Amber Road

This article deals with ancient trade routes. For the B 49 in Austria see Bernstein Straße , for the European cycle route see Bernsteinroute (EV9) .

Course of the main trade routes called "Amber Road"

Various ancient trade routes ( old roads ) are known as the amber route , on which (among other things) amber came from the North and Baltic Seas south to the Mediterranean . Strictly speaking, it is not an amber route, but rather several independent trade routes that were used in the course of antiquity for the transport of amber and other goods. The term "Amber Road" appears from around the end of the 18th century and has no equivalent in ancient sources.

Deposits and hoards

Baltic amber originated in an extensive forest area that covered large parts of what is now Scandinavia, the Baltic States and Russia in the Eocene . From the place of its origin, it was washed by predominantly fluvial influences into a marine area located approximately south of this forest area at that time. The resulting amber deposit, consisting of marine sands mixed with glauconite , is the so-called “ blue earth ” that appears in Samland (and possibly also existed in other places before the onset of the Quaternary Ice Age ). This amber deposit was known long before ancient times . There is no doubt that residents of the coastal region (e.g. people of the Neolithic Haffküsten culture (Rzucewo culture) who settled in the Vistula Delta) made jewelry and cult objects from the amber washed up on the coasts of the Samland and already had a lively trade in amber have operated.

In the course of the Quaternary ice advances , clods of this blue earth, some of which were of considerable size, were torn loose and transported with the ice into the interior. For this reason, amber occurs up to the icing limits of the glacier advances and in the deposits of the meltwater streams created by the thawing of the ice masses. Where the clods of the blue earth were deposited more coherently during the ice advances of the Vistula glacial that ended more than 12,000 years ago, amber can also occur locally in inland areas. However, the extent of such occurrences is nowhere near comparable to that of the Blue Earth in Samland and is much too small as a basis for the development of sustained systematic trade. Some of these find areas are described below.

The targeted mining of such deposits has taken place repeatedly in historical times, but rarely systematically over a longer period of time, as the deposits are quite limited even under optimal conditions and the technical possibilities available in earlier times did not allow excavations on a larger scale. It is therefore controversial whether, when and, if so, to what extent these inland amber deposits were used in prehistoric times. Rather, it can be assumed that the extraction of inland amber was mostly limited to the picking up of amber that appeared on the surface. Nevertheless, some archaeologists do not completely rule out systematic excavation through excavations for the period of the Middle Ages and antiquity in the form of so-called duck mining .

Against this background, some of the inland trading centers for amber, mostly proven by hoard finds, may not only have been trading points marking the course of the trade routes, but also places where the raw material was extracted.

Examples of accumulated amber deposits inland:

• In many Brandenburg areas - z. Amber deposits were discovered in the course of regulation and dam construction work, for example in the valley sand areas of the Thorn -Eberswalder- Urstromtales . Archaeologists suspect that this region of what is now Poland is a trading center .
• Not far away, in the west of the Thorn-Eberswalder glacial valley, rich amber deposits were found when the Finow Canal was built ; In addition, a plaice of glauconite sand with amber during marl mining in 1800 .
• In the Kurpie region (in north-eastern Poland), particularly in the catchment area of ​​the Narew River, a little east of the eastern Roman route of the “Amber Road”. Already at the beginning of the settlement of this region, at the end of the 15th, beginning of the 16th century, local accumulations of amber were discovered, which was initially mined with simple means and with which probably also traded. At the beginning of the 19th century, up to 2,000 people worked in numerous small opencast mines that were state-owned and leased. In the area around Ostrołęka , about two tons of amber were extracted in numerous pits in an area of ​​about 1000 km² in 1835. With the advent of industrial amber mining in Samland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, activities in this area, which had been declining before, largely came to a standstill, although amber is still being excavated here by private individuals.

One of the most important archaeological discoveries in this context is the so-called Amber Treasure from Wrocław- Patrynice with a total weight of 2,750 kg, including around 1,500 kg of raw amber. The fact that this was a merchandise was, among other things. a. recognizable by the fact that the pieces were sorted according to size. The finds probably date from the 1st or 2nd century BC. And are associated with Celtic tribes. Hoard finds are also known from other historical periods. So one kilogram of around 300 and 30 kg of raw amber pieces processed (in the main-turned amber beads) existing Fund at Basonia (for example province Lublin , southern Poland) dated to the fifth century AD. This site, which is clearly to the east of the so-called east route of the Amber Road, also shows how ramified the trade routes for amber were in earlier historical times.

