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Lithuania. Jewelry. Amber. |
50 MILLION YEARS AGO ![]() 5000years ago
![]() 5000years ago
The climate became warmer and conifer trees started to exude big amounts of resin. Any smallest wound caused excessive flow of resin. Of course, today there is no one type of pine which had similar characteristics to those of the fossil trees. The transformation of resin into amber continued from the moment of secretion until its burial into Sambia deposit. Due to various processes resins underwent different changes and a material which was not similar to the original resins was formed. Later amber was washed out and brought to different river backwaters. The layer of amber was covered by delta sediments and survives to the present day. One cubic meter of this rock, which is called blue ground, contains from 0,5 to 2,5 kilogram amber. The biggest known deposit of amber is 7-8 meter thick layer of such ground 30-40 cm below sea level near Palvininkai. It is thought that in the whole region of western Sambia Peninsular there are several hundred thousand tons of amber, and in Courland Lagoon, near Juodkrantė, 3000 hectares of amber-containing ground have been found. In this region of Baltic sea aproximately 90 per cent of all amber (fossil resins) in the world are found. "Amber truly possesses a life-giving energy. It takes its beginning in luxuriant forests as old as the mother earth itself. Later waters and masses of ground fell on them. However the treasures of those times survived preserved in it, therefore amber contains joy and happiness. >From ancient times people living in the territory of our motherland used to dug amber out if its burying places and enrich it with something from their own lives. They would inscribe pieces of amber with their feelings along with nice wishes, put them on strings, and give as gifts to their beloved ones so that they could accompany them in this or another life." Vydūnas
If you ask any Lithuanian about the origin of amber, most probably you will hear a legend of an unhappy love between goddess Juratė and fisherman Kastytis. God Perkūnas, after finding out that the mortal son of earth dared to touch the Goddess of the Baltic's, threw down a bolt of lightning, which shattered the amber palace on the bottom of the sea and drowned Kastytis together with his boat. Ever since waves have been washing ashore pieces of amber - fragments of the palace and after storms the shore is strewn smaller pieces - Jūratė's tears that she is still continuing to shed.
The history of the "Juodkrante treasure" started in the middle of the nineteenth century, a lot of amber was found after some navigation works in Curonian lagoon at Juodkrante. Rumors had been spread about enormous amber resources on the bed of the Curonian lagoon. In 1857 two famous merchants of Klaipeda Wilhem Stantien and Moritz Becker established a company: "Stantien and Becker". They started to constantly excavate the bed of the lagoon in a small fisher's settlement Juodkrante. Sandy mass of the lagoon ground used to be lifted by excavating steam-machines (dredges) and poured in the small ships with sifters. Sand used to be sifted back to the lagoon; wood, black soil pieces and amber would stay in the sifters. This type of excavating (dredging) appeared to be very effective-70 tones of amber were excavated in a year. After some time it turned out that some small amber pieces trimmed by human hand many years ago were excavated together with "normal" amber. For a long time nobody understood the enormous archaeological and scientific value of those finds. At the beginning workers used to sell those pre-historical handicraft articles or just to give them as funny gifts to the visitors of Juodkrante. From that period it was understood that exceptionally valued collection that included very rare amber statuette of a man had been sold to New York. No news had left about the destiny of this collection. Three years after the beginning of amber extraction in Juodkrante it was decided to forbid commerce of scientifically valued amber examples The company "Stantien and Becker" invited amber expert Richard Klebs from Konigsberg as a scientific consultant. He became interested in those unique amber handicraft articles and started to collect and systematize them. In 1860-1881years period he succeeded in collecting 434 pre-historical handicraft articles that had been made in the 2-3 millennium BC (the Early Stone Age, Neolithic period). The main Juodkrante treasure place was a flat shoal in Curonian lagoon stretched 650m to the North from Juodkrante and 2.5km long. The ancient amber handicraft articles were found together with raw amber 2-4 meters deep. There were some suppositions that the treasure had been thrown out in this particular place and left on the ground. The treasure consisted of many tube-shaped beads, brooches, almost rectangular axe-shaped disks and many other amber articles. One of the oldest in Lithuania plastic artifacts-amber statuettes of men and animals dating back to Neolithic Period are exceptionally valued and rare. 200 most interesting amber artifacts were described by R. Klebs in his book "Stone Age Amber Adornments" (illustrated by H. Schwarz) published in 1882.
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Amber in the Contemporary Lithuanian Art Pille Veljataga The waves of the Baltic Sea used to throw amber ashore since olden times. Its articles can be found in archaeological treasures, and amber beads have become part of a national costume. The outlook on amber as a national symbol and the image of a Lithuanian girl wearing amber beads was formed in the period between the late 19th century and the early 20th century by the writers and poets of the national liberation movement. It has survived in the national cultural memory up to the present days. Artists consider amber to be a compliczated material. The shapes of its pieces present a great diversity, and the process of its grinding and polishing unfolds a host of shades, textures, whitish fibres seen inside the piece, some hardened semi-transparent "tiny clouds", and air bubbles in the clair mass. The dug out or cast out amber by the sea is coated with a "rind", which prevents from seeing its inside. The mysterious inside unfolds itself only after the process of polishing. Amber - the hardened resin which was dripping down from the trees fifty million years ago. The shape of a piece depended on the place of the accumulation of resin. While resin was concentrated on the tree-trunks, amber was shaped in one way, and while it was between the rinds - in another shape. Resin is of a dark yellow colour, transparent, and the bright whitish insertions in the clear mass appeared only due to the foaming of resin.The foaming resin originated the non-transparent yellowish, white amber. The so-called blue amber was born under the impact of iron admixtures, and the black - when small peaces of wood, soil, turf were sunken in resin. Even a strong wind might have effected the appearance of amber - not fully hardened mass rippled and left an expressive texture. jewelry, jewelry, jewelry, articles of jewelry, Baltic ornaments, baltic ornaments, Lithuanian jewelry, antique jewelry, old jewelry, archaeological jewelry, authentic jewelry, autentika, ritual jewelry, amulets, Checkout, earrings, hook, stud, stud , |