The approximate meaning of amber

Amber is a mixture of organic compounds formed by the geological action of the resins of plants of the Pinaceae family from the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic to the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic. In layman's terms, its ancestor is the pine tree. The formation of amber generally has three stages, the first stage of resin secretion from the cypress pine tree; the second stage of resin shedding was buried in the forest soil, within this stage of petrification, in which the role of fossilized resin, the composition, structure and characteristics of the strong changes; the third stage of petrification of resin was washed away, transported and precipitation, the role of rock-forming amber was formed.

Amber is an organic substance composed of C, H, and O. It also contains trace elements such as Al, Mg, Fe, and Mn. Amber has a variety of different shapes, such as reniform, nodular, verrucous, and discoid. Bluff amber is soft, with a hardness of 2-2.5, and light, with a relative specific gravity of 1.05-1.09. It has a resinous luster and is transparent to translucent. The color of amber is also varied, commonly golden yellow, yellow to brown, light red, orange-red, black, etc., blue, light green, mauve is rare. Amber softens when heated to 150°C, begins to decompose, and melts at 250°C, producing white vapors and emitting a pine scent. The richest and most meaningful are the inclusions inside amber. There are plant inclusions, such as umbrella pines, seeds, fruits and leaves; and animal inclusions, such as beetles, flies, mosquitoes, ants and bees. There are gas-liquid two-phase inclusions, such as round and oval bubbles and liquids; there are swirl patterns, mostly distributed around the insect inclusions, which are traces left behind by insects struggling; and there are also a lot of impurities, such as mud, gravel and debris. These rich inclusions not only constitute beautiful patterns, but also provide the most direct evidence for scientific study of the environment at that time. At present, scientists have successfully extracted the genetic code DNA of some organisms from the fossils contained in amber, which has a great impact on the study of biological evolution. The story of the American science fiction film Jurassic Park tells of scientists extracting DNA from a mosquito wrapped in amber that had sucked the blood of a dinosaur, and then using genetic engineering to breed dinosaurs, which eventually became a plague of dinosaurs ......

Amber is very light to wear because of its low density, plus it is uniformly colored and crystal clear, and its ornaments are popular with Westerners and Arabs. If it has a complete animal envelope inside, and signs of struggle, lifelike, this will be favored as a treasure. This amber has been described as "crystalline on the outside, alive on the inside". The largest amber in the world, weighing 15.25 kg and named "Burmese amber", was actually purchased by John Charles Bowring in Canton, China, in 1860 for 300 pounds and is now in the British Historical Museum in London. It is also listed in the Guinness Book of World's Largest Treasures. Amber is the product of the petrification of the secretions (resin, turpentine) of coniferous trees tens of millions of years ago.

Also known as "resin fossil" or "turpentine fossil".

I. Cultural Appreciation

The oldest story of the formation of amber is from Greek mythology, and was later written by the Roman poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses. In it, it is written that the Fayatunde sisters were transformed into black poplars, and the tears of the black poplars were transformed into amber. As a result, exhibitions on amber often use the theme of "tears of the gods".

Indigenous people in southern Mexico believe amber has magical powers and call it the "sunstone," and women there still wear amber bracelets for their babies as a good luck charm to ward off evil spirits.

There were also more imaginative views that amber was solidified from fragments of the sun, and that when the sun sank into the sea, the hot sun would quench and fall in fragments like hot iron in water, and a few fragments of the sun would quench and fall, and solidify in the sea water, drifting with the water.

Early amber was mostly owned by the aristocracy, and the amber worn by U.S. First Lady Martha Washington is still on display at the National Museum of American History.

Amber was also known as "amber spirit" in ancient China, and it was believed to have been transformed from the spirit of a tiger. Tiger is the king of beasts, so amber in the minds of the ancients has a high status, and believe that it has the role of suppressing evil, in addition to the role of the devil, widely used as a talisman, people often hang amber on the chest of the child, used to calm the fear of the gall bladder, but also hope that the child grows up to be strong and brave as a tiger. Taiwan and Hong Kong are also popular "amber has the function to avoid bad luck, cultivate the body and nourish the sex" such a view.

Amber has a subtle color, warm texture, and an unparalleled affinity for touching it, giving people a peaceful and quiet feeling.

Besides these aesthetics, amber is a "time tunnel" into the mysteries of antiquity.

