Today, we’ve all heard of the Jurassic World movie series and have had a lot of fun watching scenes of long-extinct dinosaurs wreaking havoc in our modern world. Before that, there was the Jurassic Park series which started the entire adventure. But who remembers how this all came about? What made this story possible? You have to think back to the opening scene of the first move which takes place in an underground mine somewhere in the Dominican Republic. The answer is Amber.
Amber is fossilized tree sap from prehistoric pine trees. Just as in the movie, excavators dig deep into the earth to locate amber and sometimes the gemstones they uncover have prehistoric fossils trapped within. In Jurassic Park, scientists discovered amber with dinosaur DNA preserved inside which they were able to extract and use in cloning experiments. In real life, amber is sold to scientists, collectors, as well as general public, and those which have fossil inclusions are in highest demand. Right now, China is undergoing an “amber craze” and amber merchants have seen the price of amber steadily rise over the past decade when selling to Chinese buyers. Chinese buyers will pay top dollar for amber with insects, lizards, feathers, plant matter, or anything interesting, beautiful, and rare inside.
The Chinese word for amber is hu po 琥珀, pronounced ‘hoo pwoh’, and is roughly translated as “tiger spirit” or “tiger energy”. Ancient Chinese who first discovered amber and used it for medicinal purposes gave it this name. They believed that when a tiger died, its soul traveled down in the ground and transformed into amber gemstones. It’s hard to say why they believed this but perhaps it has something to do with the affects people experienced from wearing or using the amber for health. Even modern day Chinese say that wearing amber gives the wearer courage and calms the spirit. Amber is used both for ornamental purposes and as medicine where it can be ground into a powder to be ingested.
