Re: On the old amber road?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "gknysh" <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> (GK)  Pliny NH, 37
>
> adfertur a Germanis in Pannoniam maxime provinciam, et inde Veneti
> primum, quos Enetos Graeci vocaverunt, famam rei fecere proximique
> Pannoniae et agentes circa mare Hadriaticum....
> > >
> > > GK: So since Nero Carnuntum was the port of transit for the
> > > amber traffic from the north to Roma.
> >
> >
> > As the result of that expedition, yes.
> > And before, it might have been Nauportus
> > >
> > >
> > > For the 'amber road' an alternative river route would include
> > > rivers like
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dniepr
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_river
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Bug
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Bug
> > >
> > > GK: especially in the earlier period, before Roman ascendancy,
> > > when there were other important Hellenistic centers eager to
> > > acquire amber. Cf. generally: 
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Road
> >
> >
> > My point still stands (I think):
> > The socalled 'amber road' before the expedition in Nero's time
> > went to the Black Sea, not to the Adriatic. That's also why I
> > think Roman grave goods in Germanic graves came that way.
>
> ****GK: Note that Pliny implies that the amber which reached Rome
> came to the Pannonian area even before Nero (with the Veneti as
> importers to Italy). So your point would be that from the Black Sea
> the "road" then (partly) curved back westward via the Danube and
> eventually reached Nauportus? But why not use the Moravian gate if
> one headed towards Pannonia? Cf.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravian_Gate

The Moravian gate links the Danube with the Odra and would not take you through Pannonia.

This is what I think:
From the Baltic up the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula ,
portage across the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukla_Pass ,
down the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vah River ,
down the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube ,
up the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sava
to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauportus ,
portage to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquileia ,
ship to Rome.

Or,
from the Baltic up the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula ,
up the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_river ,
portage,
down the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tisza ,
down the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube ,
up the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sava
to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauportus ,
portage to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquileia ,
ship to Rome.

Complicated and expensive

> Or other rivers (with a transcarpathian hop Cf.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukla_Pass
> There needn't be (and wasn't I believe a single amber road)...****

The ones I guessed at pass through Pannonia.
Other than that, I think you're right. What is called the amber road in Roman times stricto sensu, a direct route from the Baltic to the Adriatic, was used only sporadically and only for wares that were so high value, low volume that they could carry the high transportation costs. Whatever transport existed of low value, high volume wares between the Baltic and the Mediterrranean would have had to take the river route to the Black Sea, then the sea route to the Mediterranean. That's why the Mithridatic wars were so important to Rome, I think.
Grain export later became important to Poland; that was shipped down the Vistula, and the by sea to Nortern Europe; no transport southwards.


Torsten