Amber is the fossilised resin from a prehistorical pine, which grew in a subtropical forest 35-50 million years ago, in what is now the Baltic Sea. Fossil amber originated as the life giving saps of extinct coniferous trees, such as Pinus Succinifera, which flourished in the Eocene and Oligocene periods just before the Ice Age. It is found among sedimentary rocks. Insects, pieces of moss, lichens and pine needles may be found in amber, having been trapped millions of years ago while the resin was still sticky.
Over the centuries, philosophers and alchemists conjured up delightful but fanciful theories to explain the origins of amber. In ancient Rome, Demonstrates, a first-century AD Roman senator and historian, records in his manuscripts a popular belief that amber was formed from the urine of the lynx: tawny, dark sherry colours being the product of the male, and lighter coloured amber produced by the female lynx. Another ancient belief holds that the rays of a brilliantly setting sun became congealed in an evening sea and were cast upon the shore in the form of amber.…
