As I stroll in the old town of the stunning Gdansk, its 1000-year-old history unfolds through the city’s celebrated sites of enchanting beauty, the lovely amber jewellery displayed in the shop windows adding to the charm. This Polish city on the Baltic is the true capital of amber, the Baltic Gold; a treasured gift from the sea.
Renata, my vivacious guide, promises to take me to the Amber Museum, where one can admire both old and contemporary works of distinguished designers. Having close links with the sea and lying strategically at the crossroads of historical and contemporary amber routes, Gdansk has cultivated and perfected the tradition of amber art.
Housed in the historical Prison Tower, the Amber Museum delves extensively into the history of Baltic amber with each floor dedicated to a different amber-related issue. In the museum, we are transported to the primal amber forest, to the sound of birds and the scent of resin. A multimedia presentation and the exhibits help us to understand how amber and its inclusions were formed.
Originally, amber was thought of as a semi-precious stone; however it is nothing but fossilised tree resin, which has been appreciated for its colour and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Scientists believe Baltic amber was most probably formed about 40 million years ago in the amber forest.
As amber originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, it sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions (trapped in the fossilised resin) that are extremely valuable scientific material and collectors’ items. Amber fossils are three dimensional; with well-preserved colour patterns, they appear almost lifelike. In the museum, the impressive collection of ‘inclusions’ is intriguing to look at; one of the biggest attractions on display is Gierlowska’s Lizard, embedded in a transparent amber nugget. The lizard from Gdansk is today a unique vertebrate specimen in the Baltic amber and hence of great interest to the scientific world.
The Museum’s permanent exhibition, “With Amber through the Millennia”, showcases amber in nature and amber in culture — educational on the origins and varieties of amber, old amber treasures and objects related to the amber craft dating back to the Palaeolithic period, antiquity, Middle Ages, and contemporary times. It also shows amber processing in the past, and a map showing the amber routes of ancient Europe. As we go around looking at the many amber creations, from inkwells to spoons to a stunning Fender Stratocaster guitar, I marvel at the material’s diversity.
Amber’s journey through history is well etched in the museum. Gdansk, as a well known amber craft centre, experienced its golden age at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, receiving orders from wealthy noblemen, members of the clergy and Polish kings. During the Reformation period, the subject matter and range of amber products changed from devotional objects to everyday articles. Amber products were among the most precious diplomatic gifts to popes, tsars, sultans, caliphs and the monarchs of the most powerful European countries. Modern art in amber started in the 1960s, receiving wide acclaim. We see some interesting contemporary pieces on the top floor. They are as chic as any found in a metropolitan shop window.
Later, we visit an amber workshop in the Old Town, where, as Zbigniew Strzelczyk works on his amber pieces, he reveals many a secret of the enigmatic amber. He also shows us some interesting inclusions under the microscope. In his ‘Style Gallery’, we watch amber being processed and worked into fine jewellery. The exquisite pieces tempt me and I give in. After all, pretty and precious, doesn’t amber from Poland make the best of the souvenirs? Renata helps me to choose a lovely amber pendant and a pair of ear drops to go with it.
As we walk along the water front, the evening sunrays fall on my amber pendant, and the golden luminescence reveals an inclusion, a tiny insect, waiting to tell its story.