Imagine a prehistoric virgin forest, where the resin secreted by the trees, by chance, fixed insects, plant fragments, pollen, air, moisture, etc., in a golden transparent "tomb", which, after millions of years of dust, provided scientists with important clues to recreate the scene of ancient nature.

Some people call amber "the eternity of the moment, the solidification of history".

The Tang Dynasty poet Wei Yingwu wrote a poem celebrating the insect amber: "It was once an old Poria, but it is a cold pine liquid, and the gnats fell into it, and it can be seen for a thousand years.

The amber trade reached a high point in the mid-1990s when people went on a buying spree for amber containing insects, influenced by the movie Jurassic Park.

The Amber Palace, known as the Eighth Wonder of the World, took 12 years to build in 1702, using amber from the Baltic Sea, and was constructed by Danish architects for King Wilhelm I of Prussia in a 55-square-meter building, which was later offered as a gift to Tsar Peter I of Russia. According to those who have been there, "the sunlight shone through the glass and the interior of the palace was golden, with a faint aroma of turpentine, as if it were a fairyland".

Amber, in addition to being used for decoration, is also a valuable Chinese medicine. According to "Shennong Ben Cao Jing", "amber is non-toxic, sweet and flat in flavor, and it is good for the five organs and the soul". It is used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat astringent pain in urination, blood in urine, palpitations and insomnia.

II. The gemmological properties of amber

Amber is an organic compound composed of C, H, O, the main component of succinic acid, succinic rosinic acid, another content of succinic oil, H2S and so on.

Amber is amorphous, often in the form of nodules, tumors, water droplets, produced in coal seams and other sedimentary rock layers.

Baltic amber weighs 8.8kg

Hardness is only 2-2.5, refractive index is 1.54.

Specific gravity is about 1.08, it can be suspended in saturated brine, and it is the lightest of the known gemstones.

Colors are yellow-honey yellow, yellowish brown-brown, light reddish brown, and light greenish brown.

The typical resin luster, transparent - translucent, toughness is poor, easy to break when external impact.

Amber is a very good insulator, friction charged phenomenon is obvious. Amber has poor thermal conductivity and is warm to the touch with the lips.

When heated to 150 degrees Celsius, it begins to soften and decompose, and when heated to 250 degrees Celsius, it melts and produces a white vapor, which gives off a pine scent.

In view of this, amber is often used as a hygienic incense, and the Germans refer to it as the "burning stone".

Legend has it that Zhao Feiyan, the empress of Emperor Chengdi of the Han Dynasty, had an amber pillow, which was used to take in the aroma while she slept.

Amber is soluble in H2SO4 and hot HNO3, and partially soluble in alcohol, gasoline and ether.

Cracks in the surface of amber can occur due to dehydration when exposed to sunlight or placed in an excessively dry environment.

III. Varieties of amber

1. Blood amber: red in color like blood, transparent.

2. Golden amber: golden yellow, bright yellow, transparent.

3. Amber: yellowish red, light red, transparent.

4. Beeswax: brownish yellow, golden yellow, translucent, waxy.

5. Gold Stranded Honey: transparent gold amber and translucent beeswax are intertwined with each other.

6. scented amber: amber with fragrance.

7. insect amber: amber containing animal remains.

4. Quality evaluation of amber

The quality evaluation of amber should be carried out in four aspects, namely, color, blockiness, transparency and inclusions:

1. Color: the best is the one with strong color, in which the highest value is red and green.

2. Blockiness: generally require a certain degree of blockiness, and the larger the better.

3. Transparency: clean and free of cracks, the more transparent the better, crystal clear for the best, translucent to slightly transparent for the second, inferior.

4. Parcels: amber can contain many kinds of animal and plant parcels, among which the one containing insects is the best. According to the degree of completeness, clarity, size and number of insects to determine the value of insect amber.

V. The origin of amber

There are many places of origin of amber. There are mainly Poland, Germany, Denmark, Russia and other countries along the Baltic Sea in Europe, and 80% of the amber sold on the international market is produced in the Baltic Sea area.

Russia's Samran is the world's largest amber mine.

The Dominican Republic also produces large quantities of high-quality amber, and 10% of the amber sold on the international market comes from there.

But Denmark was the first country to discover amber.

Amber is now found in Romania, the Czech Republic, Sicily (Italy), Norway, Great Britain, New Zealand, Lebanon, the United States, Myanmar, Canada, Chile and China.

