The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

That just made me laugh. Only a Chinese person could write such nonsense. Amber and alchemy. Amber literally floats towards you and you collect it with a net. A European would have known that.  

That is the case only in a few places in the world.  Maybe just in the Baltic Sea.  Amber from the Baltic to Southern Europe is one of the earliest long-distance trade routes known.   Amber can be mined in a few other places, like the Dominican Republic.  That made amber a precious stone everywhere else.  Like in China, where apparently it was considered a "divine substance".

No one knows exactly what alchemical recipe that note in the "Red rooster" entry was referring to.  Presumably it was some process that turned egg yolks into a hard yellow-orange  transparent substance that looked like real amber.  It does not seem impossible...

All the best, --stolfi