Amber is Fossil Tree Resin
Amber
A common misconception is that amber
Amber in Motion Necklace
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
Amber Containing N Fossilized Insect
How Old is Amber?
Amber is millions of years old
Most of the world's amber is in the range of 30-90 million years old. Because it used to be soft and sticky tree resin, amber can sometimes contain insects and even small vertebrates.
Mythic Amber Necklace
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
Amber occurs in a range of different colors. As well as the usual yellow-orange that is associated with the color "amber", amber itself can range from a whitish color through a pale lemon yellow, to brown and almost black. Other more uncommon colors include red amber (sometimes known as "cherry amber"), green amber, and even blue amber, which is rare and highly sought after.
A lot of the most highly-prized amber is transparent, but cloudy amber and opaque amber is also very common. Opaque amber contains numerous minute bubbles.
Amber: Golden Gem of the Ages: Fourth Edition
Amazon Price: $28.99 (as of 01/08/2009)
Amber: Golden Gem of the Ages, Fourth Edition is unique -- · because it describes the Baltic amber industry which has utilized amber as a gem stone throughout the ages. It also describes a variety of fossil resins, their characteristic and locations. It includes the most recent research and directs other researchers to sources such the internet and publications. · The mining of amber in Kaliningrad and Gdansk hydraulic extraction are featured in a photo-documentation format. This feature is very unique. The book also includes photos of mines dug in Bayaguana and Santiago, Dominican Republic. · It includes illustration and descriptions of outstanding amber artists as well as the leading scientists studying amber as a fossil resin. The description of the Amber Room and its restoration that opened to the public in May 2003 is current and unique. The original version of this book was considered a definitive work-- a reference for other amber researchers and scientists. In the late 1980's modern scientific equipment revolutionized the thinking about amber. The fossil insects were studied to reveal information about evolution of the fauna and flora of prehistoric times. The Fourth Edition includes descriptions of work of David Grimaldi, Rob DeSalle, George Poinar, and Raul Cano, pioneers in DNA research from amber fossils. George Poinar donated photographs of many of his discoveries of "first" published representatives of various classes of insects and parasites. This book includes something for everyone studying amber from a variety of points of view. Even archaeological finds and mythological information gives amber a humanistic side since amber was used by primitive people in many cultures.
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Where Does Amber's Color Come From?
Does it come from the tree source?
Amber varies in color--varying shades of yellow, orange, red, white, brown, green, bluish, "black" (deep shades of other colors). Rainbow colors within the amber are caused by the light interference of air bubbles or strain created during an insect's death struggle.
Carved Flower Amber Bracelet
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
Some believe the color is related to the type of tree source. Recent pine trees produce golden yellows, white, ivory-colors, and occasionally a blue resin. Scientists at the Polish Museum of Science believe that reddish tints are the resin of deciduous trees, such as cherry and plum. Dominican amber with a reddish tint is thought to be related to a leguminous source.
Amber color preferences vary from country to country. The transparent reds and greens are thought to be the most desirable colors in some countries, followed by the transparent yellows. The warm, transparent, orange color seems to be a desirable color for many Americans.
Natural amber, regardless of color, may darken to a mellow brown after long exposure to air; pressed amber may turn white as it ages.
The History of Baltic Amber Part 1
The History of Amber
Amber has been important in many cultures
Sun Ring
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
The history of amber is actually quite fascinating. Amber has been important to ancient cultures around the globe since almost 10,000 years ago. During the Bronze Age, amber was traded as a commodity between tribes. According to archaeological finds, it was during this time that amber trade routes were established across Europe, from the north and extending to the Far East.
Excavations of Iron Age sites show a remarkable quality in the workmanship of amber; figurines, artifacts and jewelry.
The advanced ancient civilizations of the Phoenicians and Etruscans were also major traders of amber, trading with the Baltic peoples for amber.
Amber had a place in the Greek and Roman Empires, and to the Romans, amber held more value than a young, healthy slave.
During the Medieval period when the Teutonic Knights ruled Prussia, amber's popularity started to re-emerge and they monopolized and controlled amber production and sales within the Baltic region.
Today the amber industry consists of artisans, jewelers and craftsmen bringing us beautiful amber creations for all to enjoy.
Amber: Window to the Past
Amazon Price: $19.46 (as of 01/08/2009)
From Library Journal
This beautifully illustrated book will be popular among naturalists and artists alike. Grimaldi, chair of the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Entomology, has skillfully combined the natural history of amber with coverage of its uses throughout history in art and sculpture. He discusses the properties of various types of amber, its most common localities, the types of life it typically preserves, and examples of past forgeries. Grimaldi's discussion of objects made of amber, from pipe stems to wall murals, range from the Mesolithic era to the 19th century and include all parts of the world. Among the book's greatest strengths are the copious and outstanding photographs and illustrations of specimens and objets d'art with accompanying descriptive notes. A wide-ranging treatise that will appeal to everyone from lay readers to specialists; highly recommended. Jeanne Davidson, Oregon State Univ. Lib., Corvallis
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The Amber Room in the Ekaterininsky palace in the city of Tsarskoe Selo near St. Petersburg, Russia
The fabled Amber Room was a room that was made entirely of amber; a masterpiece of Baroque art. It was an extravagent gift given to Czar Peter the Great of Russia in 1716 by Frederick Wilhelm I, King of Prussia.
