Amber
Amber - fossilised tree resin, above all from the Baltic region - was worked in the 19th century as a light brown or reddish alternative to black Whitby jet and is today the bearer of its own East-Central and Eastern European mourning jewellery tradition, with casting-in techniques for modern memorial substances.
Written by Dr. Helene Vasall
In the Western European mourning jewellery context amber is a secondary material - the main stage historically belonged to black (jet, vulcanite, bog oak). In Eastern and Central Europe, above all in the Baltic and Polish regions, amber by contrast established itself as an independent mourning jewellery substance, especially for the second phase of mourning (half-mourning) and as a symbolically charged material of "eternal preservation". In the modern memorial jewellery market amber is enjoying a second career - as a historical material with a high emotional charge and (in its modern resin variant) as a carrier for cast-in memorial substances.
Material and formation
Amber is fossilised tree resin. Its most important properties:
- Age: 30 to 80 million years, depending on the deposit
- Hardness: 2–2.5 on the Mohs scale - relatively soft, easy to carve, prone to scratching
- Density: 1.05–1.09 g/cm³ - floats in salt water
- Colour: golden yellow, honey-coloured, red-brown, green, opaque white, blue (rare, Dominican Republic), dark brown to almost black (cherry amber)
- Inclusions: occasionally insects, plant remains, pollen - scientifically valuable, particularly sought after for jewellery
The main deposit is the Baltic amber field (the Baltic littoral, above all Kaliningrad/Königsberg, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark). Besides this there are smaller deposits in the Dominican Republic (younger, often with blue fluorescence), in Mexico (Chiapas), in Sicily (simetite) and in Myanmar (burmite, very old).
History
Amber is one of humanity's oldest jewellery materials. Neolithic graves (4000–3000 BC) already contain amber pendants, amber beads and carved figures. The Amber Road between the Baltic and the Mediterranean was one of Europe's first international trade routes; Roman anuli succini (amber rings) survive in great quantities.
In the Middle Ages amber became the preferred material for rosaries (see Reliquary Pendant). In the 17th and 18th centuries the famous amber workshops of Königsberg and Danzig emerged - culminating in the creation of the Amber Room (1701, later lost). In mourning contexts of this period amber is present above all as a material of half-mourning and of religious devotional pieces.
In the 19th century - the peak period of ritualised mourning (see The Victorian Era (1837–1901)) - amber remains a minor player in the Western European main market, but dominates in Central and Eastern Europe. Polish, Lithuanian and East Prussian workshops produce specific mourning amber pieces: dark brown amber brooches, amber rosaries with mourning pendants, fine amber mourning necklaces with gold mounts.
In the 20th century amber loses visibility during the war and post-war years; in Lithuania and Poland, however, the workshop tradition is preserved and, after 1990, revived as cultural heritage. In the modern memorial jewellery market amber establishes itself as a high-quality historical material for personalised pieces.
Working and techniques
Amber is classically worked using the following techniques:
Carving. Amber can be carved with fine iron tools, later with small dental tools and micro-burrs. Classical motifs: religious symbols (cross, the Virgin, saints), mourning symbols (weeping willow, anchor, hourglass - see Hourglass), floral motifs.
Grinding. Cabochon cuts dominate; faceted amber is rare and mostly motivated by collectors' interest. Polished amber has a warm, slightly oily lustre.
Clarifying. Cloudy or milky amber can be clarified by heating in rapeseed or linseed oil - a technique documented since the 18th century, which produces more translucent amber. Characteristic sun spangles (small cracks caused by the thermal treatment) often form inside.
Pressing. Pressed amber is made from amber dust and small chips by means of heat and pressure - an inexpensive variant mass-produced in the 19th century. Pressed amber looks similar but is recognisable under the microscope (streaky structure).
Gold setting. Amber is traditionally set in silver or gold - silver for vernacular, gold for high-priced pieces. Hollow settings with an amber cabochon and memorial contents at the back (hair, a photograph) are a specific amber mourning form.
Amber in the modern memorial market
Three modern paths of application are established:
Classical amber pendants. Polished amber cabochons in silver or gold settings, often with an engraved inscription. Popular in Baltic, Polish and German memorial jewellery contexts. Prices: €80–400.
Amber with relic setting. An amber plaque is inlaid into a gold setting, into the back of which a lock of hair, a micro ash capsule or a fingerprint element is worked. Few workshops worldwide make this form. Prices: €400–1,500.
Amber-look casting-in technique. Ashes are cast into transparent epoxy resin with amber tinting. The result looks like an amber pendant but is technically a modern synthetic-resin piece (see Ash Pendant). Popular as an inexpensive alternative; many manufacturers in the casting-in sector offer this variant. Prices: €200–600.
Symbolism
Amber carries its own multi-layered symbolism:
- Sun and warmth - through the golden yellow colour and the warm lustre
- Eternal preservation - the fossil inclusions of insects and plants have remained unchanged for millions of years, which is read as a metaphor for remembrance that is never lost
- Healing - long held to be curative in folk medicine (baby amber necklaces against teething pain are a tradition that remains popular to this day, though medically unproven)
- Tear of the gods - in Greek mythology drops of amber are the tears of the Heliades, weeping for their dead brother Phaethon; a direct link to mourning symbolism
This last charge - amber as a "petrified tear" - makes the material an unusually apt substance for memorial jewellery. In modern memorial pieces this mythological reference is often taken up explicitly.
Care
Amber is delicate:
- Hardness 2–2.5 - prone to scratching; do not store together with other pieces of jewellery
- Heat-sensitive - melts from about 250°C, can be ignited
- Sensitive to solvents - alcohol, acetone and many cleaners attack the surface
- UV light - can lead to slow discolouration (darkening over decades)
Clean only with a soft damp cloth, then polish dry. Never use ultrasound, never cleaners containing solvents. With pieces that have a relic setting (ashes, hair) particular care is required - the hollow setting can lose its seal through exposure to heat.
Questions about this entry
- Why was amber relevant in a mourning context?
Black dominated Western European mourning jewellery; amber was a secondary material there. In Eastern and Central Europe - above all in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, East Prussia and parts of the German-speaking lands - amber was by contrast regarded as a legitimate material for mourning jewellery, particularly for the second phase of mourning (half-mourning). Its honey to red-brown tone matched the muted range of colours permitted in this phase. Amber also carried its own symbolic charge as a preserving material - insects and plant remains in amber were preserved for millions of years, which was read as a metaphor for eternal remembrance.
- How can amber be distinguished from synthetic-resin imitations?
There are several genuine tests. Salt-water test: real amber floats in heavily saturated salt water (density 1.05–1.10 g/cm³). Friction test: real amber becomes electrostatically charged and attracts small pieces of paper. UV light: real amber fluoresces blue-green, synthetic resin mostly not, or differently. Burn test: real amber smells aromatically resinous when warmed (not advisable on a piece of jewellery!). In the 19th century many imitations circulated, made of copal (younger, softer resin), phenol-formaldehyde resins and even pressed amber dust.
- Can ashes be enclosed in amber?
Not in genuine fossil amber - it is already fossilised and can no longer be given new inclusions. There are, however, casting-in techniques using modern amber-like resins (epoxy or acrylic resin, often with amber colouring), into which a pinch of ashes or hair is cast. Such pieces are sometimes marketed as "amber-look ash jewellery" - technically speaking they are not amber but modern synthetic resin. Individual Polish and Lithuanian workshops combine historical amber jewellery with an ash capsule behind the amber cabochon.
Further reading
- Bernstein - Tränen der Götter - Joachim Ganzelewski (2003)
- Amber - Window to the Past - David Grimaldi (1996)
- Sentimental Jewellery - Shire Library - Ann Louise Luthi (2007)
Related entries
- Core conceptsMourning Jewellery
Mourning jewellery is body adornment that signals a death, binds the memory of a deceased person, or does both at once - since the 17th century a jewellery type in its own right, with a material language of its own.
- Core conceptsMemorial Jewellery
Memorial jewellery is jewellery that deliberately binds itself to one particular person - through an inscription, a photograph, hair, ashes or, the defining medium today, a digitally captured fingerprint.
- Core conceptsSentimental Jewellery
Sentimental jewellery is the jewellery of the age of sensibility between 1760 and 1840 - pieces in which love, friendship and grief share the same imagery, and in which hair, miniature painting and personal inscriptions first become the load-bearing form.
- MaterialsGold in Mourning Jewellery
Gold is historically the most dominant carrier material of mourning and memorial jewellery - usually in muted alloys, often contrasted with black enamel or as a restrained gold setting around a dark principal material such as jet, onyx or a plait of hair.
- MaterialsSilver in Mourning Jewellery
In the 19th century silver was the popular mourning carrier material of the bourgeois middle class and is today the most widespread material of modern memorial jewellery - cheaper than gold, more precise to engrave than stainless steel and with a long symbolic tradition as a material of purity and of memento mori iconography.
- MaterialsWhitby Jet
Whitby jet is jet from the North English coastal town of Whitby - by far the most important deposit worldwide in the 19th century and the gold standard of Victorian mourning jewellery.
- Jewellery formsMourning Necklace
The mourning necklace is a chain worn at the neck in black or muted material which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, became the standard daytime wear of the mourning period, and which lives on today as a reduced remembrance variant with a pendant.
- Jewellery formsMourning Ring (Memorial Ring)
A mourning ring - also called a memorial ring - is a finger ring that carries the memory of a deceased person, usually in the form of an inscription, an image, a lock of hair or a fingerprint.
- Jewellery formsAsh Pendant
The ash pendant is a modern remembrance pendant with a tightly sealed hollow setting that holds a small quantity of a deceased person's ashes - today the fastest-growing jewellery form in the modern mourning and remembrance market.
- People & cultural historyMourning Rituals in the German-Speaking World
German-speaking mourning rituals differ perceptibly from the English court-mourning tradition - shaped by confessional division (Catholic / Protestant), middle-class sensibility, Biedermeier domesticity and an independent culture of memorial jewellery which carried different emphases in Vienna, Berlin and Munich according to region.
- PeriodsThe Georgian Era (1714–1837)
The Georgian era spans the reigns of the four kings George I to George IV and of William IV in Britain. In mourning jewellery it is the epoch in which sentimental jewellery was invented - sepia hair painting, the lover's eye, the miniature portrait on ivory, and the posy ring in transition to the memento mori ring.