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Seems to me that amber should provide a science bonus. Ever seen Jurassic Park?
Or better yet, Science and Production towards Military Units. :mischief:
 
Historically, amber has been used for a lot of religious jewelry and ornamentation in Baltic and Orthodox countries. There's also a use in traditional medicine and as perfume, but we went with the former. To my knowledge, nobody has of yet cloned a T. rex from an insect trapped in amber, but you might call Jeff Goldblum for more info.
 
Historically, amber has been used for a lot of religious jewelry and ornamentation in Baltic and Orthodox countries. There's also a use in traditional medicine and as perfume, but we went with the former. To my knowledge, nobody has of yet cloned a T. rex from an insect trapped in amber, but you might call Jeff Goldblum for more info.
"Life finds a way." Also, does @Boris Gudenuf have any extra information about Amber in the Baltics?
 
Historically, amber has been used for a lot of religious jewelry and ornamentation in Baltic and Orthodox countries. There's also a use in traditional medicine and as perfume, but we went with the former. To my knowledge, nobody has of yet cloned a T. rex from an insect trapped in amber, but you might call Jeff Goldblum for more info.
Sounds like a fun idea for a new game mode? :mischief:
 
Historically, amber has been used for a lot of religious jewelry and ornamentation in Baltic and Orthodox countries. There's also a use in traditional medicine and as perfume, but we went with the former. To my knowledge, nobody has of yet cloned a T. rex from an insect trapped in amber, but you might call Jeff Goldblum for more info.

From a science perspective, I imagine amber had mysterious properties we now know as electrostatics--hence the Faith bonus? I believe the word "electricity" comes from the greek "elecktra", which is related to amber.

Edit: The Greek "elektron" means amber.
 
From a science perspective, I imagine amber had mysterious properties we now know as electrostatics--hence the Faith bonus? I believe the word "electricity" comes from the greek "elecktra", which is related to amber.

IIRC Greek elecktra came from the fact that amber can easily trigger static electricity charges (as well as triboelectric effect) when being rubbed by a cloth/silk, a phenomenon first being observed (I think) by the Greeks.
 
"Life finds a way." Also, does @Boris Gudenuf have any extra information about Amber in the Baltics?

Although most of the amber came from the Baltic coast (roughly, Heligoland to Gdansk, or the north German-Polish coast), note that Pliny mentions amber from Egypt and Syria and there were deposits of amber in Sicily that have been worked since the Neolithic at least.
Electron (Greek) and Electrum (Latin) for Amber actually both come from an earlier Greek word: Elektor, meaning 'beaming sun' (probably because of amber's color) that dates back to Homer's Iliad. Deriving 'electric' from it didn't happen until the very late Renaissance, around 1600 CE or so, although the Greeks and Romans were aware of its 'static electricity' properties.

Oh, and the Greeks and Romans knew very well that amber is a tree resin: Pliny the Elder describes it as such although he didn't realize how much time the fossilization process took to form it.

Uses:
Amber has been used for jewelry and personal ornamentation since the Stone Age (at least 15 - 11,000 years BCE). In addition, it was used in medicinal concoctions in Hippocrates, and necklaces of rough amber stones were supposed to be a protection against teething problems in children or strangulation in adults, along with a bunch of other 'folk medicine' and 'protective amulet' uses.
Amber was also burned as a sort of 'incense' in the Mediterranean cultures and ancient China.

However, Amber itself is NOT a component for perfume. Instead, long after the Classical Era, amber could be heated carefully, producing an 'oil of amber' which could be combined with nitric acid to create a musky-scented resin, but that's post-Medieval and not the sort of thing you'd want to put anywhere near your skin! Any modern 'amber' perfume is using the name as a marketing tool but does not contain any real amber.

Finally, Amber does preserve a lot of plant and animal and insect matter that otherwise does not fossilize or preserve easily, and chemically, it should preserve DNA, but at least up until 2013 (last time I saw any publication on it) no one has actually extracted any DNA from amber.
 
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