Czar Peter of Russia was taken with its opulence and it forged a lavish gesture of friendship between Russia and Germany until the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. After remaining in the possession of Russia until 1941, the Amber Room mysteriously disappeared.
What happened to it is not fully known. The amber panels were removed from the room and stored in Novosibirsk. Later, the room was crated up and transported to Kaliningrad. The amber panels were again moved in 1945 at the end of World War II and the room's trail was lost. Since then the panels have been restored.
In the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, the amazingly beautiful, intricately decorated Amber Room will re-open, following a restoration that has lasted decades. Decorated with artfully assembled pieces of various kinds of amber including unique amber pictures, restoration of the room has involved successive generations of restorers, and plans to have a complete reconstruction of the room ready in time for celebrations marking the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg.
Mosaic Amber Earrings
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure
Amazon Price: $10.88 (as of 01/08/2009)
From Publishers Weekly
In 1717, Prussian emperor Frederick I presented Peter the Great with a remarkable treasure: enough wall-sized panels covered with meticulously carved amber to decorate an entire room. Eventually installed in a palace near St. Petersburg, the Amber Room was stolen by the Nazis during the 1941 siege of Leningrad and hidden in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad)-after which little is certain. Levy and Scott-Clark (The Stone of Heaven) devote as much space to their efforts to sift through the sparse evidence as to their reconstructions, and though the story line is a bit muddled early on, when they also try to squeeze in the room's history, they eventually find a comfortable balance. Digging through files from former Soviet museums and the East German secret police, they retrace previous investigations and slowly realize just how valuable the missing room was to the Soviets as Cold War propaganda. Even after the collapse of communism, its potential recovery continues to stoke the flames of Russians' memories of the Great Patriotic War, and the probe raises important (though unfortunately unanswered) questions about the Red Army's activities as the war wound down in Europe. The pair of investigative journalists never quite manages to distract readers from the inevitable failure of their search, so the probable fate of the room, when finally broached, may strike some as anticlimactic. However, the authors do offer an intriguing peek at the inner workings of Soviet bloc espionage-along with a detour into the avariciousness of some contemporary Russians. 50 b&w images, 3 maps.
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Amber in Myths and Legends
Amber can be found in the myths of several cultures
Amber is mentioned in great works of literature, such as the Odyssey. Homer mentions amber jewelry - earrings and a necklace of amber beads - as a princely gift.
There are many myths surrounding the origin of amber. In Greek mythology, Ovid wrote about Phaethon, who convinced his father Helios, the Sun God, to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky for a day. He drove too close to the earth, setting it on fire. To save the earth, Zeus struck Phaethon out of the sky with his thunderbolts, plunging him into the sea. His sisters (the Heliades, the daughters of Helios, the Sun), turned into poplar trees on the bank of the Eridanus River. Where sorrowing they weep into the stream forever. And each tear as it falls shines in the water, a glistening drop of amber.
Pearl and Amber Pendant
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
A Lithuanian amber myth tells about the story of lost love. Perkunas, God of Thunder, was the father God and his daughter was Jurate, a mermaid who lived in an amber palace in the Baltic. Once a day, a fisherman named Kastytis would cast his nets to catch fish from Jurate's kingdom. The goddess sent her mermaids to warn him to stop fishing in her domain. He did not stop, so Jurate went herself to demand he stop.
Once she saw him, she fell in love and brought him back to her amber palace. Perkunas, knowing Jurate was promised to Patrimpas, God of Water, was angered to find his daughter in love with a mortal. Perkunas destroyed the amber palace with a bolt of lightening to kill her mortal lover. Her palace was destroyed and Jurate was chained to the ruins for eternity. When storms in the Baltic stir the sea, fragments from the amber palace wash up on shore. Pieces in the shape of tears are particularly treasured, as they are the tears from the grieving goddess, as she weeps tears of amber for her tragic love.
The Quest For Life In Amber (Helix Book)
Amazon Price: $18.00 (as of 01/08/2009)
From Publishers Weekly
George Poinar, an entomologist at UC-Berkeley, and Roberta Poinar, an electron microscopist there, began with an avocational interest in amber and a simple question about the possibility of cell preservation in fossils often found in the hardened resin. It was only coincidence, they maintain, that their 1991 discovery that the tissue of bees preserved in amber contained DNA 25-40 million years old closely fit the subject of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Here the husband-and-wife team details how a hobby led to a compelling thesis, taking readers on a tour of the world's fossil amber beds from Scandinavian beaches to the Caribbean to Russia, Africa and New Zealand, offering bits of gemology, social history and molecular science. The likelihood of a Jurassic Park scenario playing out in real life remains firmly theoretical, the Poinars reiterate, in their engaging tale of an absorbing search. Photos.
