The Emperor Nero, according to Solinus,[1] had no less than 13,000 pounds weight brought to him at one time, and in the year 1770, 65,760 pounds were collected in Prussia. It is also cast up by the sea on the southern and eastern shores of Scania.
The western shores of Denmark are second only in importance to this region, and more especially between the gulf of Nissum and the island of Fäno. To this probably Diodorus Siculus[2] refers when he speaks of the island in the ocean on the shores of which amber is cast up, and in which it is alone met with. It is found along the coast as far to the south as the Zuyder Zee, and is not unfrequently picked up in small quantities on the eastern shores of Britain. In France it is met with in the western shores, and in the Canton of Vallon, in the Vivarais, in the Lower Rhone. This last deposit has been shown by M. Marichaud[3] to have been known in the Bronze age in the south of France, and it is probably that mentioned by Strabo (iv. 6) under the name of λιγγύριον, because of its abundance in the country of the Ligures. It is a clear bright red variety, contrasting with the yellow amber imported from the north. It occurs in Spain in the Asturias; in Italy it is recorded by Prof. Capellini[4] from Lombardy and the district round Bologna; and in Sicily from Catania and several other localities. According to Mr. Franks,[5] the dark red
- ↑ Julius Solinus, Edit. Mommsen, p. 110.
- ↑ v. 23.
- ↑ Matériaux, 1876, p. 541. It seems to me that the clear red colour of the amber described by M. Marichaud, coupled with the passage of Strabo, "πλεονάζει τὸ λιγγύριον παῤ αὐτοῖς (τοις Λίγυσιν) ὃ τινες ἤλεκτρον προσαγορεύουσι," settles the exact meaning of the term λιγγύριον to be a red variety of amber, differing from the yellow or the ἤλεκτρον.
- ↑ Congr. Int. Archéol. Préhist., Stockholm, ii. p. 777 et seq.
- ↑ Franks, Congr. Int. Archéol. Préhist., Buda-Pesth, 1876, 433.
