Amber is fossilized tree resin, appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects. Amber is used in jewelry, it has been used as a healing agent in folk medicine. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents; because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions. Amber occurring in coal seams is called resinite, the term ambrite is applied to that found within New Zealand coal seams; the English word amber derives from Arabic ʿanbar عنبر‎ via Middle Latin ambar and Middle French ambre. The word was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century as referring to what is now known as ambergris, a solid waxy substance derived from the sperm whale. In the Romance languages, the sense of the word had come to be extended to Baltic amber from as early as the late 13th century. At first called white or yellow amber, this meaning was adopted in English by the early 15th century.

As the use of ambergris waned, this became the main sense of the word. The two substances conceivably became associated or confused because they both were found washed up on beaches. Ambergris is less dense than water and floats, whereas amber is too dense to float, though less dense than stone; the classical names for amber, Latin electrum and Ancient Greek ἤλεκτρον, are connected to a term ἠλέκτωρ meaning "beaming Sun". According to myth, when Phaëton son of Helios was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees, their tears became elektron, amber; the word elektron gave rise to the words electric and their relatives because of amber's ability to bear a static electricity charge. Theophrastus discussed amber in the 4th century BC, as did Pytheas, whose work "On the Ocean" is lost, but was referenced by Pliny the Elder, according to whose The Natural History: Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia.

Earlier Pliny says that Pytheas refers to a large island - three days' sail from the Scythian coast and called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus - as Basilia - a name equated with Abalus. Given the presence of amber, the island could have been Heligoland, the shores of Bay of Gdansk, the Sambia Peninsula or the Curonian Lagoon, which were the richest sources of amber in northern Europe, it is assumed that there were well-established trade routes for amber connecting the Baltic with the Mediterranean. Pliny states explicitly that the Germans exported amber to Pannonia, from where the Veneti distributed it onwards; the ancient Italic peoples of southern Italy used to work amber. Amber used in antiquity as at Mycenae and in the prehistory of the Mediterranean comes from deposits of Sicily. Pliny cites the opinion of Nicias, according to whom amberis a liquid produced by the rays of the sun. Besides the fanciful explanations according to which amber is "produced by the Sun", Pliny cites opinions that are well aware of its origin in tree resin, citing the native Latin name of succinum.

In Book 37, section XI of Natural History, Pliny wrote: Amber is produced from a marrow discharged by trees belonging to the pine genus, like gum from the cherry, resin from the ordinary pine. It is a liquid at first, which issues forth in considerable quantities, is hardened Our forefathers, were of opinion that it is the juice of a tree, for this reason gave it the name of "succinum" and one great proof that it is the produce of a tree of the pine genus, is the fact that it emits a pine-like smell when rubbed, that it burns, when ignited, with the odour and appearance of torch-pine wood, he states that amber is found in Egypt and in India, he refers to the electrostatic properties of amber, by saying that "in Syria the women make the whorls of their spindles of this substance, give it the name of harpax from the circumstance that it attracts leaves towards it, the light fringe of tissues". Pliny says that the German name of amber was glæsum, "for which reason the Romans, when Germanicus Caesar commanded the fleet in those parts, gave to one of these islands the name of Glæsaria, which by the barbarians was known as Austeravia".

This is confirmed by the recorded Old High German word glas and by the Old English word glær for "amber". In Middle Low German, amber was known as berne-, barn-, börnstēn; the Low German term became dominant in High Germa

Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo is a Ghanaian politician and was the Greater Accra Regional Minister of Ghana. Prior to this, he was the Volta Regional Minister, he is a member of the seventh Parliament of the Fourth Republic of Ghana representing the Kpone-Katamanso Constituency in the Greater Accra Region on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress. He is a Christian, he is married. Afotey-Agbo was born on July 31, 1967, he hails from a town in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. He obtained his diploma degree in public relations. Afotey-Agbo is a member of the National Democratic Congress. In 2012, he contested for the Kpone-Katamanso seat on the ticket of the NDC sixth parliament of the fourth republic and won. MD, JNL Afotey-Agbo Ventures Member of Parliament Farmer/agriculturist

Herbert Ulysses Gaillard Fielding was an American politician who became the first African-American elected as a Democrat to the South Carolina General Assembly since the Reconstruction era. Herbert Ulysses Fielding was the son of Sadie Fielding. Fielding served in the United States Army during World War II prior to attending and receiving his B. S. degree from West Virginia State College in 1948. In 1952, Fielding took charge of the day-to-day operations of the family funeral home business, becoming President and CEO of Fielding Home for Funeral Services. Founded in 1912 by Fielding’s father, Fielding Home for Funeral Services was the largest African American-owned and operated funeral home in the state of South Carolina. Fielding died on August 10, 2015. Fielding became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, he paid for the bail of civil rights activists and demonstrators. Fielding encouraged African Americans to vote and mobilized them to memorize the constitution in order to gain voting rights.

Fielding's political papers from that era are housed at the College of Charleston. Fielding was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1970, becoming the first African American to be elected a representative in South Carolina since Reconstruction. In that same election, Democrat John C. West defeated the Republican nominee, Albert W. Watson for governor. Fielding served for three years returned to the South Carolina State House in 1983. In 1985, Fielding was elected to South Carolina’s State Senate, where he served until 1992. In 1990, he became the chairperson of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus