Q 01/05

What is amber?

A) Petrified sap of palms

B) Fossilised tree resin

C) Hardened volcanic glass

D) Compressed insect shells

Answer · why

B) Fossilised tree resin

It has been worked as a gemstone since classical antiquity and used in folk medicine, and is divided into five classes by chemical make-up.

Q 02/05

The English word 'amber' comes via Arabic from a word for what substance?

A) Honey from wild bees

B) Frankincense from Arabia

C) Ambergris from the sperm whale

D) Bitumen from the Dead Sea

Answer · why

C) Ambergris from the sperm whale

Both substances wash up on beaches; 'yellow amber' only displaced 'grey amber' as the main sense of the word as the use of ambergris waned.

Q 03/05

What was the Ancient Greek word for amber, which gave us 'electricity'?

A) Lithos

B) Sukkinos

C) Ambros

D) Elektron

Answer · why

D) Elektron

Rubbed amber holds a static charge because it is such a good insulator; the word connects to elektor, 'beaming Sun'.

Q 04/05

In Greek myth, amber formed from the tears of which figure's sisters, turned into poplars?

A) Icarus

B) Phaethon

C) Orpheus

D) Adonis

Answer · why

B) Phaethon

The son of the sun god Helios was killed driving his father's chariot; his mourning sisters' tears became elektron.

Q 05/05

Pliny recorded the native Latin name 'succinum' for amber, derived from 'sucus'. What does that mean?

A) Stone

B) Sun

C) Juice

D) Gold

Answer · why

C) Juice

He noted that amber smells of pine when rubbed and burns like torch-pine wood, evidence that it came from trees.