Amber Road

As Amber Road various trade routes of antiquity ( Old Quarters ) are referred to, in which ( among other things ) Bernstein came from the North and Baltic Sea south to the Mediterranean. Strictly speaking it is not an Amber Road, but by several, resulting independently trade routes that were used during the ancient times for the transport of Bernstein and other trade goods.

Deposits and hoards

Baltic amber was created in a vast forest area that covered large parts of present-day Scandinavia, the Baltic States and Russia in the Eocene. From its place of origin, he was swept by mainly fluvial influences in a time approximately south of this forest area situated marine area. The arising therefrom amber deposit, consisting of marine sands, mixed with glauconite, which is so-called " Blue Earth ", which occurs in Sambia to days ( and before the onset of the Quaternary ice age may exist in other places ). This amber deposit was known long before the ancient times. Is no doubt that the inhabitants of the coastal region (eg, people of the Neolithic Haffküsten culture ( Rzucewo culture), who settled in the Vistula Delta ) from the coasts of Samland alluvial amber jewelry and ritual objects made ​​and already a lively trade in amber have operated.

In the course of Weichselian, which ended about 12,000 years ago, plaice this Blue Earth were torn from some of considerable size, and shipped with the ice in the interior. For this reason, amber can be up to the boundary of the Weichselian glaciation and in the deposits of meltwater streams that emerged through the defrosting of the ice masses, occur. Where the clods of earth were deposited Blue reasonably contiguous, amber finds in the interior can locally also frequently occur, although the extent of such occurrence with the is not nearly comparable to the Blue Earth in Sambia. Some such Fund areas are described below.

The selective degradation of such occurrence took place repeatedly in historical times, but rarely systematically over a longer period because the resources are quite limited, even under optimal conditions and the available technical possibilities in earlier times did not allow excavations on a larger scale. Whether, when, and if so to what extent these inland deposits have been used in early times, therefore, is controversial. Rather, it can be assumed that the production of amber binnenländischem mostly to the superficial gleaning outcropping Bernstein's limited. Nevertheless, close some archaeologists a systematic degradation by excavations for the time of the Middle Ages and antiquity in the form of so-called Duckelbergbaus not completely out.

Against this background, some of the most proven through hoards trading centers for Bernstein inland may not only have been the course of trade routes marked hubs of traders, but also places where the raw material was encouraged.

Examples of clustering of amber deposits in the interior:

• In many areas of Brandenburg - eg in valley sand areas of the Thorn- Eberswalde - glacial valley - were discovered in the course of regulatory and dam construction amber deposits. Archaeologists suspect in this region of present-day Poland is a commercial hub.
• Not far away, in the western Thorn- Eberswalde - glacial valley, was found during construction of the canal Finow rich amber camp; Also in 1800 the marl mining a clod glauconite sand with amber.
• In the region Kurpie ( in north-eastern Poland ), especially in the catchment area of the river Narew, just east of the eastern Roman route of the " Amber Road ". Already at the beginning of the colonization of this region, the end of the 15th, beginning of the 16th century, local accumulations of amber were discovered, which was originally funded by simple means and driven with probably even trade. At the beginning of the 19th century worked in numerous small open pits, which were state-owned and leased, up to 2,000 people. In the vicinity of Ostrołęka were promoted about two tons of amber in an area of ​​about 1,000 km ² in numerous pits in 1835. With the advent of industrial amber promotion in Sambia came at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, the previously declining activity in the area to a virtual standstill, although it is also today still excavated from individuals amber.

One of the most important archaeological discoveries in this factual context is the so -called amber treasure of Wroclaw- Patrynice with a total weight of 2750 kg, including about 1500 kg of raw amber. The fact that it had acted in this case in order merchandise, among other things, was be recognized that the pieces were sorted by size. The finds probably date back to the 1st or 2nd century BC and are associated with the Celtic tribes. Hoards, however, are also known from other historical periods. For example, a processed from approximately 300 kg and 30 kg of raw amber pieces ( lathed in the main amber beads ) of current fund at Basonia ( Lublin Voivodeship, southern Poland) is dated to the fifth century AD. This locality significantly east of the so-called eastern route of the Amber Road but also shows how verästelt the trade routes for amber in earlier historical times have been obvious.

The Roman routes

The best studied are the time of the Roman Empire from the Baltic Sea and the western North Sea to the northern Adriatic Sea and to Rome running trade routes, most of which are also meant when general terms of " the Amber Road " is mentioned.

History

It was outside of the Roman Empire a few trade routes, across which, in the Alpine region and to Italy since ancient amber. Due to the expansion of the Roman Empire to the Danube was probably already under Augustus and Tiberius at the beginning of the 1st century AD, such a trade route as State Street ( Roman road ) expanded on the territory of the Roman Empire.

The weather connection between Carnuntum on the Danube and of Aquileia in Italy is called Roman Amber Road and the Roman road network belonging. The course of this Roman Amber Road is listed in the Tabula Peutingeriana. Pliny the Elder ( 23-79 AD ) reports that had been transported on this road amber from the Baltic Sea to Aquileia. Him it owes its name.

