African Copal Beads

Copal is a fossilized organic resin. This amorphous yellow to brownish material is often confused with amber, but amber is much older than copal.

Copal is merely a term for young, unripened amber. Finding the dividing line is not so simple; different sources define them in different ways.

A long-established standard has been that amber is at least ten million years old and any resins less than this are considered to be copal.