The Roman routes

The best researched are the trade routes running from the Baltic Sea and the western North Sea to the northern Adriatic Sea and to Rome at the time of the Roman Empire, which are usually also meant when the general term “the Amber Road” is used.

history

There were a few trade routes outside the Roman Empire through which amber had reached the Alpine region and Italy since prehistoric times . With the expansion of the Roman Empire as far as the Danube , such a trade route was probably developed as a state road ( Roman road ) on the territory of the Roman Empire under Augustus and Tiberius at the beginning of the 1st century AD .

The winter-safe connection between Carnuntum on the Danube and Aquileia in Italy is called the Roman Amber Road and is part of the Roman road network. The course of this Roman amber road is recorded in the Tabula Peutingeriana . Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) reports that amber was transported from the Baltic coast to Aquileia on this road.

Course of the Eastern Roman Route

The Amber Road (Eastern Route)

In Roman times, there were practically no roads outside of the Roman Empire. So when the "Amber Road" is mentioned here, one has to imagine a connection between the Adriatic Sea and the North or Baltic Sea, which essentially consisted of a sequence of routes between neighboring settlements. Such paths presumably followed predominantly flowing waters, some of which were also used. Travelers had to make use of the knowledge of the local population about fords and passes . In principle, this also applies to the other land routes of the Greeks and Etruscans mentioned below.

The trade route, which was already important in pre-Roman times, ran from the Gdańsk Bay along the Vistula and its tributaries through the Moravian Gate , followed the March in Lower Austria and crossed the Danube at Carnuntum around 50 km east of Vienna . Pliny the Elder Ä. reports in his Historia naturalis , "[...] that the coast of Germania from where [the amber] was introduced is about 600,000 paces [about 900 km] from Carnuntum in Pannonia [...]". The Samland coast is about this distance from Carnuntum. From this it is concluded that the amber comes from there, so the amber road described here must have led into this area. Bypassing the Alpine passes , the road ran from Carnuntum, Scarabantia ( Sopron / Ödenburg), Colonia Claudia Savaria ( Szombathely / Steinamanger) and Poetovio ( Ptuj / Pettau) via Emona (Laibach, Ljubljana ) to Aquileia. Between Sopron and Szombathely, the Amber Road ran through Central Burgenland ( Oberpullendorf district ), a Celtic iron ore area that was important for Rome. Here a preserved section of the street is under monument protection . The place name Bernstein still reminds of the course of the Amber Road in this part of Austria.

In the 3rd / 4th In the 19th century AD it lost its importance as a link between Italy and Carnuntum. As far as the Roman amber road has not disappeared due to overbuilding with modern roads, it can still be recognized in aerial photographs by vegetation features in the grain or as a light gravel wall in freshly plowed fields.

A letter from the Ostrogothic King Theodoric from the period between 523 and 526, retold by Cassiodorus, contains (in addition to important political content) also references to the amber trade and mentions efforts by the Baltic and Goths to revive and expand the amber trade, which had come to a standstill during the migration.

Other trade routes

The amber traders of antiquity chose routes that were as safe as possible with their precious cargo. This route changed several times due to raids and during the troubled times of the Great Migration . If alternatives were of equal value, rivers were chosen on which, over time, an increasing number of caravanserais offered overnight accommodation.

Today, on the basis of contemporary reports and archaeological findings, a distinction is made between five routes. The four land routes with their variants are largely based on large rivers:

• The North Sea Route (Mediterranean, Strait of Gibraltar, Atlantic, English Channel, North Sea). It is believed in the literature that the Phoenicians brought amber from the Cimbrian Peninsula to the Middle East in this way . The existence of this trade route is however controversial; so the opinion is widespread that the Phoenicians got their amber from mediators - probably Ligurians - who lived in the first millennium BC for a few centuries. a. settled the coastal section at the mouth of the Rhone and thus at the southern end of the Amber Road described below as the West German land route.
• The route of the Greeks (from the Vistula Delta along the Vistula to the mouth of the Dniester in the Black Sea and from there by sea to Athens and Mycenae ). Finds of Baltic amber in the Caucasus ( Ossetia ), the lion's head vessel , also made of Baltic amber, from a dated 1340 BC. The tomb in Qatna (Syria) dated to the 3rd century BC and other amber objects from archaeological excavations in the Middle East indicate that the trade in amber, and therefore also the trade routes on which the amber was transported, extended significantly further and extended far into the second millennium BC.
• The eastern Roman land route (already described in more detail above) (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 Cimbrian Peninsula along the Elbe and, alternatively, probably the Oder over the Alps to Rome; Roman route). The course of this route between the mouth of the Elbe and the Adriatic Sea is a trade route that dates back to around 2500 BC. Proven.
• The West German land route (from the North Sea coast of the Cimbrian Peninsula via the Rhine and Rhone through the " Burgundian Gate " to Massilia , now Marseille, and to Tuscany, the core area of ​​the Etruscans ; Etruscan route), which has been running since at least 600 BC. Has been used. The Greek foundation of Massilia was probably connected with the intention of opening up this trade route to the north in order to gain access to amber and tin .

The latter two routes converged in Treva (today Hamburg) and from there most likely led to the North Sea coast of Eiderstedt . In this context it is worth mentioning that more than 2000 years ago in ancient Greece the North and East Frisian Islands were referred to as " electrids " (from "electron" = Greek word for amber) due to the amber finds known from there , which explains the alleged meaning of these Trade route is underlined.

Some routes with a possibly different course or other ramifications probably already existed in the Bronze Age . Direct or indirect trade relations between Bronze Age tribes north of the Alps and Mycenaean Greece, in which amber also played a role, are documented, for example, by finds in the early Mycenaean shaft graves and also by the discovery of metal objects from Mycenaean production in various places in northern Germany. The course of these routes in the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age ( Hallstatt Period) and the importance of amber as a commodity on these pre-Roman trading routes were controversial.

The westernmost amber deposit was discovered at Cromer in Norfolk on the east coast of England. The period for a barter is given as 1600–600 BC.

If one superimposes the trade routes from the Iron Age to the early Middle Ages, which are partly comprehensible in detail and partly hypothetically sketched from archaeological findings, a dense and very branched "road network" results, which mainly but by no means exclusively runs in a north-south direction and has clear focal points along the large rivers that flow into the North and Baltic Seas and the course of the Danube. New archaeological finds and new interpretations of older finds repeatedly lead to modifications of the findings on the age, duration and exact course of the various routes.

Amber Road today

tourism

In almost all bordering countries along the course of the eastern Roman route of the Amber Road, initiatives have been formed to re-create the trade route as a tourist route , mostly in connection with programs of the European Union or the UNWTO . The Austrian Amber Road Association has existed in Austria since 2001. It networks museums and theme parks along the route and, with Betty Bernstein , operates a brand for museum education. The European long- distance cycle route EuroVelo 9 connects the Baltic Sea with the Adriatic Sea and was named the Amber Route .

Networks

Bernsteinstrasse is also the namesake for a network of 12 universities of applied sciences in neighboring countries.

Street name

The state road B49 with the name Bernstein Straße leads along an earlier route in the Weinviertel in Austria .

literature

• A. Becker: The Amber Road in Niederdonau. Series of publications for home and people, No. 44, St. Pölten 1941.
• H. Bender: Roman roads and road stations . Small writings on the knowledge of the Roman occupation history of Southwest Germany 13, Ed. Society for Prehistory and Early History in Württemberg and Hohenzollern eV, Stuttgart 1975.
• Janos Gömöri – M. Buora: The Amber Road in Roman times and the role of Aquileia. Exhibition catalog: Roman amber finds from Aquileia and Scarabantia from the collections of the museums in Udine and Sopron. Ed .: Scarbantia Társaság, Sopron o. J.
• Gisela Graichen, Alexander Hesse: The Amber Road : Hidden Trade Routes between the Baltic Sea and the Nile , Rowohlt, 2012, ISBN 9783644022416
• Irene Heiling: The Roman Amber Road in Central Burgenland. Bgld. Homeland bl. 51/3, 1989, 91ff.
• F. Jedlicka: A piece of Amber Road in the northeastern Weinviertel. Edited by the Austrian Society for Prehistory and Early History. (Information online)
• Karl Kaus: deposit and production center of the Ferrum Noricum. Leobener Green Hefts, NF 2, 74ff.
• Pawel Madejski: What is actually hidden behind the term “Amber Road”. Archeology in Germany (4), 2014, 48–52.
• Dieter Quast, Michael Erdlich (ed.): Die Bernsteinstrasse Theiss, Stuttgart, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8062-2708-6
• Sigrid Strohschneider-Laue: The Roman Amber Road. AÖ 4/1 (MUAG XLIII), 1993, 69-70.
• G. Winkler: The Roman roads and milestones in Noricum - Austria. Small writings on the knowledge of the Roman occupation history of Southwest Germany, Ed. Society for Prehistory and Early History in Württemberg and Hohenzollern eV, Stuttgart 1985.
• Markus Zohner: The rediscovery of the Amber Road - on foot from Venice to Saint Petersburg. FIZZO Photo Book Film Verlag, ISBN 978-88-904560-9-1

Web links

Wikivoyage: Amber  Road Travel Guide

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pawel Madejski: What is actually hidden behind the term 'Amber Road'. In Die Bernsteinstraße , special issue 4/2014 Archeology in Germany , Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-8062-2708-6 , pp. 48–52.
2. ↑ D. Zawischa: Inclusions in amber. In the Paleontology Working Group Hannover 21, Issue 1,2, Hannover 1993.
3. ↑ RF Mazurowski: The amber-processing region in Żuławy Wiślane 4500 years ago. In: Amber - views - opinions. Warsaw 2006 (first publication of the article in 1996).
4. ↑ J. Czebreszuk: Between the Aegean and Baltic Seas. Prehistory across borders. In Aegaeum 27: pp. 363-370, Liege 2005
5. ↑ Kurt Hucke: The sedimentary debris of the north German lowlands . Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1917.
6. ↑ Kurt Hucke: Introduction to bed load research . Nederlandse Geologische Vereniging, Oldenzaal 1967.
7. ^ Rainer Schulz: Occurrence of amber in Northern Brandenburg . In discoveries along the Märkische Eiszeitstraße 5, Eberswalde 2001.
8. ^ Rolf Reinicke: Amber in the Western Pomeranian coastal area . In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. , Bochum 1996. ISBN 3-921533-57-0
9. ^ J. Jastrzebski: Extraction of amber in Kurpie, north-east Poland. In: Metalla special issue, Bochum 1997.
10. ^ H. Lüddecke: Bernstein . In the Paleontology Working Group Hannover 21, Issue 1,2; Hanover 1993.
11. ^ P. Wielowiejski: Amber between Baltic and Adriatic in the times of Caesar and Augustus. In: Amber - views - opinions. Warsaw 2006 (first publication of the article in 1996).
12. ↑ ^{a b} Audrone Bliujiene: Lithuanian Amber Artifacts in the Middle of the First Millennium and Their Provenance Within the limits of Eastern Baltic region . pgm.lt. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
13. ↑ Gerd Weisgerber : Prehistoric and early historical use of amber. In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Bochum 1996, ISBN 3-921533-57-0 .
14. ↑ F. Waldmann: The amber in antiquity. A historical-philological sketch. Fellin 1883. ( online )
15. ↑ U. Erichson and W. Weitschat: Baltic amber. Ribnitz-Damgarten 2008.
16. ↑ including Karl Wessely : About the amber in its cultural-historical significance. - Lecture given on February 19, 1913. In: Writings of the Association for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge , 53, Vienna 1913 (with numerous references to ancient sources).
17. ^ A. Mukherjee et al .: The Qatna lion: scientific confirmation of Baltic amber in lat Bronze Age Syria. Antiquity (ISSN 0003-598X), 82nd vol., Durham (GB) 2008, pp. 49-59.
18. ↑ E. Jovaisa: The Balts and the amber . In: Publishing Office of Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts , 2001, pp. 149–156. online .
19. ↑ ^{a b} W. Geerlings: The tears of the sisters of Phaëton - Bernstein in antiquity. In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Bochum 1996, pp. 395-399
20. ^ Karl Andrée: The amber. The amber land and its life. Stuttgart 1951.
21. ↑ Joseph Maran : Wessex and Mycenae. On the importance of amber in the time of shaft digging in southern Greece. In International Archeology - Studia honoraria Volume 21, Rahden 2004, pp. 47–65.
22. ^ Zbigniew Bukowski: Critically about the so-called Amber Route in the Odra and Vistula River Basins in the Early Iron age. In Archaeologia Polona XXVIII, 1990 ( full text , PDF, 52 pages)
23. ^ Karl Jülicher: The gold of the north. In Pan magazine , April 1982.
24. ↑ Elzbieta Choinska-Bochdan: Directions of contacts and main zones of amber exchange in Europe - from the Neolithic to the Middle ages Early (at attempt of reconstruction). - In Trade routes of amber. Kaliningrad 2011.
25. ↑ http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20050706_OTS0189/land-noe-unterstuetzt-bernsteinstrasse-projekt .
26. ↑ http://europe.unwto.org/content/amber-road-0
27. ↑ http://mistelbach.gv.at/system/web/news.aspx?bezirkonr=0&detailonr=221788535&menuonr=219128728 .
28. ↑ Amber Road - Members ( Memento from April 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive )