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115-558: Amber is a feminine given name taken from amber , the fossilized tree resin that is often used in the making of jewelry. The word can also refer to a yellowish-orange color . The name was in occasional use in the early 1800s, according to United States census records. It first came into regular use in the Anglosphere in the late 1800s along with other gemstone names popular during the Victorian era . It rose in popularity following

230-415: A communic acid base, and they also include much succinic acid. Baltic amber yields on dry distillation succinic acid, the proportion varying from about 3% to 8%, and being greatest in the pale opaque or bony varieties. The aromatic and irritating fumes emitted by burning amber are mainly from this acid. Baltic amber is distinguished by its yield of succinic acid , hence the name succinite . Succinite has

345-480: A god could be deceived like that. Seneca speaks of Phaethon, the "youth who dared drive the everlasting chariot, heedless of his father's goal." Hyginus wrote that Phaethon, son of Helios / Sol and Clymene, secretly mounted his father's car without said father's knowledge and leave, but with the aid of his sisters the Heliades who yoked the horses. Being inexperienced, Phaethon drove the chariot too high, and it

460-514: A hardness between 2 and 3, which is greater than many other fossil resins. Its specific gravity varies from 1.05 to 1.10. It can be distinguished from other ambers via infrared spectroscopy through a specific carbonyl absorption peak. Infrared spectroscopy can detect the relative age of an amber sample. Succinic acid may not be an original component of amber but rather a degradation product of abietic acid . Class Ib ambers are based on communic acid; however, they lack succinic acid. Class Ic

575-609: A hardness between 2.0 and 2.5 on the Mohs scale , a refractive index of 1.5–1.6, a specific gravity between 1.06 and 1.10, and a melting point of 250–300 °C. Heated above 200 °C (392 °F), amber decomposes, yielding an oil of amber , and leaves a black residue which is known as "amber colophony", or "amber pitch"; when dissolved in oil of turpentine or in linseed oil this forms "amber varnish" or "amber lac". Molecular polymerization, resulting from high pressures and temperatures produced by overlying sediment, transforms

690-486: A horse named Sirius next to him and shouting instructions and advice on how to drive the car, an element not found in subsequent treatments of the myth. "This said, his son undaunted snatched the reins, Then smote the winged coursers’ sides: they bound Forth on the void and cavernous vault of air. His father mounts another steed, and rides With warning voice guiding his son. ‘Drive there! Turn, turn thy car this way." Surviving fragments do not clearly paint Zeus as

805-558: A large scale in the formation of "ambroid" or "pressed amber". The pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then compressed into a uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure, the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal plate. The product is extensively used for the production of cheap jewelry and articles for smoking. This pressed amber yields brilliant interference colors in polarized light." Amber has often been imitated by other resins like copal and kauri gum , as well as by celluloid and even glass. Baltic amber

920-497: A later 2013 study was unable to extract DNA from insects trapped in much more recent Holocene copal . In 1938, 12-year-old David Attenborough (brother of Richard who played John Hammond in Jurassic Park ) was given a piece of amber containing prehistoric creatures from his adoptive sister; it would be the focus of his 2004 BBC documentary The Amber Time Machine . Amber has been used since prehistory ( Solutrean ) in

1035-530: A lover of the goddess, as suggested by Wilamowitz . Another explanation on how Phaethon could possibly be marrying the goddess of beauty is that Aphrodite had planned Phaethon's destruction from the very beginning, as revenge against his father for revealing to Hephaestus , her husband, the goddess' affair with Ares , the god of war. Henri Weil suggested that Phaethon is to marry one of the Heliades , and James Diggle , while deeming this suggestion unprovable,

1150-497: A single day. Despite Helios' protests and advice against, Phaethon does not back down from his initial wish, and thus Helios reluctantly allows him to drive his chariot. Placed in charge of the chariot, Phaethon was unable to control the horses. In some versions, the Earth first froze when the horses climbed too high, but when the chariot then scorched the Earth by swinging too near, Zeus decided to prevent disaster by striking it down with

1265-417: A single species; and indeed a large number of conifers belonging to different genera are represented in the amber-flora. Amber is a unique preservational mode, preserving otherwise unfossilizable parts of organisms; as such it is helpful in the reconstruction of ecosystems as well as organisms; the chemical composition of the resin, however, is of limited utility in reconstructing the phylogenetic affinity of

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1380-487: A swan he retained memories of Phaethon's fiery demise, and the bird would thereafter avoid the sun's heat. Virgil instead writes that Cycnus mourned for Phaethon well into his old age, thereupon he was turned into a swan, his white hair becoming the bird's white feathers upon transformation. Pausanias and Servius explicitly name Apollo as the god who turned Cycnus into a swan, after having blessed him with talent in singing at some time before; Apollo then placed him among

1495-429: A third type of resin, which is often found as amber within their veins. The composition of resins is highly variable; each species produces a unique blend of chemicals which can be identified by the use of pyrolysis – gas chromatography – mass spectrometry . The overall chemical and structural composition is used to divide ambers into five classes. There is also a separate classification of amber gemstones, according to

1610-449: A thunderbolt. The element of Helios knowing what's in store for his child, but being unable to thwart it, is present in several tellings; Statius writes that "with tears did he warn the rejoicing youth of treacherous stars and zones that would fain not be o'errun and the temperate heat that lies midway between the poles; obedient was he and cautious, but he cruel Parcae would not suffer him to learn." Valerius Flaccus gives attention to

1725-585: A thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to Earth and was killed in the process. Phaethon was said to be the son of Clymene the Oceanid and Helios, god of the sun. Alternatively, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by a different Oceanid, Merope, of Helios and Rhodos and thus a full brother of the Heliadae , or of Helios and Prote. According to a scholion on the Odyssey , Phaethon's mother Clymene

1840-442: A very strong reflection, almost white. Only about 100 kg (220 lb) is found per year, which makes it valuable and expensive. Sometimes amber retains the form of drops and stalactites , just as it exuded from the ducts and receptacles of the injured trees. It is thought that, in addition to exuding onto the surface of the tree, amber resin also originally flowed into hollow cavities or cracks within trees, thereby leading to

1955-455: A wife to Helios, their son Phaethon born in marriage, and Clymene is actively present in persuading Helios to let their son drive the chariot. A very common element of the story is that Phaethon's sisters, the Heliades , mourn his death by the river and transform into black poplars , shedding tears of amber for their lost brother. According to Pliny the Elder , it was Aeschylus who introduced

2070-507: Is Highgate copalite . The oldest amber recovered dates to the late Carboniferous period ( 320  million years ago ). Its chemical composition makes it difficult to match the amber to its producers – it is most similar to the resins produced by flowering plants; however, the first flowering plants appeared in the Early Cretaceous, about 200 million years after the oldest amber known to date, and they were not common until

2185-468: Is a macromolecule formed by free radical polymerization of several precursors in the labdane family, for example, communic acid , communol , and biformene . These labdanes are diterpenes (C 20 H 32 ) and trienes, equipping the organic skeleton with three alkene groups for polymerization . As amber matures over the years, more polymerization takes place as well as isomerization reactions, crosslinking and cyclization . Most amber has

2300-411: Is as yet impossible, since no amber with fossilized mosquitoes has ever yielded preserved blood. Amber is, however, conducive to preserving DNA , since it dehydrates and thus stabilizes organisms trapped inside. One projection in 1999 estimated that DNA trapped in amber could last up to 100 million years, far beyond most estimates of around 1 million years in the most ideal conditions, although

2415-516: Is convinced of it being the case. Clymene reveals her son his true parentage, perhaps to help him overcome his reluctance to get married. Although doubtful at first, his mother's words convince him and agrees to travel east to find his divine father and have his parentage confirmed. What happens next is that someone, perhaps a paedagogus , arrives in the scene to inform the audience of Phaethon's disastrous ride. According to his account, Helios actually escorted his son on his doomed journey, riding on

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2530-601: Is even an ammonite Puzosia (Bhimaites) and marine gastropods found in Burmese amber . The preservation of prehistoric organisms in amber forms a key plot point in Michael Crichton 's 1990 novel Jurassic Park and the 1993 movie adaptation by Steven Spielberg . In the story, scientists are able to extract the preserved blood of dinosaurs from prehistoric mosquitoes trapped in amber, from which they genetically clone living dinosaurs. Scientifically this

2645-431: Is given by polishing with flannel. When gradually heated in an oil bath, amber "becomes soft and flexible. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing the surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing them together while hot. Cloudy amber may be clarified in an oil bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores that cause the turbidity. Small fragments, formerly thrown away or used only for varnish are now used on

2760-420: Is highest, where to look down on earth and sea often alarms even me and makes my heart tremble with awesome fear. The last part of the track is downwards and needs sure control. Then even Tethys herself, who receives me in her submissive waves, is accustomed to fear that I might dive headlong. Moreover, the rushing sky is constantly turning, and drags along the remote stars, and whirls them in rapid orbits. I move

2875-514: Is less dense than water and floats, whereas amber is too dense to float, though less dense than stone. The classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον ( ēlektron ), are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ ( ēlektōr ) meaning "beaming Sun". According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios (the Sun) was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, and their tears became elektron , amber. The word elektron gave rise to

2990-446: Is mainly based on enantio -labdatrienonic acids, such as ozic and zanzibaric acids. Its most familiar representative is Dominican amber,. which is mostly transparent and often contains a higher number of fossil inclusions. This has enabled the detailed reconstruction of the ecosystem of a long-vanished tropical forest. Resin from the extinct species Hymenaea protera is the source of Dominican amber and probably of most amber found in

3105-504: Is mined through bell pitting , which is dangerous because of the risk of tunnel collapse. An important source of amber is Kachin State in northern Myanmar , which has been a major source of amber in China for at least 1,800 years. Contemporary mining of this deposit has attracted attention for unsafe working conditions and its role in funding internal conflict in the country . Amber from

3220-420: Is not a bit discouraged by his worried father's words, and then pressures him more, as does Clymene; with great reluctance, Helios consents, and gives his son a very extensive and detailed speech about all the dangers and the hazards of the ride. He then dresses Phaethon up in his own robes, helmet and solar crown and gives him the reins. With a final warning from his father, Phaethon yokes the horses and ascends in

3335-493: Is not too rich in details. Naming no mother, Palaphaetus speaks of Phaethon as a son of Helios who had the irrational desire to drive his father's chariot, but had no knowledge of how to handle the reins. Unable to keep balance he was swept off course by the wild horses and drowned into the Eridanus river. Unlike several other retellings, a party behind Phaethon's death is not named, as Zeus takes no action to stop Phaethon and save

3450-621: Is rare and highly sought after. Yellow amber is a hard fossil resin from evergreen trees, and despite the name it can be translucent, yellow, orange, or brown colored. Known to the Iranians by the Pahlavi compound word kah-ruba (from kah "straw" plus rubay "attract, snatch", referring to its electrical properties ), which entered Arabic as kahraba' or kahraba (which later became the Arabic word for electricity , كهرباء kahrabā ' ), it too

3565-625: Is roughly 125–135 million years old, is considered of high scientific value, providing evidence of some of the oldest sampled ecosystems. In Lebanon, more than 450 outcrops of Lower Cretaceous amber were discovered by Dany Azar, a Lebanese paleontologist and entomologist. Among these outcrops, 20 have yielded biological inclusions comprising the oldest representatives of several recent families of terrestrial arthropods. Even older Jurassic amber has been found recently in Lebanon as well. Many remarkable insects and spiders were recently discovered in

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3680-407: Is sometimes colored artificially but also called "true amber". Amber occurs in a range of different colors. As well as the usual yellow-orange-brown that is associated with the color "amber", amber can range from a whitish color through a pale lemon yellow, to brown and almost black. Other uncommon colors include red amber (sometimes known as "cherry amber"), green amber, and even blue amber , which

3795-409: Is the son of Eos , Helios' sister and the goddess of the dawn , whom she had by her lover Cephalus , an Athenian prince. The late Roman author Hyginus however attributes a version of the story to Hesiod. According to Hyginus, Hesiod wrote that Phaethon was the son of Merope , an Oceanid , and Clymenus, a son of Helios by an unnamed woman or goddess. Phaethon, upon learning that his grandfather

3910-529: Is the Sun, put his chariot to bad use, and scorched the Earth, turning the Indians black in the process. He was struck by a thunderbolt, and fell dead on the river Eridanus. Even the firmest believers of Hyginus find the attribution of the tale to Hesiod hard to accept. A fragment from Hesiod very possibly connects Eridanus to amber. it is uncertain, but possible, that the fragment also connected Eridanus and amber to

4025-541: Is the king of the Sun and is at war with the Moon , ruled by King Endymion . Nonnus ' late version of the story is one of the two extensive narratives to survive, the other being Ovid's. Unlike other versions, Nonnus' is one of the few where Phaethon is a legitimate offspring of a married couple, with his motivation shifting from need to prove his parentage to him wanting to imitate his idolized father. In Nonnus' account, found in his epic Dionysiaca , Hermes tells Dionysus

4140-533: Is there too, perhaps alluding to some obscure version where she played a role in the story, as is Iris , the rainbow and messenger goddess. Another figure, perhaps Isis , is also present. An Apulian crater of c. 360-350 has a scene with named characters Merops, Clymene and Melanippus (TrGF adesp . 5f). The myth of father and son was immortalized in Corinth (where Helios had a significant cult), where Pausanias describes two gilded chariots, one carrying Phaethon

4255-422: The Heliadae ), here the daughter of Asopus , the river god. The scholiast follows the version of Phaethon being raised by his mother; when he learns the truth, he seeks out Helios and asks him to drive his chariot. Helios allows him not due to some promise or vow he made to his son, but rather because of his son's persistence, despite knowing what would follow. In accordance with other authors, Zeus strikes him with

4370-627: The Italian Ambra , which was among the top 10 names for baby girls in Albania and among the top 50 names for newborn girls in Italy in recent years. English elaborations of the name in use include Amberlee, Amberleigh, Amberley , Amberli, Amberlie, Amberlin, Amberlinn, Amberly, Amberlyn and Amberlynn, among others. Amber Amber is fossilized tree resin . Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since

4485-866: The Late Cretaceous . Amber becomes abundant long after the Carboniferous, in the Early Cretaceous , when it is found in association with insects. The oldest amber with arthropod inclusions comes from the Late Triassic (late Carnian c. 230 Ma) of Italy, where four microscopic (0.2–0.1 mm) mites, Triasacarus , Ampezzoa , Minyacarus and Cheirolepidoptus , and a poorly preserved nematoceran fly were found in millimetre-sized droplets of amber. The oldest amber with significant numbers of arthropod inclusions comes from Lebanon. This amber, referred to as Lebanese amber ,

4600-589: The Lenaea festival, nothing of which survives to us. With Aeschylus being the earliest (as far as it can be determined) that Phaethon's story would have been known, the next mention possibly came from a lost work of Philoxenus of Cythera (435~434 – 380~379 BC), a dithyrambic poet. Pliny the Elder mentions him second (after Aeschylus) among the authors who spoke of the myth of the Sun god's son. Pliny also names Nicander and Satyrus as other authors who knew of Phaethon. In Plato 's Timaeus , Critias tells

4715-604: The Lithuanian term for amber is gintaras and the Latvian dzintars . These words, and the Slavic jantar and Hungarian gyanta ('resin'), are thought to originate from Phoenician jainitar ("sea-resin"). A number of regional and varietal names have been applied to ambers over the centuries, including Allingite , Beckerite , Gedanite , Kochenite , Krantzite , and Stantienite . Theophrastus discussed amber in

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4830-464: The Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity. Amber is used in jewelry and as a healing agent in folk medicine . There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions . Amber occurring in coal seams is also called resinite , and

