The Amber Road
The History and Legacy of the Ancient Trade Network that Moved Amber across Europe
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Narrated by:
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Bill Hare
About this listen
“Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones...” (Pliny the Elder)
The story of the Silk Road has been a popular topic among tourists, academics, economists, state parties, and daydreaming children for many centuries. In many ways the Silk Road can be seen everywhere, and it has existed for as long as people have traveled across Eurasia. Its impact is widely felt among the diverse peoples that live on the continent, through the unique regional art and architectural styles, as well as in countless films, books, academic studies, and organized tours devoted to the ancient trade routes.
At the same time, however, the Silk Road is an entirely abstract invention, first coined by the 19th century German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. There has never existed a single route - let alone a road - that was used to transfer goods, nor was silk the primary commodity traded across Eurasia. Instead, the Silk Road is more a multi-layered narrative about the rise and fall of nomadic confederations and sedentary societies, the consolidation and dissolution of kingdoms and empires, the exchange of commodities and fine crafts, and the transfer and mixture of ideas, religions, technology, science, art, architecture, myths, and legends. It is a story that is relevant for the present-day countries through which this exchange once took place, as they lay claim to the artifacts, heritage sites, and symbolic meaning of the Silk Road for political and economic purposes and to build their national identity.
In fact, international trade in the ancient world was a more intricate and far-reaching system than many have been led to believe. The Silk Road and the Incense Trade Route have been heavily investigated in recent decades, but the Amber Road trade network dominating northern Europe has been given far less attention. Amber, the hardened sap of prehistoric trees, has washed up on Baltic shores for generations, and though it had little value to the locals beyond religious symbolism and aesthetic beauty, they learned that foreign civilizations would pay massive sums for the beautiful substance.
Though written sources are scattered and tend to come and go depending on the civilization involved, much has been written by ancient authors, particularly of Greek and Roman origins. More importantly, archeologists have traced the spread of amber through the discovery of pieces with specific chemical construction, linking it back to the Baltic region. Once thought to have mainly been exported to Rome, Baltic amber has also been found in Mycenaean Greece, Egypt and Syria, though perhaps not surprisingly, it was Roman demand that formed the height of the amber exchange.
Perhaps even more interesting than the movement of the amber is regarding shifting trade operations from government controlled systems to private merchant enterprises to monopolies of guilds and orders, a return to government control, and finally, the selling of the trade to individual countries. It is a fascinating microcosm of changing political and governmental landscapes through millennia of change and development in northern Europe and the wider ancient Mediterranean world.
The Amber Road: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Trade Network that Moved Amber across Europe looks at the development of this crucial trade, and its impact on antiquity.
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Story
From the author of the acclaimed The Great Sea, David Abulafia's new book guides listeners along the world's greatest bodies of water to reveal their primary role in human history. The main protagonists are the three major oceans - the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian - which together comprise the majority of the earth's water and cover over half of its surface. These waterways carried goods, plants, livestock, and, of course, people across vast expanses, transforming and ultimately linking irrevocably the economies and cultures of Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
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Like Reading a Dictionary.
- By aaron on 01-10-21
By: David Abulafia
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Lost Civilizations
- 10 Societies That Vanished without a Trace
- By: Michael Rank
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether it is Plato's lost city of Atlantis, a technological advanced utopia that sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune"; the colony of Roanoke, whose early American settlers were swallowed up in the wild forest lands of the unexplored continent, or the Ancient American Explorers, who managed to arrive to the New World 2,000 years before Columbus, the disappearance of these societies is as cryptic as it is implausible. This book will look at cultures of the 10 greatest lost civilizations in history.
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Another Great Book from Michael Rank
- By MICHAEL H on 07-17-14
By: Michael Rank
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The Great Sea
- A Human History of the Mediterranean
- By: David Abulafia
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 29 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all the history of human interaction across a region that has brought together many of the great civilizations of antiquity as well as the rival empires of medieval and modern times.
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American Narration at it's Most Disapointing
- By Anonymous User on 03-26-18
By: David Abulafia
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By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean
- The Birth of Eurasia
- By: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering more than 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the 13th century AD.
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Remarkable research!
- By B. Dillon on 07-21-22
By: Barry Cunliffe
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1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- By: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
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Look past the one-star reviews: this is an enlightening and engaging read.
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-07-22
By: Eric H. Cline
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Mansa Musa and the Empire of Mali
- Musa’s Development of Timbuktu and His Legacy as the Richest Man in the World
- By: Jason Watson
- Narrated by: Cassius Bunyan
- Length: 1 hr and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Africa in the 13th century lay in ruins due to countless civil wars and the ensuing famine. Amid the hopelessness arose a man who began to rebuild the ravaged diaspora. He instituted a government that was so efficient at managing the country of Mali that soon it was the most progressive nation on the continent. Not long after, one by one, the neighboring countries began to join the fold, until all of West Africa constituted a single empire.
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Someone published their high school book report
- By Rory Stennett on 11-12-24
By: Jason Watson
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Children of Ash and Elm
- A History of the Vikings
- By: Neil Price
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.
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Outstanding
- By Than on 10-06-20
By: Neil Price
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The Birth of Classical Europe
- A History from Troy to Augustine
- By: Simon Price, Peter Thonemann
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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Excellent overview of the Classical World
- By David I. Williams on 01-12-14
By: Simon Price, and others
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Maya History: A Captivating Guide to the Maya Civilization, Culture, Mythology, and the Maya Peoples’ Impact on Mesoamerican History
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: David Patton
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In this new Captivating History audiobook, you will discover amazing little-known facts about the Mayans as well as the truth about their remarkable history.
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Beautifully written, terribly narrated
- By Anonymous User on 01-20-24
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The Ocean of Churn
- By: Sanjeev Sanyal
- Narrated by: Abhishek Sharma
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In this ambitious audiobook, best-selling author Sanjeev Sanyal chronicles the grand sweep of history from East Africa to Australia, conjuring the great cities of Angkor and Vijayanagar, medieval Arab empires, and Chinese "treasure fleets" in rich, vivid detail. He explores remote archaeological sites, maritime trading networks, and half-forgotten oral tales to challenge established historical narratives with fresh evidence. Shining new light on medieval geopolitics and long-lost cities, The Ocean of Churn is a mesmerizing journey into the heart of a vibrant civilization.
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An unputdownable treatise on the history of Indian Ocean
- By Akash Mitra on 06-20-20
By: Sanjeev Sanyal
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River Kings
- A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads
- By: Cat Jarman
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Three years ago, a Carnelian bead came into Catrine Jarman's temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace the path of this ancient piece of jewelry back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings' route was far more varied than we might think—that with them came people from the Middle East, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, all the way to Britain.
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Like school
- By Amazon Customer on 09-08-24
By: Cat Jarman
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Ancient Egypt: History in an Hour
- By: Anthony Holmes
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. Learn about the Egyptian gods, mummification and how the Egyptians built the only wonder of the ancient world still standing - the Pyramids of Giza. Exploring the historic rise of Egyptian civilization and its continued influence on the world today, Ancient Egypt in an Hour is an excellent companion to a mysterious and enthralling period of history.
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very interesting topic worth a listen
- By Doug W on 01-21-20
By: Anthony Holmes
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Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World
- By: Philip Matyszak
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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This thorough guide explores those civilizations that have faded from the pages of our textbooks but played a significant role in the development of modern society. Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World covers the Hyksos to the Hephthalites and everyone in between, providing a unique overview of humanity's history from approximately 3000 BCE-550 CE. Each entry exposes a diverse culture, highlighting their important contributions.
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Gripping and seamless
- By Mike Heim on 05-13-21
By: Philip Matyszak
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The Fall of Rome
- And the End of Civilization
- By: Bryan Ward-Perkins
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Fall of Rome, eminent historian Bryan Ward-Perkins argues that the "peaceful" theory of Rome's "transformation" is badly in error. Indeed, he sees the fall of Rome as a time of horror and dislocation that destroyed a great civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Attacking contemporary theories with relish and making use of modern archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans.
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best book ever on Fall of Rome
- By james m. on 01-30-22
What listeners say about The Amber Road
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joe
- 03-20-24
amber
too short. it made me wanna get an amber tatoo. i wanna learn more!!! not enough discussion on the eras, It goes from vikings to WWII in like 20 minutes
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