History of the Eastern Roman route

In Roman times, existed outside the Roman Empire virtually no roads. If so here we are talking about the " Amber Road ", one has to imagine a connection between the Adriatic Sea and the North Sea or Baltic, which consisted of a sequence of distances between neighboring settlements substantially. Such paths followed probably predominantly rivers that were in parts also traveled. Travelers had to take advantage of over fords and passes the knowledge of the local population. In principle, this also applies to the other, mentioned below land routes of the Greeks and Etruscans.

The significant already in pre-Roman trade route ran from the Gulf of Gdansk very likely along the Vistula River and its tributaries through the Moravian Gate, followed in Lower Austria the March and crossed at Carnuntum approximately 50 km east of Vienna the Danube. Pliny the Elder. reported in his Historia naturalis, " [ ... ] the coast of Germania from where [ amber ] was introduced, about 600,000 step [ 900 km] was removed from Carnuntum in Pannonia [ ... ] ". The coast of Samland is pretty at this distance of Carnuntum. It is concluded that amber is from there, so the amber route described here must have done in this area. By bypassing the Alpine passes was the road from Carnuntum, Scarabantia ( Sopron / Sopron ), Colonia Claudia Savaria ( Szombathely / Szombathely ) and Poetovio ( Ptuj / Pettau) about Emona ( Ljubljana, Ljubljana) to Aquileia. Between Sopron and Szombathely the Amber Road led by the Central Burgenland ( District Oberpullendorf ), a significant Rome Celtic iron ore area. Here is a preserved section of the road under monument protection. The name Amber is a reminder of the history of the Amber Road in this part of Austria.

In 3 / 4 Century AD, it loses its meaning as a link between Italy and Carnuntum. As far as the Roman Amber Road has not gone through Comprising of modern roads, it is still visible on aerial photographs by crop marks in cereal or as a light gravel Wall in freshly plowed fields.

Nevertheless, occupies a nacherzählter of Cassiodorus letter of Ostrogothic King Theodoric of the time 523-526, which also contains references to amber trade alongside significant political content, efforts of the Balts and Goths to revitalize during the Great Migration standstill in amber trade again and expand

Other trade routes

The Amber dealers antic times with their precious cargo the supposedly safest route. This route changed due to raids and during the troubled times of the Great Migration of times. With equivalent alternatives were chosen rivers, where an increasing number of caravanserais accommodation offered over time.

A distinction is now based on contemporary accounts and archaeological features five routes. The four land routes with their variants are largely based on large rivers:

• The North Sea Cycle Route ( Mediterranean Sea, Strait of Gibraltar, Atlantic, English Channel, North Sea). This is probably the oldest " Amber Road " is frequented by the Phoenicians who brought the amber in this way from the Cimbric peninsula in the Middle East. About the existence of this trade route is, however, discussed controversially in the literature; it is also the view represented, the Phoenicians have their amber through intermediaries - probably Ligurians - get that in the first millennium BC, several centuries among others the coastal section of the Rhone estuary and thus at the southern terminus of the Amber Road described as a West German land route below populated.
• The route of the Greeks ( from the Vistula River Delta along the Vistula River to the mouth of the Dniester to the Black Sea and from there by sea to Athens and Mycenae ). Finds Baltic amber in the Caucasus ( Ossetia ) suggest that trade with amber and consequently also the trade routes on which the amber was transported much further submitted.
• The ( already described in more detail above ) Eastern Roman land route ( from the Vistula Delta to Aquileia on the north coast of the Adriatic, Roman Route ).
• The Central German land route ( from the North Sea coast of the peninsula Cimbric along the Elbe and the Oder, alternatively, probably over the Alps to Rome, Roman Route ). The course of the route between the Elbe estuary and the Adriatic is detected as a trade already for the period from about 2500 BC
• The West German land route ( from the North Sea coast of Cimbric peninsula on the Rhine and the Rhone by the " Burgundy Gate " to Massilia, now Marseilles, and Tuscany, the heartland of the Etruscans, Etruscan route ), which has been used since at least 600 BC is. The Greek Massilia foundation has been thought to be associated with the intention to develop this trade route to the north to get access to amber and tin.

The latter two routes converged in Treva (today Hamburg) and led from there probably to the North Sea coast of eiderstedt. In this context it is noteworthy that in ancient Greece more than 2000 years ago the North and East Frisian Islands due to the amber finds from there known as " electrides " (from " elektron " = Greek word for amber ) were referred to, whereby the putative importance of this trade route is underlined.

Some routes with possibly deviant course or other ramifications have probably existed during the Bronze Age. Trade relations between the Bronze Age tribes north of the Alps and the Mycenaean Greece, in which Bernstein has played a role, are occupied, for example, by archaeological findings of a dig at Bernstorff (north of Munich). However, controversy over the course of these routes in the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age ( Hallstatt period ) as well as on the importance of trade goods Bernstein on these trade routes in pre-Roman times.

The westernmost amber deposit was discovered at Cromer in Norfolk, on England's east coast. As time for a barter is specified 1600-600 BC.

Taking the comprehensible part in detail by archaeological findings, partly hypothetical outlined trade routes from the Iron Age to the early Middle Ages, one above the other, the result is a dense and highly branched " road network", but by no means runs mainly exclusively in north-south direction and clear priorities forms along the large opening into the North and Baltic Sea and the Danube flows run. New archaeological finds and new interpretations of older discoveries often lead to modifications of the findings on age, duration and exact course of the various routes.