Chinese amber is mainly produced in the Fushun Coal Fields, and there is a large amount of high-quality wormwood amber. Amber is also found in Henan, Yunnan and Fujian.

VI. Maintenance of amber

Amber and pearls belong to the same organic gemstones, volatile, corrosive substances to its detriment, general jewelry cleaning solution is not suitable for amber, maintenance of amber should be cleaned with lukewarm water, with a soft cloth to absorb the moisture, with a small amount of olive oil gently rubbed, that can be restored to amber's luster. In addition, as amber is very hard, it should not be worn by hard objects.

VII. Optimization of amber and imitations

1. Heat treatment:

The purpose of this treatment is to increase the transparency of the amber by heating it in vegetable oil, which is cloudy due to the large number of air bubbles. It is often characterized by the appearance of "sun rays" and "water lily leaf" cracks.

2. Recycled amber:

The method is to crush the amber to a certain size, remove the impurities by gravity flotation, and press it into shape under the pressure of 2.5×106Pb and the temperature of 200-230 degrees Celsius. Its identification characteristics are as follows:

a. Syrupy churning structure.

b. Granular structure under magnification.

c. The bubbles are flattened and elongated in a directional arrangement or contain unmelted material.

d. Bright chalky blue fluorescence under short-wave UV light rather than light white, light blue or light yellow fluorescence.

3. Dyeing treatment:

Natural amber reddens after exposure to air for a number of years, so the purpose of dyeing is to imitate the old. It is characterized by the concentration of red color within the clefts.

4. Characteristics of plastic imitation amber:

a. Plastic imitations, except polystyrene, sink in saturated salt water.

b. Plastic is cuttable and flakes off, while amber crumbles due to brittleness.

c. Amber has a pine-like odor, whereas the odor of plastic varies from species to species.

d. Plastic has a different refractive index than amber

Human society has long been interested in natural amber. British archaeologists have found amber in tombs over 12,000 years ago. Archaeologists have searched for amber artifacts in countries along the extended shores of the Baltic Sea. Ancient Egyptians also traveled north to the Baltic Sea on amber expeditions. Amber trade routes extended to ancient Greece around 1600 BC.

Natural amber absorbs sunlight and rain when it is formed, and compared to other fossils, it can more completely and clearly encapsulate the shape of the ecosphere, through which we can feel the world of tens of millions of years ago.

The formation of natural amber can be simply divided into three parts: resin - > Cobalt - > amber The resin secreted from the trees carries a strong flavor, and its form is liquid, which can be flowed, and a drop of resin becomes an aggregate; this polymer gradually hardens to form Cobalt; when the trees die, the Cobalt is buried in the mud and sediments, and it loses its volatility, and then petrifies to form amber over a long period of time. When the trees die and the copal is buried in the soil and sediments, it loses its volatility and petrifies over time to form amber. Many scientists believed that the most important factor in the formation of amber was time, and that the process of petrification took at least 2 to 10 million years. However, science is now proving that the formation of amber has a lot to do with the environment in which it was formed, as well as the sedimentary layers in which it was deposited.

By age:

Isle of Wight amber, UK

Scientists' great interest in Isle of Wight amber stems from its age. It comes from the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, 130 million years ago. Their predominant color is brown, accompanied by transparent yellow swirls of beeswax (cloudy), containing lots of plant fragments and pyrite crystals (pyrite crystal).

Amber has also been found in Britain at Murdoch and Succoth, older, about 140 million years, but no insects have been found in them.

Lebanese amber

Lebanese amber is predominantly yellow in color, and it contains a high number of fissures that make it very fragile. Similar amber has been found in the Middle East in Israel and Jordan. The insects found in Lebanese amber are also significant because they come from the Late Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era, 100 million years ago. This less abundant and fragile amber has little jewelry value.

Burmese amber

Burmese amber is mainly dark orange or dark red. The amber pieces contain plant fragments. Most of them were mined in the early 20th century in the abyss of the Hukawng Valley in Northern Burma. According to scientific tests Burmese amber aggregates microfossils from the seabed and extinct insect species that are around 60 to 120 million years old, pictured here is the world's largest natural transparent amber, housed in the Natural History Museum.

Sicilian amber, Italy

Sicilian amber is mostly orange or red. But it can also be green, blue and black. Generally beeswax is less common and are transparent. When polished they have a very dazzling surface. The age is about 60-90 million years.