4945-508: The Rivne Oblast of Ukraine, referred to as Rivne amber , is mined illegally by organised crime groups, who deforest the surrounding areas and pump water into the sediments to extract the amber, causing severe environmental deterioration. The Vienna amber factories, which use pale amber to manufacture pipes and other smoking tools, turn it on a lathe and polish it with whitening and water or with rotten stone and oil. The final luster

5060-577: The USSR in 1946, becoming the Kaliningrad Oblast . Pieces of amber torn from the seafloor are cast up by the waves and collected by hand, dredging, or diving. Elsewhere, amber is mined, both in open works and underground galleries. Then nodules of blue earth have to be removed and an opaque crust must be cleaned off, which can be done in revolving barrels containing sand and water. Erosion removes this crust from sea-worn amber. Dominican amber

5175-582: The 4th century BCE, as did Pytheas ( c.  330 BCE ), whose work "On the Ocean" is lost, but was referenced by Pliny, according to whose Natural History : Pytheas says that the Gutones , a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus , upon

5290-580: The Earth pulling the stars along with him, the Seasons abandon their posts in fear, and the Earth raises her hands in supplication as she burns. In the end Phaethon falls from the chariot, himself on fire too, and dies. The Eridanus mourns him along with the Heliades . According to Clement of Alexandria "... in the time of Crotopus occurred the burning of Phaethon, and the deluges of Deucalion ". In The Twelve Caesars , Suetonius attributes to

5405-618: The Earth. While sailing up the Eridanus river on their way back, the Argonauts reach the outfall of the deep lake where Phaethon fell after he was struck with a lightning bolt. During the day, the crew of the Argo was tormented by the nauseating stench from Phaethon's corpse, still smoldering after all this time, and at night they had to listen to the lament of his sisters, now turned into poplar trees and shedding tears of amber. Phaethon,

5520-612: The Germans exported amber to Pannonia , from where the Veneti distributed it onwards. The ancient Italic peoples of southern Italy used to work amber; the National Archaeological Museum of Siritide (Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Siritide) at Policoro in the province of Matera ( Basilicata ) displays important surviving examples. It has been suggested that amber used in antiquity, as at Mycenae and in

5635-425: The Heliades' role and fate in the myth is not mentioned in any of the surviving fragments of Phaethon , Euripides briefly brings up the Heliades and their shedding of amber tears for their brother by the Eridanus in another play, Hippolytus . Ovid vividly describes the sisters cry and mourn for their brother by the banks of the Eridanus for four months unmoving. Then, as they try to move, find themselves rooted to

5750-563: The Sun god and his wife, brought up in their father's house, rather than product(s) of an extramarital liaison. After his death, Phaethon was conveyed to the stars by his father as a constellation. The constellation associated with Phaethon was the Auriga , or the Charioteer. The satirical author Lucian of Samosata treated the myth in a comedic matter in his Dialogues of the Gods . In

5865-454: The Sun. When the god swore by the river Styx to grant him whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the Sun chariot for a day. Apollo tried to talk him out of it by telling him that not even Jupiter (the king of the gods) would dare to drive it, as the chariot was fiery hot and the horses breathed out flames. He said: The first part of the track is steep, and one that my fresh horses at dawn can hardly climb. In mid-heaven it

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5980-761: The United States. It has ranked among the top 50 names for girls in England and Wales , Scotland , Ireland , Belgium , Australia and Canada in recent years. Variants have also been popular in other countries, including Ámbar in Spanish , which is currently among the most popular names for girls in Argentina , Ambre in French , which was among the top 10 names for newborn girls in France in recent years, and

6095-503: The amber of Jordan including the oldest zorapterans , clerid beetles , umenocoleid roaches , and achiliid planthoppers . Burmese amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar is the only commercially exploited Cretaceous amber. Uranium–lead dating of zircon crystals associated with the deposit have given an estimated depositional age of approximately 99 million years ago. Over 1,300 species have been described from

6210-465: The amber to have an unexpected color. Pyrites may give a bluish color. Bony amber owes its cloudy opacity to numerous tiny bubbles inside the resin. However, so-called black amber is really a kind of jet . In darkly clouded and even opaque amber, inclusions can be imaged using high-energy, high-contrast, high-resolution X-rays . Amber is globally distributed in or around all continents , mainly in rocks of Cretaceous age or younger. Historically,

6325-463: The amber while the resin was yet fresh, suggesting relations with the flora of eastern Asia and the southern part of North America. Heinrich Göppert named the common amber-yielding pine of the Baltic forests Pinites succiniter , but as the wood does not seem to differ from that of the existing genus it has been also called Pinus succinifera . It is improbable that the production of amber was limited to

6440-531: The amber, with over 300 in 2019 alone. Baltic amber is found as irregular nodules in marine glauconitic sand, known as blue earth , occurring in Upper Eocene strata of Sambia in Prussia. It appears to have been partly derived from older Eocene deposits and it occurs also as a derivative phase in later formations, such as glacial drift . Relics of an abundant flora occur as inclusions trapped within

6555-533: The ambush, and apparitions of wild beasts! Even if you keep your course, and do not steer awry, you must still avoid the horns of Taurus the Bull, Sagittarius the Haemonian Archer, raging Leo and Lion's jaw, Scorpio's cruel pincers sweeping out to encircle you from one side, and Cancer's crab-claws reaching out from the other. You will not easily rule those proud horses, breathing out through mouth and nostrils

6670-454: The bride seems to be this fragmentary play's greatest mystery. Euripides seems to have made Aphrodite the bride of the unfortunate youth; if that is the case, then it would seem that Euripides combined the stories of two Phaethons, that of the son of Helios who drove his father's car and died, and that of Phaethon the son of Helios' sister Eos whom Aphrodite abducted to be a watchman of her shrines, and whom late antiquity writers described as

6785-506: The catastrophe, smote Phaethon with a thunderbolt and brought the Sun to its course. Phaethon fell into the Eridanus river, dead. His sisters mourned him, and turned into black poplar trees. The influence of Euripides' lost play can be easily recognized in Ovid 's own version of the myth . Another possible inspiration of Ovid's version might have been Nicander , who is known to have written about Phaethon in some work, perhaps attested in

6900-573: The chariot with disastrous results. Philostratus , who follows the typical premise of Phaethon's tale (son of Helios who asks his father to drive his chariot and ends up burning the Earth) describes in great detail the extent of the catastrophe, putting more detail in the picture and the visual representation rather than the action; the Night drives away the Day from the noonday sky, the Sun's orb plunges into

7015-437: The cherry, and resin from the ordinary pine. It is a liquid at first, which issues forth in considerable quantities, and is gradually hardened [...] Our forefathers, too, were of opinion that it is the juice of a tree, and for this reason gave it the name of "succinum" and one great proof that it is the produce of a tree of the pine genus, is the fact that it emits a pine-like smell when rubbed, and that it burns, when ignited, with

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7130-620: The coast west of Königsberg in Prussia was the world's leading source of amber. The first mentions of amber deposits there date back to the 12th century. Juodkrantė in Lithuania was established in the mid-19th century as a mining town of amber. About 90% of the world's extractable amber is still located in that area, which was transferred to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of

7245-435: The culprit of Phaethon's death; but next Clymene orders slave girls to hide Phaethon's smoking body from Merops (who is still unaware both of Phaethon's true parentage as well as his fiery death), pointing to Zeus having indeed played a role in the boy's death. Merops discovers his son's charred corpse, and the truth, a bit later. The only other tragedy about the myth is Theodorides' now lost Phaethon , performed in 363 BC at

7360-452: The development of large lumps of amber of irregular form. Amber can be classified into several forms. Most fundamentally, there are two types of plant resin with the potential for fossilization. Terpenoids , produced by conifers and angiosperms , consist of ring structures formed of isoprene (C 5 H 8 ) units. Phenolic resins are today only produced by angiosperms, and tend to serve functional uses. The extinct medullosans produced

7475-427: The earth on some mission but then meets and falls in love with Opora. His unfulfilled love makes him burn hotter, which results in the humans suffering under the great heat he causes. They pray to the gods, and eventually Boreas the god of the north wind orders his sons to deliver Opora to Sirius while he uses cold wind blasts to cool the earth. To commemorate the event, Sirius would continue to burn hot each year during

7590-465: The emperor Tiberius the following repeated remark about the future emperor Gaius Caligula : "That to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was raising a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world". A scholiast on Homer's Odyssey provides a different parentage for Phaethon, making him the son of Helios and Rhodos instead (thus full brother to

7705-529: The end, after many complaints, from the stars in the sky to the Earth itself, Zeus strikes Phaethon with one of his lightning bolts, killing him instantly. His dead body falls into the river Eridanus , and his sisters the Heliades are turned to black poplar as they mourn him. Phaethon's tale was commonly used to explain why uninhabitable lands on both sides of extremity (such as hot deserts and frozen wastelands) exist, and why certain peoples have darker complexions, while his sisters' amber tears accounted for

7820-562: The extent of the disaster. Zeus is displeased to hear it, unconvinced that he would not know that an inexperienced driver like Phaethon would not be able to control the steeds. Helios then asks Zeus to be merciful, as his son has already been punished (being dead) and he himself is in great mourning. Zeus disagrees that this punishment is enough, returns Helios his damaged chariot which is in need of repair, and threatens to strike him with one of his thunderbolts should he ever do such thing again. In True History , another work of Lucian's, Phaethon

7935-404: The family Sciadopityaceae that once lived in north Europe. The abnormal development of resin in living trees ( succinosis ) can result in the formation of amber. Impurities are quite often present, especially when the resin has dropped onto the ground, so the material may be useless except for varnish-making. Such impure amber is called firniss . Such inclusion of other substances can cause

8050-407: The fires burning in their chests. They scarcely tolerate my control when their fierce spirits are hot, and their necks resist the reins. Beware, my boy, that I am not the source of a gift fatal to you, while something can still be done to set right your request! Phaethon, however, was adamant, and thus Apollo was forced to relent. When the day came, the fierce horses that drew the chariot felt that it

8165-463: The ground, unable to leave. Their mother Clymene finds them, and although she tries to free her daughters by breaking off the forming branches and snapping the barks, she is unable to help them and the metamorphosis is completed. The Odyssey scholiast writes that Zeus, feeling pity for them, changed them into the amber-crying poplar trees, and allowing them to retain the memories of their old lives and sorrows. According to Quintus Smyrnaeus , it

8280-519: The lost Heteroeumena (loosely translating into "transformations"). In the version of the myth told by Ovid, Phaethon is the son of Clymene and Phoebus Apollo, and Phaethon would often boast about being the son of the sun-god. Phaethon, challenged by Epaphus and his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his father was truly Apollo. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would demonstrate his relationship with

8395-423: The manufacture of jewelry and ornaments, and also in folk medicine . Phaethon According to most authors, Phaethon is the son of Helios, and out of a desire to have his parentage confirmed, travels to the sun god's palace in the east. He is recognised by his father and asks for the privilege of driving his chariot for a single day. Despite Helios' fervent warnings and attempts to talk him out of it, counting

8510-413: The most highly prized amber is transparent, in contrast to the very common cloudy amber and opaque amber. Opaque amber contains numerous minute bubbles. This kind of amber is known as "bony amber". Although all Dominican amber is fluorescent, the rarest Dominican amber is blue amber. It turns blue in natural sunlight and any other partially or wholly ultraviolet light source. In long-wave UV light it has

8625-401: The numerous dangers he would face in his celestial journey and reminding Phaethon that only he can control the horses, the boy is not dissuaded and does not change his mind. He is then allowed to take the chariot's reins; his ride is disastrous, as he cannot keep a firm grip on the horses. As a result, he drives the chariot too close to the Earth, burning it, and too far from it, freezing it. In

8740-556: The odour and appearance of torch-pine wood. He also states that amber is also found in Egypt and India, and he even refers to the electrostatic properties of amber, by saying that "in Syria the women make the whorls of their spindles of this substance, and give it the name of harpax [from ἁρπάζω, "to drag"] from the circumstance that it attracts leaves towards it, chaff, and the light fringe of tissues". The Romans traded for amber from

8855-423: The opposite way, and its momentum does not overcome me as it does all other things, and I ride contrary to its swift rotation. Suppose you are given the chariot. What will you do? Will you be able to counter the turning poles so that the swiftness of the skies does not carry you away? Perhaps you conceive in imagination that there are groves there and cities of the gods and temples with rich gifts. The way runs through

8970-407: The other Helios, adorning a gateaway near Corinth's market: On leaving the market-place along the road to Lechaeum you come to a gateway, on which are two gilded chariots, one carrying Phaethon the son of Helius (Sun), the other Helius himself. The lesser-known myth of Sirius the dog star god and the harvest goddess Opora share some elements with the myth of Phaethon. In that myth, Sirius visits

9085-479: The other gods, including Jupiter who used threats, returned to his task. The detail of Phaethon questioning the parentage he otherwise took pride in being the result of Epaphus' words is also present in the works of Servius , who wrote that Epaphus, now presented as the succeeded king of Egypt, mocked Phaethon for being born out of adultery; the outcome is largely the same, as Phaethon travels east to meet his father, gets Helios to promise him any favor, and then drives

9200-543: The prehistory of the Mediterranean, came from deposits in Sicily . Pliny also cites the opinion of Nicias ( c. 470–413 BCE), according to whom amber is a liquid produced by the rays of the sun; and that these rays, at the moment of the sun's setting, striking with the greatest force upon the surface of the soil, leave upon it an unctuous sweat, which is carried off by the tides of the Ocean, and thrown up upon

9315-531: The presence of amber, the island could have been Heligoland , Zealand , the shores of Gdańsk Bay , the Sambia Peninsula or the Curonian Lagoon , which were historically the richest sources of amber in northern Europe. It is assumed that there were well-established trade routes for amber connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean (known as the " Amber Road "). Pliny states explicitly that

9430-578: The recorded Old High German word glas and by the Old English word glær for "amber" (compare glass ). In Middle Low German , amber was known as berne-, barn-, börnstēn (with etymological roots related to "burn" and to "stone" ). The Low German term became dominant also in High German by the 18th century, thus modern German Bernstein besides Dutch barnsteen . In the Baltic languages ,

9545-463: The release of the 1944 historical romance novel Forever Amber by American author Kathleen Winsor . Amber has been a popular name in most English speaking countries. In the United States , it ranked among the top 1,000 names at different points between 1880 and 1916 and again consistently between 1945 and 2022. It peaked in usage there in the 1990s, when it was the 20th most popular name in

9660-404: The resin first into copal . Sustained heat and pressure drives off terpenes and results in the formation of amber. For this to happen, the resin must be resistant to decay. Many trees produce resin, but in the majority of cases this deposit is broken down by physical and biological processes. Exposure to sunlight, rain, microorganisms, and extreme temperatures tends to disintegrate the resin. For

9775-470: The resin producer. Amber sometimes contains animals or plant matter that became caught in the resin as it was secreted. Insects , spiders and even their webs, annelids , frogs , crustaceans , bacteria and amoebae , marine microfossils, wood, flowers and fruit, hair, feathers and other small organisms have been recovered in Cretaceous ambers (deposited c. 130  million years ago ). There

9890-531: The resin to survive long enough to become amber, it must be resistant to such forces or be produced under conditions that exclude them. Fossil resins from Europe fall into two categories, the Baltic ambers and another that resembles the Agathis group. Fossil resins from the Americas and Africa are closely related to the modern genus Hymenaea , while Baltic ambers are thought to be fossil resins from plants of

10005-699: The river's rich deposits of amber . Ancient Greek Φαέθων , Phaethon , means "radiant", from the verb φαέθω , meaning "to shine." Therefore, his name could be understood as, "the shining/radiant (one)" Ultimately the word derives from φάος , phaos , the Greek word for light, from the Proto-Indo-European root *bheh 2 - , 'to shine.' Details vary according to version, but most have Phaethon travel far east to meet his father, sometimes in order to get him to assure his paternity. There, he asks Helios for permission to drive his father's Sun-chariot for

10120-415: The shores of Germany. Besides the fanciful explanations according to which amber is "produced by the Sun", Pliny cites opinions that are well aware of its origin in tree resin, citing the native Latin name of succinum ( sūcinum , from sucus "juice"). In Book 37, section XI of Natural History , Pliny wrote: Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from

10235-690: The shores of the southern Baltic at least as far back as the time of Nero . Amber has a long history of use in China, with the first written record from 200 BCE. Early in the 19th century, the first reports of amber found in North America came from discoveries in New Jersey along Crosswicks Creek near Trenton , at Camden , and near Woodbury . Amber is heterogeneous in composition, but consists of several resinous bodies more or less soluble in alcohol , ether and chloroform , associated with an insoluble bituminous substance. Amber

10350-648: The shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones . Earlier Pliny says that Pytheas refers to a large island—three days' sail from the Scythian coast and called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus (author of a fanciful travel book in Greek)—as Basilia —a name generally equated with Abalus . Given

10465-447: The short dialogue, Zeus angrily berates Helios for letting his inexperienced son drive his chariot, which almost resulted in the world being destroyed. Helios acknowledges his error, but claims he was pressured by Phaethon and Phaethon's mother Clymene both (another implication of the union between Helios and the mother of Phaethon being marital in nature, not an affair, and thus making their child legitimate), and could have not foreseen

10580-489: The sisters played a significant role; two of the surviving fragments (F 71 and F 72) focus on grief, mourning, and lamentation. He seems to have transferred the location of Phaethon's fall in Iberia , west of Italy. By contrast, Euripides ' version of the story, the now lost tragedy Phaethon , while similarly fragmentary, is much better preserved, with twelve fragments surviving covering some 400 lines of text. According to

10695-414: The sky, as his mother Clymene cheerfully waves him goodbye, still unaware of the danger that awaits her son. Like in all other versions, his ride is a disaster, as he burns the Earth. Zeus then kills him with a lightning bolt, and places him among the stars as the constellation Auriga , the charioteer of the heavens. Nonnus's version of the events is similar to that of Lucian, as both make (or imply) Clymene

10810-512: The son of Helios , while still a youth persuaded his father to retire for a single day and give to him his chariot. His father eventually yielded to his son's wishes, and gave him his quadriga. The boy was unable to control the reins, and the horses left their accustomed course, setting ablaze the Heavens (creating the Milky Way ) and the Earth (creating uninhabitable land) alike. Zeus , seeing

10925-492: The son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the Earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the Earth, which recurs after long intervals. Like other authors of around this period, Palaephatus 's version

11040-465: The stars, as the constellation Cygnus , "the swan". Cycnus' profession as a musician seems to be a direct reference to the swan song swans are famous for. On one of the earliest extant artistic attestations of the myth, a cast taken from an Arretine mould now housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston , Phaethon is shown fallen from the car, a wheel lying next to him while another is being collected by

11155-410: The story of Atlantis as recounted to Solon by an Egyptian priest, who prefaced the story by saying: There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story that even you [Greeks] have preserved, that once upon a time, Phaethon,

11270-485: The summary of the play, Phaethon is the son of Helios by an Oceanid named Clymene , who nonetheless hid the boy's true parentage and claimed he had been fathered by her nominal husband Merops , the king of Aethiopia (Merops and Clymene are an interesting swap of the names in Hyginus' Hesiodic version, Merope and Clymenus). The main conflict of the play is the upcoming marriage of an unwilling Phaethon. The identity of

11385-487: The tears of the Heliades; what is certain however is that Hesiod was not connecting Eridanus, amber and perhaps the Heliades, to the myth of Phaethon. A now-lost tragedy by Aeschylus , titled Heliades ("daughters of the Sun") was written covering the subject of this myth. Very little of this play survives now, and the form of the myth as assumed by Aeschylus is impossible to know. It would seem that in Aeschylus' play,

11500-500: The term ambrite is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams. The English word amber derives from Arabic ʿanbar عنبر (ultimately from Middle Persian ambar ) via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre . The word referred to what is now known as ambergris ( ambre gris or "gray amber"), a solid waxy substance derived from the sperm whale . The word, in its sense of "ambergris,"

11615-759: The tragic story of Phaethon. Helios and the beautiful nymph Clymene fall in love and get married with her father Oceanus' blessing, and together they have Phaethon. Phaethon is raised by his parents, in the company of Oceanus and the Oceanid nymphs. As a boy, he would mimic his father and his daily journey by driving a wagon of his own design, with burning torches standing in for the fire. When he grows up, he begs his father to let him drive his chariot, but Helios refuses, arguing that sons are not necessarily fit to follow on their fathers' footsteps (bringing up how Ares , Hephaestus , Apollo and Hermes do not hold lightning bolts like their father Zeus does). Phaethon nevertheless

11730-502: The transformation of the sisters into poplar trees. Their number and names vary; a scholiast on Homer gives an alternative parentage where Phaethon and his three sisters (Phaethusa, Lampetia and Aegle) are the children of Helios and Rhodos , here the daughter of Asopus . Hyginus names seven; Merope, Helie, Aegle, Lampetia , Phoebe , Aetherie and Dioxippe. Ovid has at least three, but only two (Phaethusa and Lampetia) are named. Servius only mentions Phaethusa and Lampetia. Although

11845-473: The tropics. It is not "succinite" but " retinite ". These ambers are formed from resins with a sesquiterpenoid base, such as cadinene . These ambers are polystyrenes . Class IV is something of a catch-all : its ambers are not polymerized, but mainly consist of cedrene -based sesquiterpenoids. Class V resins are considered to be produced by a pine or pine relative. They comprise a mixture of diterpinoid resins and n -alkyl compounds. Their main variety

11960-418: The water goddess Tethys , his grandmother, as Valerius Flaccus wrote. The god behind Phaethon's death, Zeus, is seen hurling his thunderbolt, while Helios appears on horse-back, with a spare horse by his side (matching Euripides' telling where Helios accompanies his son in the sky), having caught two of the horses and now directing his attention to the other two (like Lucretius describes him doing ). Artemis

12075-449: The way of production. This class is by far the most abundant. It comprises labdatriene carboxylic acids such as communic or ozic acids . It is further split into three sub-classes. Classes Ia and Ib utilize regular labdanoid diterpenes (e.g. communic acid, communol, biformenes), while Ic uses enantio labdanoids (ozic acid, ozol, enantio biformenes). Class Ia includes Succinite (= 'normal' Baltic amber) and Glessite . They have

12190-507: The words electric, electricity , and their relatives because of amber's ability to bear a charge of static electricity . Pliny the Elder says that the German name of amber was glæsum , "for which reason the Romans, when Germanicus commanded the fleet in those parts, gave to one of these islands the name of Glæsaria, which by the barbarians was known as Austeravia". This is confirmed by

12305-410: The wrecked chariot itself, and how Tethys, who is Phaethon's grandmother as well as the goddess who receives Helios in the western ocean as he sets, picks up the fragments of yoke and axle, and one of the horses too ( Pyrois ) who is fearful of a father's wrath. Cicero , another Roman author, describes Sol as being "tricked" into letting his son drive his chariot, expressing surprise and disbelief that

12420-450: Was Helios who turned them into trees, for their honor to Phaethon, and Hyginus wrote that they were transformed into trees for yoking the chariot without their father's consent. The part concerning the Heliades might have been a mythical device to account for the origin of amber; it is probably of no coincidence that the Greek word for amber, elektron ( ἤλεκτρον ), resembles elektor ( ἠλέκτωρ ), an epithet of Helios. The poplar tree

12535-713: Was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century. In the Romance languages , the sense of the word was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin) from as early as the late 13th century. At first called white or yellow amber ( ambre jaune ), this meaning was adopted in English by the early 15th century. As the use of ambergris waned, this became the main sense of the word. The two substances ("yellow amber" and "gray amber") conceivably became associated or confused because they both were found washed up on beaches. Ambergris

12650-678: Was called amber in Europe (Old French and Middle English ambre). Found along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, yellow amber reached the Middle East and western Europe via trade. Its coastal acquisition may have been one reason yellow amber came to be designated by the same term as ambergris. Moreover, like ambergris, the resin could be burned as an incense. The resin's most popular use was, however, for ornamentation—easily cut and polished, it could be transformed into beautiful jewelry. Much of

12765-430: Was considered sacred to Helios, due to the sun-like brilliance its shining leaves have. Later authors, particularly the Romans, mention the story of Cycnus , a man who was Phaethon's lover and deeply mourned his death and was turned into a swan, birds who are known for mourning the loss of their mates for days. In Ovid's account, the gods turned the inconsolable Cycnus into a swan soon after Phaethon's own death; even as

12880-472: Was empty because of the lack of the sun-god's weight and went out of control. Terrified, Phaethon dropped the reins. The horses veered from their course, scorching the Earth, burning the vegetation, bringing the blood of the Ethiopians to the surface of their skin and so turning it black, changing much of Africa into a desert , drying up rivers and lakes and shrinking the sea. Earth cried out to Jupiter who

12995-469: Was fear that made him plunge into the Eridanus; when Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, the Earth began to burn. Zeus then, pretending to want to put out the fire, let loose all the rivers everywhere, causing the flood that drowned everyone except for Deucalion and Pyrrha . Phaethon secretly stealing the chariot, and his sisters helping him out perhaps implies the existence of an early version, where Phaethon and his (full) sisters are legitimate offspring of

13110-412: Was forced to intervene by striking Phaethon with a lightning bolt. Like a falling star, Phaethon plunged blazing into the river Eridanus . The epitaph on his tomb was: Here Phaethon lies who in the sun-god's chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared. Apollo, stricken with grief at his son's death, at first refused to resume his work of driving his chariot, but at the appeal of

13225-623: Was not an Oceanid, but rather a mortal woman, a daughter of Minyas , who married Helios. Although Helios himself is present in their works, for the two earliest ancient Greek authors, Homer and Hesiod , the chariot and the four horses that pull Helios each morning do not seem to exist at all; the oldest work in which they appear being the Homeric Hymns . Neither seems to know Phaethon as an individual, as "Phaethon", meaning "the radiant" seems to be exclusively an epithet used for Helios by them. The only Phaethon Hesiod seems to recognize

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