Do you know what grey amber is?

2008/11/02 Álvarez Busca, Lucía - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Zoologia

Grey amber appears floating in the sea, but at first no one knew its origin.

Peter Kaminski

Why did you call it grey amber? The origin of amber, the fossilized resin of the trees, was also a mystery. The matter they found in the sea was similar to amber, and by its color they called it amber gray. It was rarely found and could not be predicted when and where they would find it. That is why it quickly became a luxury material.

Grey amber has a very special smell and soon saw that it had a special property: if mixed with an odorous substance, the smell was maintained for longer. That is why they began to be used in perfumes and perfumes. In addition, they discovered culinary properties, since their smell gave a special flavor to the food. They say that eggs cured with grey amber were the favorite dish of Charles II of England.

The peculiarities of grey amber, on the one hand, and its mysterious origin, helped to extend the belief that it had special properties: it was used in medicine, in alchemistry, as an aphrodisiac... When the Black Plague was spread, the disease was thought to be spread through the air and the special smell of amber prevented contamination.

Erroneous explanations

For your value, everyone wanted to know where grey amber was formed to find its origin and enrich it with sales. There were many ideas that were given to explain the mystery: that it arose in marine caves, that the roots of a singular tree, underground, were heading towards the sea in search of heat and that they created the gray amber...

Grey amber is used in perfumes because it helps maintain the smell for longer. (mor> File)

But they soon saw that there was a relationship between grey amber and sperm whales. According to many sailors, most gray amber were found in the digestive tract of sperm whales. It was believed that it was ingested, so they were looking for the precious material in the areas where the sperm whales lived.

But — and here is the explanation of the mystery — the truth is quite the opposite. Sperm whales do not swallow gray amber, they create and release it. What is grey amber?

The secret of the bowel of sperm whales

Sperm whales love giant squid, but the beak of squid and other hard parts can cause wounds in their bowels. To protect themselves from them, sperm whales form a whitish paste that covers parts that can cause wounds. In this way, they cover and expel the parts that do not digest.

Sperm whales are the owners of the mystery of grey amber

Miguel Lebre de Freitas

This white paste of the intestine of sperm whales is not like the gray amber we know: it is white, soft and does not smell very well, with a marked smell of feces. But by the oxidation that produces the salt of the sea water and the photodegradation that produces the sunlight, it darkens and changes the smell until it becomes matter that is found in the beaches or floating.

Although much research has been done, it has not been possible to create an artificial grey amber in the laboratory. Similar yes, but not with exactly the same properties, and yet, artificial materials are also very expensive. Currently, grey amber, natural or synthetic, is only used in perfumes. If Charles II of England knew that he cured the eggs of food with the cacalote cork.

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