| Transcript |
- as the undisputed king of China�s forests. Since early times, tiger bones and penises were used by quack doctors who credited them with the power to confer remarkable virility. Also a variety of amber known as �blood amber� was used in Chinese medicine as an aphrodisiac because of its supposed emblematic origin or power of being a tiger�s soul.
The Chinese belief in amber being related to the tiger�s soul is similar to the Greek notion that amber was the solidified urine of another feline, the lynx.
Other early Chinese myths of the origin of amber can be found in a Song dynasty (960-1279) work called Nan Man (Records of the Southern Barbarians), which states: In the sand of Ningzhou, there are cliffs full of bees. When the cliffs collapse, the bees come out of the earth. The people burn them, and make them into amber�. This belief undoubtedly developed as a result of finding insects entombed in pieces of amber.�
Astonishingly, an even earlier work by Tao Hongjing (452-536 CE) shows a greater understanding of the amber material than later writers. He remarks: �There is an old saying that the resin of fir-trees sinks into the earth, and transforms itself (into amber) after a thousand years. When it is then burned it still has the odour of fir-trees. There is also amber, in the midst of which there is a single bee, in shape and colour like a living one. The statement of the Bo wu ji, that the burning of bees� nests effects its make, is, I fear, not true. It may happen that bees are moistened by the fir-resin, and thus, as it falls down to the ground, are completely entrapped. �
Chinese-Burmese Amber Trade
In most early Chinese writings on Burma, the presence of amber in that country is mentioned. Since at least the first century CE during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220), large deposits of amber have been mined in Burma and traded with China. The main sources of Burmese amber (sometimes referred to as burmite) were found in the north roughly 25 to 27 degrees north latitude in the Chindwin District and the Hukuwng valley. The trade route from Burma to China was not easy as it passed through heavily folded mountains, deep valleys, difficult to cross high ranges and a hot damp climate with malaria infested mosquitoes.
According to the Hou Han Shu (Annals of the Later or Eastern Han Dynasty) .... The Ailao, who inhabited a region which included parts of southeast Asia and bordering Chinese provinces, had lustrous pearls and amber. In the Tang Shu (Annals of the Tang dynasty 618-906), it mentions the nobles of the Nan Chao Kingdom (descendants of the Ailao), wear ornaments of pearls, green stone and amber in their ears.
It is interesting that in Tang times one of the trade routes from Burma passed near the amber mines at Myitkyina, which coincidently were near the famous jade (Jadeite) deposits which were mined in the late 18th and 19th
li
|
|---|
