Amber Listserv / New book on amber

[JOHN FUDALA]

Hi,

the link works fine for me, but in anu case, here is the text:

 *Amber in Ribnitz-Damgarten (Germany)*

*IT'S WORTH SEEING*

Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz, 2006

On 7 April 2006, the German Amber Museum was opened in Ribnitz-Damgarten,
half way between Rostock and Stralsund in north-eastern Germany. The
exhibition by Museum Director Ulf Erichson (ethnographer) with texts by Dr
Wolfgang Weitschat (geologist) of Hamburg was opened with the ceremony of
the giving of the key to the Museum to Director Ulf Erichson by the City
Mayor.

The Amber Museum was converted in 1975 from the small Heimatmuseum (which
had operated in the town since 1954) and over the years expanded its
collection which showed the positive development of the institution. The
long-standing ties of the Amber Department of the Museum of the Earth of the
Polish Academy of Sciences, initially with director Hans Erichson and his
wife - an employee of the Ribnitz Museum, and then with their son Ulf,
allows us to say with hindsight that the development of the Museum is the
accomplishment of the members of the Erichson family, committed to their
work as museum-keepers and collectors, and important to the town. Today,
Erichson Junior, the next ethnographer in the family who took over from his
father in 1991, is the Museum's Director. At Hamburg Airport I was greeted
by the director's younger brother, while his wife, who runs a café in the
Museum, waited with coffee. No one reproaches them for nepotism, and the
Museum is a success.

Following two and a half years of major renovation, the medieval cloister of
the nuns of the Order of St Clare (its history can be learned at a separate
exhibition) holds a new and entirely different amber exhibition shown over
an impressively large area of 1,000 m2, taking up three floors. The
specimens, some of which were exhibited in the neighbouring convent church
during the renovation, shine in their full lustre in the brand new
arrangement and stands. Besides the Museum's own specimens, a small
percentage of the exhibition is made up by archaeological specimens borrowed
from the Gottingen collection (the former Königsberg collection) and
artefacts from the former Preussag Foundation, now the TUI Tourist Company's
Foundation of Hannover.

No amount of criticism - which even the most experienced museologists must
always be prepared for - can lessen the impression that is *most evident at
the exhibition: that of the high exhibition value of the showcased specimens
* (equal to their material value).

On the lowest floor we can see raw Baltic amber and other fossil resins,
amber-bearing sediments, animal and plant inclusions. The higher floors
exhibit amber artefacts from the prehistoric to the contemporary. All the
exhibited topics are complete with abundant commentary on large boards, well
visible from afar. Apart from colour photographs, there are very old black
and white illustrations which help understand the methods of amber
extraction and the history of its processing. The photographs have a Polish
connection: a picture showing the extraction of amber from Holocene
sediments using the hydraulic method, while a display cabinet holds the
extracted output in a large ceramic bowl. The television screens mounted on
the walls are not only informative. You can find a documentary entitled
Deutscher Bernstein from 1934 showing amber fishing from the sea in the area
of former Palmnicken. Another film lets us find out about contemporary
extraction in the Yantarny mine and the process of obtaining amber from blue
earth: from the rinsing and the first sieves to the sacks placed in
storehouses.

The organic inclusions, often designated lower than to a family, are quite
impressive, surprising in their size and scarcity. The exhibition includes
the only known gecko fragment trapped in Baltic amber, classified as a new
genus and species: Jantarogekko balticus Bauer, Böhme, Weitschat, 2005, a
lizard: Succinilacerta sp, a scorpion well visible to the naked eye (also a
new species): Palaeoanantoris ribnitiodamgatensis, and a flea. Furthermore,
there are many more spectacular animal inclusions.

When looking at the plant inclusion exhibition, a lay visitor would not
guess how rare these inclusions are - there are almost as many of them as
there are animal inclusions and they are equally unique in terms of their
size! A furcate bald cypress branch is almost 10 cm long. Moreover, there
are flowers, flower parts, needles of coniferous trees and many more
specimens related to the amber-bearing forest.

Visitors can see a forest reconstruction as a mural on one of the larger
walls. It was painted by Tina Rhode (a painter from Roggentin) according to
the scientific consultation by Dr. Weitschat. The reconstruction also serves
as the exhibition poster called "Life in the Amber Forest 50 Million Years
Ago" (for some reason it is called an installation on the poster).

