Ambergris
The amber or amber (Arabic ) is a gray, waxy substance from the digestive tract of sperm whales. It has been previously used in perfumery. Today, it is largely replaced by synthetic substances and is used only in a few expensive perfumes.
Formation
Ambergris is formed in the food intake of sperm whales. The indigestible parts such as beaks or jaws Horn of squid and octopus are embedded in amber. The exact cause of the formation is unclear. There may be a metabolic disease of the sperm whale, when it forms amber. According to another theory the substance of the antibiotic wound closure is used for injuries of the intestinal wall. Into the sea, the substance passes through vomiting, as faecal stones or by the natural death of the animals.
Earlier ideas about the origin
On the Origin of Ambra has been speculated since the 10th century. The Arab traveler Al- Masudi were reports of merchants and sailors again, claiming that Ambra is growing like mushrooms on the seabed. You 'll swirled in storms and so washed up on the shores. Ambra come in two different forms, one white and one black, above. Al- Masudi also mentioned that the residents would have trained their camels in search of Ambra at one point the Arabian coast on the Indian Ocean reported.
Al- Masudis theory about the origin of ambergris was also six centuries later, represented approximately by Adam Lonitzer. The 1721 published in Leipzig General Lexicon of the arts and knowledge managed describes as the most likely explanation for this ambergris as an " earth- pitch ", which will be flooded by the tide and hardened by air and sea water.
From Arabia also comes the idea that amber flowed from sources that were located near the seashore. In the fairy tale Arabian Nights Sinbad stranded after he had been shipwrecked on a desert island, where he discovered a source with stinking, raw amber. The substance flowed like wax into the sea, where it was swallowed by giant fish first and then vomited again in the form of fragrant lumps that floated to the beach. In ancient Greece, where amber was added because of its alleged effect of alcohol -enhancing quality wine, we took a source close to the sea as a place of origin of ambergris.
In China, one called Ambra to about 1000 AD as a treatment sien Hiang ( Lóngxiánxiāng龙 涎 香), as the " saliva perfume of the Dragon" because it was believed that the substance came from the saliva of the Dragon on rocks at the edge the sea slept. In the Orient Ambra is still known by that name and is used as an aphrodisiac and as a spice for food and wine.
In many parts of the ancient and early old Medieval Europe, it was assumed that real amber (yellow amber or Baltic amber, in ancient Rome called Succinum and in Greece as ἤλεκτρον ( electron) ) and Ambra same or at least similar origin are. Presumably, this idea goes back to the similarities of these two substances in the fragrance, the rarity and value, as well as in the outer appearance and the incidence ( with marine coasts ). In early chronicles, however, a difference between amber and amber is already konzidiert. Amber was regarded then as either sperm of fish or whales, as feces of unknown birds (probably from a faulty interpretation of the squid beaks contained in the amber ) or as large hives from coastal areas, as reported, for example, the ship's doctor Exquemelin in the 17th century:
"In these landscapes there are also many bees make their honey to the forest trees, and so it happens because not rare that the wax is zusamt the hanging on the trees honey driven towards the sea by violent storms. ( ... ) What is probably quite believable, because this ambergris is when you find it, still soft and smells like wax. "
Marco Polo was the first chronicler of the Old World, the Ambra applicable as an endogenous substance of sperm whales realized after watching sperm whales before the Socotra Islands in the Indian Ocean in the hunt for squid. He also suggested that it is the Ambra RELATES to vomit these whales in the depths of the sea.
In 1783, the botanist Joseph Banks of the Royal Society presented a work of the London-based German physician Franz Xaver Schwediauer in which he described the circumstances prevailing in Western Europe Misconceptions about amber and the origin of this substance. He identified Ambra as a product of the often unnatural bloated gut sick sperm whales and brought the emergence of Ambra with the beaks of squid, the main food of sperm whales, in conjunction.
Use
Fresh ambergris is soft and smells disgusting. Only through the years or decades of contact with air, light and salt water it gets its firm consistency and its pleasant fragrance.
The gray and black amber was of considerable importance in the manufacture of perfume. Because of synthesizing this substance and the prohibition of trade of whale products in accordance with the CITES Convention Ambra but nowadays attached no value, although it still finds application in homeopathy. However, large sums are paid for alluvial finds as before, which may also be in the five-digit euro range depending on the quality per kilo.
Ambra is found floating in clumps of up to 10 kilograms on the sea, in individual cases, but also more than 100 kilograms. This amber lumps can drift over years to decades across the seas. Only later was it discovered during the slaughter of individual sperm whales fresh Ambra in the intestines of animals; it may contain up to 400 kilograms. Such quantities but more frequently to intestinal obstruction and ultimately to the death of these animals. Rarely ambergris chunks found as flotsam on the coast. In January 2013, a 3 -pound chunk was found (estimated value £ 100,000 ) near Blackpool in England.
The perfume of ambergris is Ambrein, an alcohol, is broken down by air and light into the actual fragrances, including ambrox. The scent is described as a woody, dry, balsamic, slightly tobacco -like to a bouquet way with aphrodisiac impact. Ambergris, or its synthetic form, is typically used as a base note in perfume compositions.
The two French chemist Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier were the first, the isolated Ambrein, characterized and named so.
Already in the 15th century amber was traded in Europe and its weight in gold, although these findings satisfy the highest quality standards only in rare cases. Leo Africanus wrote in the 16th century, that the price of amber lies in Fes at 60 ducats per pound (compared to the cost of a slave 20, a eunuch 40 and 50 ducats a camel ). So it was a very precious substance.
Huygen van Linschoten January wrote in his travel reports about the Ambra:
" [ It is ] used mixed in many beautiful things with musk, civet, benzoin and other sweet things, and from the mixtures beautiful apples and pears are produced and set in silver and gold, which carry the people [ in the hands ] to to smell it. "
Adam Lonitzer was in his Kreüterbuch with the following words, a substitute recipe for real Ambra:
" ... Ambra factitia, that's ... made Ambra, so to take the natural Ambrae bey many ( but much lower Krafft on ) is needed, is made of Muscatnuß ... Nägelin Spicanardi, Bisem and rose water and made into a ... Massa. Some prepare him for another white, but must allwegen Bisem or Zibett Being Darbey. "
Ambra was formerly also used to make very exclusive dishes.
Etymology
Amber or amber is also the Latin, English and old German name for amber.
The English call Amber "Amber", which is believed that this excretion ( Ambre gris ) of the whales was meant, and officially lead the etymologists the root word from the Arabic word anbar = Ambre gris from.
The word " Amber " is used alongside English and Dutch in other languages:
- In French ambre jaune,
- Italian ambra grigia, and
- ámbar in Spanish el.
In contrast to the British and the Dutch, these nations have hardly had any contact with whalers earlier and would have the word from a common source have moved - probably from the Latin " amburo ".
In addition to the amber was in ancient literature also spermaceti, white and Liquidambar called real liquid storax as white amber. al -Kindi was also under the heading of "Amber" three perfume formulations, which had nothing to do with the amber.
In the German language the word amber in the name of the river Amper, in the Ammer Mountains, Ammersee and on behalf Oberammergau appears. These names are components of an amber route.
Ambra in the literature
In love poetry was often called the Ambra. In Herman Melville's Moby Dick states: