Amber baby bracelet in 13 centimeter size.

Amber (incorrectly also called amber) is a fossil resin that comes from conifers. These trees were often referred to by the scientific species name Pinus succinifera, a still living pine species. The resin dripped from the trees millions of years ago and then petrified. Amber dates from the Mesozoic to the Quaternary. Amber is usually warm yellow to dark red in colour, but there are also more green, blue or even black coloured varieties. Transparent amber is generally considered the most beautiful and is the most valuable. From a mineralogic point of view, amber has an amorphous structure. It is quite soft, the hardness is 2-2.5. The word amber - in German Bernstein - comes from the Low Saxon word börnen which means to burn. Indeed, this semi-precious stone is flammable. Amber is called amber in English. In Dutch, amber usually means the colour amber. A substance from the intestines of the sperm whale is also called amber. This substance has a strong smell and is used in perfumes. The fact that many insects are found in amber did not escape the Romans either. They explained this (correctly) by assuming that amber was liquid when it covered the insects. Therefore they called the stone succinum or gum-stone. The name still occurs in succinic acid, in the scientific name for the pine species Pinus succinifera and also in succinite, a name given by James Dwight Dana to a certain type of amber that comes from the Baltic Sea region. A common group of land snails are the amber snails. They are so called because of the amber-yellow color of the snail shell. The scientific name of an amber snail species is Succinea putris. Amber is electrically charged by rubbing it along an animal's fur. For this reason, the term electricity is derived from the Greek word for amber, elektron (Latin: electrum). In Greek mythology, the god Helios one day let his son Phaeton drive the sun chariot. But Phaeton could not control the horses, causing the sun to scorch heaven and earth. This is how the people of Ethiopia got their dark color. To save the earth, Zeus throws his thunderbolt at Phaeton, causing him to fall to the earth dead. Phaeton's sisters, the Heliades, mourn him. Their tears drip down and solidify into amber. The Greek mythological figure Electra is identified with amber. The Greek word for amber is "elektron" (ηλεκτρον) from which our word "electricity" comes, because according to the Greeks, amber came from the amber islands that were located at the mouth of the legendary Amber River in the far North, the Eridanos.