HISTORY:
Ambergris
was known and considered as an imperial trade article in
Africa since 1000 B.C. During the same period,
the Chinese knew ambergris as "lung sien hiang"
or "dragon's spittle fragrance", which was supposed
to come from the spittle of sea dragons sleeping on sea
rocks and drooling into the ocean.
Ambergris was well known to the ancient
Egyptians who used it as incense.
In the 10th century Ibn Haukal, an Arab
trader, classed it in value with gold and black slaves and
referred to its reputed aphrodisiac properties.
Ambergris that
was badly kept was used, in Near East and Roma, in perfume making; it also went into recipes
of the pharmacopoeia. In Asia, ambergris was employed as a spice in
cooking. The Turks considered it the most pleasing offering
to Allah to bring with them on their life pilgrimage to
Mecca.
Note: do not confuse with the yellow
amber, the fossil resin of a tree living 40 millions years
ago, and whose trade was flourishing in Antiquity.
The name comes from the Arabic "Anbar".
Historical records of ambergris lump
discoveries:
- The "bark Splendid of Dunedin", New Zealand, was found in 1883; it weighed 983
lb. and was worth $250,000.
- On December 24, 1908
a "boulder" of ambergris weighing 1003
lb., the largest ever found, was brought in by the whalers
of Larvik in Norway. It sold for £23,000 and saved the company
from bankruptcy.
- Another lump which weighed 926
lb. was found in the Antarctic by the whaling ship Southern
Harvester in 1953.
- The Spanish whaling station Getares
on the Falkland Islands found a whale with a 304
lb. lump of ambergris in 1927 that it sold to the Norwegians,
owners of the only other whaling company in the Falklands,
for Kr400,000, considered an outrageous price (high or low
is not mentioned).
