early Bronze Age but began to decline there just at the time it was becom-
ing extremely popular in Mycenaean Greece. The Greeks of the classical
period were not as impressed by it as their Mycenaean forebears, but their
contemporaries, the Etruscans in northern Italy, apparently were and pro-
duced somefine products. The demand for amber remained long after the
close of the Bronze Age although large-scale tribal migrations occasionally
destroyed existing networks that had to be re-established once stability
returned. In thefirst centuryCEPliny felt it necessary to devote an extensive
discussion to the various theories explaining what amber was, dismissing, for
example, proposals that it was made from lynx urine, or from the tears of
certain birds that lived beyond India, or from moisture formed from the
sun’s rays. Amber from Germany continued toflow into the Roman Empire
even as the ancient era began drawing to a close.
In the beginning 23