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The History of Baltic Amber Part 2
The Amber Forest: A Reconstruction of a Vanished World.
Amazon Price: $24.95 (as of 01/08/2009)
Long thought to be unique to the Baltic region, amber--fossilized tree sap, often bearing the remains of ancient plants and animals--is widely distributed throughout the world. Here entomologists George and Roberta Poinar take readers on a tour of one out-of-the-way amber bed, located in the rainforest of the Dominican Republic, that formed over a period between 45 and 15 million years ago. This particular amber, formed mostly from the pungent sap of the algarrobo tree, attracted many curious creatures, including stingless bees and scorpions, as well as bits and pieces of material that happened to be floating by: hairs from a long-extinct Antillean rhinoceros and a saber-toothed tiger, spider webs, and seeds from plants that now take on slightly different forms. The Poinars' findings show that the prehistoric Antilles region, formed from large-scale volcanic and tectonic events, has declined in biodiversity, and they help give a more complete picture of the ancient climate than has hitherto been available.
The Poinars catalog the Dominican remains in great detail, and general readers may find their descriptions to make for slow going. But readers with some knowledge of or interest in paleontology, as well as collectors of amber specimens, will likely be fascinated by the window into the distant past that the New World amber affords. --Gregory McNamee
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Amber Metaphysical Properties
Baltic amber is thought to have healing properties due to its high succinic acid content. Another reason amber is thought to have healing properties is due to the fact that some samples contain the essence of life (DNA material), dating back millions of years.
Some believe that amber facilitates and transmits healing energy and psychic activity. Here is a list of metaphysical properties attributed to amber:
Magnet-like qualities, electric.
Attracts spiritual forces.
Facilitates family bonding.
Brings soul mate.
Helps receive.
Brings success/good fortune.
Promotes humor and adaptability.
Helps with judicial matters.
Heightens instincts.
Enhances artistic qualities.
Helps overcome obstacles.
Relieves grief and melancholy.
Brings greater awareness of inner self.
Provides strength and conveys harmony.
Rainbow of Amber Bracelet
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
Amber Cabochons
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When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.
-- La Bruyere
Amber Trollbeads
What! You don't know about Trollbeads? Trollbeads is a unique artisan line of jewelry from Denmark that is addictive. One of the most interesting feature of the line is the amber beads, both the standard and one of a kind (OOAK). To see the standard line, follow this link for amber and more. Below is a sampling of OOAK amber beads.
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand byAmber as Talisman
Amber has many mystical qualities
Amber Cufflinks
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
Amber has helped track ancient trade routes, and is documented in literature and the mythology of many pre-Christian cultures, and was referred to as "northern gold".
Amber is a fossilized and very old organic substance; amber talismans and jewelry have been found in Stone Age archaeological sites, as well as in ancient burial chambers.
Wear amber to attract warm, loyal, and generous people into your life; or carry amber on your person to lend logic or wit to a difficult situation.
Mixed with turquoise, amber is reminiscent of the sun in the sky. This combination of energies may be used successfully to quiet the mind and calm the nervous system.
Some cultures believe amber has healing abilities because it has electrical properties when rubbed with a cloth, attracting lint/dust. It also has an aroma, and is warm to the touch. The Greek word "electron" means amber. This is where the word "electricity" comes from.
Baltic Amber: The Living Gemstone Part 3
Amber Jewelry
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How do you take care of amber?
On the Mohs hardness scale, Baltic amber, which is the hardest of ambers, averages around 2.0-2.5. Therefore, it is considered to be a fairly soft substance.
So, you should take care of it as you would any other semi-precious jewelry, making sure it doesn't come into contact with any sharp objects. When not wearing amber, keep it away from light in a jewelry box or cloth pouch.
Cognac Drop Amber Pendant
From: AmberDesire.com - Amber & Silver Jewelry
Never use ultrasonic cleaners or solvents of any type on amber jewelry. Clean amber jewelry gently with a soft cloth dipped in lukewarm water, and wipe with a dry soft cloth. If necessary, a tiny drop of olive oil may be used to restore luster.
Amber Beads
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Amber Beads at Grand Bazaar (Kapali Carsi), Istanbul, Turkey
qlcoach wrote...
Besides the overall beauty of this lens, it is a finely crafted promotion of amber related products. I rate it a 10. We met on The WOZ at the Suidoo club. Please check out how I try to help others via The Eby Way. Sincerely: Gary Eby, author and therapist.
Posted November 28, 2008
Rewards4life wrote...
Beautiful lens! My parents are keeping amber beads under their bed (it's keeping them healthy). I love amber for it's color and metaphysical qualities.
Posted November 28, 2008
OhMe wrote...
Thank you for the education. I didn't know much about Amber except that I thought it was pretty. I learned a lot. Thanks.
Posted November 23, 2008
JaguarJulie wrote...
Oh my yes! Yes, I am an Amber fan from way back and actually discuss it on a couple of my Eastern European 'made in' lenses -- Czech Republic and Poland. Amber is gorgeous and makes such interesting and unique jewelry. Great artistic lens Paula!
Posted November 14, 2008
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