainly into Pannonia. Elder writes of a Roman knight, commissioned to procure From there it was first brought into prominence by the Veneti, known to the Greeks as the Enetoi, who are close neighbors of amber for a gladiatorial display presented by Nero, who the Pannonians and live around the Adriatic.” traversed both the trade route and the coasts, bringing 40