The Mizgiris' Amber Museum

Contacts
Address: Šv. Mykolo g. 8, LT-01124, Vilnius
Tel. (+370 ~ 5) 262 30 92.
Fax (+370 ~ 5) 262 30 92.
E-mail: info@ambergallery.lt 
http://www.ambergallery.lt

Information for Visitor

Opening hours:
Monday to Sunday 10–19.

Exposition
There you will get acquainted with the beauty and the mystery of Baltic amber of different form, size and color. We have a unique collection of inclusions: among millipedes, spiders and other insects you will see a wonderfully preserved gastropod shell in amber, a rarity. You will also see the reconstructed "treasure of Juodkrantė". In the cellar there is a valuable archaeological find - a 15th century complex of furnaces used for baking ceramics with authentic earthenware. In the Amber Gallery you will have an opportunity to see a display of articles by artists who work in this medium.

Baltic amber
Amber is one of nature's most fascinating products: its beauty, its glitter, warmth and mystery have fascinated mankind for thousands of years. Amber is warm, light, and pleasant to touch. Even in our time something magical rests within amber, and many carry the stone as an amulet or talisman. We know that Baltic amber is fossil resin produced by pine trees which grew in Northern Europe about 50 million years ago. The resin was washed out of the forest floor by large rivers and transported south towards the sea. In the course of time the resin was transformed to amber due to processes of polymerization and oxidation. Extensive transport of Baltic amber took place during the Ice Age when glaciers extended over northwest Europe. Therefore amber can be collected on the beaches of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
Baltic amber can be traced back to the early beginning of the history of mankind. Most of the prehistoric amber artifacts from the late Stone Age (3000 years BC) were found at the end of the 19th century, excavating the bottom of the Curonian Lagoon at Juodkrantė. Richard Klebs described this famous collection called the "treasure of Juodkrantė" in 1882. From the 434 pieces of this treasure only a small number survived the Second World War.
Organisms embedded in amber are called "inclusions" (lat. Includere). This kind of preservation of fossil plants and animals is one of nature's unique phenomena. Fossils are delicately preserved in these "golden tombs". Thanks to the transparency of amber, scientists can study the tiniest structures. Most often small and winged animals were trapped in the sticky resin. Approximately 86% of the inclusions are insects, about 12% are spiders, 1,5% belong to other groups of animals and only 0,5% of inclusions are plants.
The form of natural amber pieces reveals the process of amber formation. They might be of internal origin was formed when resin filled chinks inside trees or between the bark and trunk; external amber was formed at the bark then heavy secretion of resin arose from cut places as a sign of disease. Externally formed amber has a variety of typical forms, such drops and stalactites.
Mostly Baltic amber is yellow but there are plenty of delicate tints - from light yellow to dark brown, orange, reddish brown, almost white. Even green and blue amber is found. Not always amber is even colored: there are unique combinations of two or more colors and tints - sometimes they make magnificent artistic compositions. Amber can be absolutely transparent or totally opaque. Colors of amber were influenced by changes in resin when it leaked out: evaporating volatile elements could form in transparent resin plenty of gas microbubbles, which "roiled" the resin (yellow amber); this intensive process in 1 sq. mm of resin could make up to 1 million such bubbles (white amber). Blue tint formed then FeS2 admixtures got in resin fallen on soil-amber of blue tint is the most rare. Green amber formed when small parts of plants got in the resin, black amber - when resin mixed up with soil, small parts of wood bark.