Since ancient times, ambergris has been used as an ingredient in medicines and perfumes. It was highly cited among the precious goods in the pre-Islamic period (3rd to 7th century). In the 5th century Arabs in Spain coined it 'anbar' (later the French named it 'ambre gris' or 'grey amber').

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Notably one of the earliest recordings was by the rulers of the Muslim empire's court physician/Christian doctor Ibn Masawayh (d.857) who wrote in his 'Treatise on Simple Aromatic Substances' that the five principal aromatic substances (al-usul) were musk (misk), ambergris (anbar), aloeswood (ud), camphor (kafur), and saffron (za faran). Among Arab rulers it quickly became one of the most popular perfumes in the Arabic culture at this time. (Zohar, Amar and Efraim Lev, 2013)

In 1294 Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant and adventurer who was famed for his accounts of the silk road, was the first Western traveller to realize that ambergris came from the sperm whale. He observed whilst in Madagascar, that ships came with cloth of gold and silks, trading for ivory and ambergris and other local products.

By the 15th century the contributions from Portuguese travellers and explorers started to become known in Europe (Costa, 2009), and ambergris was recognised as one of the most exotic novelties found in the Atlantic and the New World.

The economic value of this natural product, as well as the lack of knowledge surrounding its origin, gave rise to fanciful explanations as to where ambergris came from (some of which prevailed for some time in historic explanations).

Although some writers believed ambergris came from whales, several other theories existed: sea foam, material discharged from a fountain from the bottom of the sea, some hypothesized that it was made from bees living near the ocean, or possibly from fossilized tree resin, as it has a semblance to Fossilized Amber. By 1667, eighteen different theories existed on this matter, and various animals were considered producers of this substance - including seals, crocodiles and even birds. There were also several theories about the possibility of a vegetable origin.

In 1724 (edition 1906) Boylston, a physician from Massachusetts who had travelled to London, proposed that the sperm whale did not swallow ambergris but actually produced it. In 1783 a botanist Joseph Banks put forward a paper at the Royal Society which had been written by Franz Xaver Schwediauer (a Swedish Professor and Doctor living in Great Britain) asserting that ambergris is a faecal product of the sperm whale. However, in the middle of the scientific revolution of the 19th century, speculation on the origin and formation of ambergris was reaching its peak (Clarke, 2006; Read, 2013). Later, in the middle 20th century, ambergris was referred to as a "consequence of a disease that originated in the large intestine and was expelled once in a while in the animal's stool" (Cruz 1945).

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