Amber
Amber was much valued as an ornamental material in early times, but also for religious purpose.   Rosary beads are used by Catholics and Muslims alike up too our days. Around 58 A.D., the Roman Emperor Nero sent a Roman knight on a search for this “Gold of the North” and brought hundreds of pounds of amber to Rome. In later days, from 1283 on, the Teutonic Knights, after returning from the crusades, became absolute rulers of Prussia and the Baltic sources of amber, as well as the manufacture of objects made of amber, punishing transgressors with death by hanging. History has it that when they arrived in 1492 at the Caribbean island of “La Hispaniola” (Dominican Republic), Columbus received from a young Taino prince a pair of shoes decorated with Dominican amber, in exchange for a strand of Baltic amber beads that he had offered.