Though we still have to wait for the exhibition catalogue, we can already
indicate yet more solutions and specimens which seem to be of special
interest. The blue earth is shown in the form of a stratigraphic profile
(about 100 x 60 cm), made directly from a mine wall, as one can see in a
photograph. The amber in the Pleistocene is presented against the backdrop
of a large photograph of a glacier and diagrams showing the development of
glacial sediments. The amber in the Holocene is presented in a display case
(about 120 x 120 cm), in which our good friend Rolf Reinicke (a geologist
from the Museum in Stralsund) "made" a beach with amber, wood, shell
fragments and organic remains: the lightest material washed out on the sand
during undulation.

Fossil resins are represented by, among others, a glessite specimen unique
in its size (IRS in the Museum of the Earth archives), weighing 804 g,
initially 855 g. It was discovered in 1977 in Braunkohletagebau Lübbenau bei
Cottbus. This is probably the largest glessite nugget in Europe.
Archaeological artefacts, mainly originals from Gottingen, begin the series
of showcases dedicated to amber processing.

There are few artefacts from the 16th - 17th centuries, but it is common
knowledge that any artefact from the heyday of amber processing is worth
more than its weight in gold. There is a House Altar with gilded decoration,
or in simpler terms: a cross with Christ (with the arms missing) by
Christoph Maucher; a Gdańsk artefact from 1650. There are also two
Gdańsk-made figures of the apostles on wooden bases from about 1650 and a
double Gdańsk chest from about 1680; moreover, two other small altars with
St Mary, the saints and a cross and other small artefacts, such as a
magnifying glass and A Child in Trouble from the 17th century (on deposit).

The exhibition includes a small stamp of Ada von Bergham of Greifswald and
its magnified copy, on which one can clearly see a portrait of a lady in a
four-leaf frame with her hair wound around her ears. Similar stamps are
known from one of the monasteries in northern England, from Scotland and
four more from England.

Folk artefacts from the 19th century are represented by short engagement
necklaces (Brautkette) made of transparent amber, fastened with decorative
large clasps. The necklaces take their names from place names such as
Bückeburger, Lindhorster (TUI deposit) or Brunswick. The beads are crystal
cut. In another display case there are two "longer necklaces" made of
similar beads but without clasps: one can call them very long necklaces
indeed.

The beads extremely similar to two necklaces in Polish collections, one from
the Museum of the Earth Collection, purchased in 1958 and most recently
dated at the 17th century based on an analogy with the necklace of Duchess
Dorothea Sybilla of Brieg of 1610, whose documentation was preserved in the
former Silesian Museum (für Kunstgewerbe und Altertümer) in Wrocław. Part of
this necklace was purchased in 1970 from the Wrocław Desa chain to the
collection at the Museum in Malbork. The similarity, apart from the
perfectly transparent amber and large beads, consists in the crystal cut -
called "crease cut" in the Kurpie region - uneven, random, adapted to the
curves of the surface rather than to any planned bead shape. They are also
characterised by their smooth surfaces around the holes, which leads to the
flattening of the generally spherical shapes.

The exhibition presents many items from the collection of the Königsberg
factory (SMB), which operated from 1926 to 1945; its 1998 study (Erichson,
Tomczyk 1998) was a guide to a temporary exhibition organised at the time.
New purchases include the works of Toni Koy (1896-1989), whose name, next to
that of Jan Holschuh (1909-2000) and Herman Brachert, who is the author of
the often published sculpture called Rising in the Air (Schwebende), is
mentioned among the best-known of the Königsberg masters of the 20th
century.

The exhibition also includes a photograph of master Werner Lux. This
venerable amber craftsman began his career in Königsberg, and now lives in
Ribnitz; since 1954, when he obtained the title of master craftsman, he has
been one of the few to train eager young people to work with amber
artefacts. We can see the studio (Ribnitzer Bernstein-Drechslerei GmbH)
where Lux works near the Museum, through an exhibition window in which an
amber candlestick is placed - someone's work performed for an apprentice's
exam (after three years of studies) and a globe - for a master's exam (after
further years of studies).

A rather large collection presents, in chronological order (the 1950s,
1960s, etc.), jewellery manufactured in the VEB Ostseeschmuck jewellery
factory in Damgarten. Publicity artefacts for export are also exhibited.
Unfortunately, only a very trained eye can attempt to tell artefacts made of
Bitterfeld amber from those of Baltic amber. The Goitsche mine operated
until 1993, and the factory in Damgarten was its main customer. The
authorities of the former GDR, however, were interested in keeping matters
related to any Tertiary raw material confidential, so there are very few
studies from that period, with products signed only as "Baltischer
Bernstein."

The most contemporary design is placed in separate rooms. Since 1993, the
Museum in Ribnitz has been organising international competitions to collect
the most modern artefacts in the categories of jewellery, sculpture and
appliances. The Museum purchased most of the awarded works to its collection
and today it can boast a rich (perhaps the richest?) collection of
contemporary European artworks. The Polish works here include works by such
artists as Paulina Binek of Gdańsk, Izabela Borys of Malbork, Andrzej Boss
of Toruń and Dariusz Zarański of Gdynia.

Besides the exhibition, there is also a workshop on the second floor where
one can see amber being processed behind a glass wall. You can buy a raw
amber nugget and cut it, polish it or even string it on a leather strap
yourself. There is also a shop with amber products and books. On the wall by
the shop hangs an especially long necklace (120 m, weighing 27 kg!) made by
the townspeople on Amber Day organised by the Museum.

The highest, third floor houses a collection of sculptures from 1984-1989 by
well-known artist Jan Holschuh, who began his career in the 1930s in
Königsberg, and then worked as artistic director at the SBM. Polish amber
art lovers had an opportunity to see several works by Jan Holschuh at an
exhibition organised by Director Ulf Erichson at the AMBERIF '03 Fair.

The Eridanos Amber Gallery near the cloister is the supplement to the
exhibition, as Erichson calls it; there you can buy the most contemporary
artistic jewellery, including jewellery from Poland.

Moreover, Damgarten - the western part of the town of Ribnitz-Damgarten,
which belongs to Vorpommern (while Ribnitz is part of Mecklemburg) - is the
location of the VEB Ostseeschmuck, today Schau Manufaktur Ostsee-Schmuck,
amber product factory mentioned above. Considerably downsized, it currently
employs about 30 people. It combines an ample display of the products it
offers with a presentation of the individual stages of processing. The
workshops can be seen from the corridor through large windows.

Amber is an enormously important gemstone for Ribnitz-Damgarten and both the
city authorities and all those who see an opportunity in the development of
tourism know this very well. Judging from the number of visitors at the
Museum, which even before the renovation was at around 90,000 per year, the
link has already been made.

*Literature cited:*

Erichson U., L.Tomczyk, 1998. W: Erichson U. (ed.) - Die Staatliche
Bernstein Manufaktur Königsberg 1926-1945. Ribnitz-Damgarten.

A.,M. Bauer, W. Böhme & W. Weitschat 2005: An Early Eocene gecko from Baltic
amber and implications for the evolution of gecko adhesion. J.Zool London
265, 327-332


On 3/30/08, TOM BUCKLEY <tbuck22 at optonline.net> wrote:
>
>  John,
>
>     The link only took me to the Association's main page. From there I
> clicked on "Literature" and came to a blank page?
>
> Tom
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* JOHN FUDALA <ambersafari at gmail.com>
> *To:* tamber12 at aol.com
> *Cc:* Amber at ambericawest.com
> *Sent:* Friday, March 28, 2008 7:21 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Amber Listserv / New book on amber
>
> This article on Amber Association's web site, "*Amber in Ribnitz-Damgarten
> (Germany)"
> *gives you actually a perfect description of the book. Worth reading as
> much as the book itself.
> http://www.amber.org.pl/en/index.php?p=pokaz&id_m=3&id_pm=15
>
> On 3/27/08, tamber12 at aol.com <tamber12 at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > Way to go, Wolfgang!  He printed it in English!!!
> >
> > We had many email discussions years back about his book Plants and
> > Animals in Baltic Amber, and whether or not to do an English version.  He
> > learned!!!
> >
> > This looks great, I might have to get one for myself.
> >
> > Tammi
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: JOHN FUDALA <ambersafari at gmail.com>
> > To: amber at ambericawest <Amber at ambericawest.com>
> > Sent: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:00 pm
> > Subject: Amber Listserv / New book on amber
> >
> >  Hello Folks,
> >
> > at the Amberif Fair, Ulf Erichson (Director, German Amber Museum
> > Ribnitz- Damgarten) and Dr. Wolfgang Weitschat (Geological- Paleontological
> > Institute & Museum, University of Hamburg) presented their new book: Baltic
> > Amber; Origin, deposits, inclusions. Amber in art and cultural history.
> > Exhibition Catalogue, German Amber Museum, Ribnitz- Damgarten, 2008
> >
> > Very neat book, the natural history part covered by dr. Weitschat and
> > the cultural history by Ulf Erichson. Lots of color pictures, reproductions
> > of old maps and art. Interesting presentation of amber origins, science and
> > beauty of inclusions. And the museum collections, artist profiles, treasure
> > finds descriptions.
> > It can be ordered thru the museum's website, although it is not shown in
> > their listing yet.
> > www.deutsches-bernsteinmuseum.de
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > Amber mailing list
> > Amber at ambericawest.com
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> >
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> >  ------------------------------
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> > .
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