The Warsaw Amber Collection at the Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Warsaw

Alicja Pielinska

In 2007 we celebrate the 75 th anniversary of the establishing of the Museum of the Earth Society. Apart from its amber collection, the multi-department Museum of the Earth, currently operating as a unit of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), has geological, mineralogical, petrographic (including a significant number of meteorites), palaeobotanical and palaeozoological collections as well as materials – in its archives and library – from the history of geological sciences and the preservation of inanimate nature.

In 1951, ethnographer Adam Chetnik created the Amber Workshop at the Museum of the Earth, began collecting amber specimens (including folk art from the Kurpie region), opened the first amber exhibition in Warsaw at the Museum's new building in Aleja Na Skarpie and organised the first conference On Amber in Poland . A. Chetnik is also known as the creator of the amber collection at the Museum in Lomza and the founder of the Kurpie Open-Air Ethnographic Museum in Nowogrod Lomzynski. In 1958–1973, the Amber Workshop, later renamed the Amber Department , was headed by Zofia Zalewska – botanist and geographer. Since 1974, the Amber Department of the Museum of the Earth (PAN) has been headed by geologist Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz.

Specimens were obtained chiefly through purchase, exchange with collectors and were gathered from accumulations and deposits by the Academy's staff. A large portion of the specimens, especially the most recent ones, have come from donations.

The Collections

Today, the Warsaw Amber Collection is one of the largest collections of Baltic amber and other fossil resins in the world. The total number of 26,165 inventory entries includes collective entries used until the 1970s, so the actual number of items is much larger. They are stored in collections dedicated to amber forms, varieties, regional types (from Poland and throughout the world), plant inclusions, animal inclusions, archaeological and contemporary artefacts. The Museum also has a collection of amber imitations, a library of books on amber and botanical collections of contemporary comparative material.

The plant inclusion collection includes three very valuable liverwort holotypes, determined by R. Grolle. The animal inclusion collection – a real treasure-trove for palaeoentomologists and arachnologists – includes 120 arthropod holotypes, many of which have come from donations. To date, an illustrated monograph entitled Bursztynowy skarbiec [ The Amber Treasury ] was published in 2001, which catalogued a collection of almost 8,000 organic inclusions in Baltic amber collected by zoologist Tadeusz Giecewicz, who in 1972–1989 reviewed the amber extracted from Holocene deposits in beach mines by the Amber Extraction Plant of the Jubiler State Enterprise of Sopot, Poland.

The collection of natural forms of Baltic amber obtained from Sambian mines and post-glacial deposits and beach accumulations in Poland includes an especially valuable collection of amber nuggets weighing from 300 to 2,050 grams . Amber Nuggets – a Phenomenon of Nature ran as a temporary exhibition (2002–2005) and was accompanied by a catalogue.

The vast collection of fossil resins from several dozen sites from throughout the world is not only invaluable research material but is also showcased at the current exhibition of the Museum of the Earth in a wide selection.

Primary and secondary varieties of Baltic amber serve as material for research into the varied characteristics of individual nuggets, to observe changes in the properties of fossil resin as a result of oxidising and to develop conservation methods. The collection of amber varieties is presented comprehensively in the illustrated publication entitled Odkrywane piękno bursztynu [ The Beauty of Amber Revealed ] (2005), which also contains a second study: a catalogue of amber artefacts from those dated at the 17 th century to contemporary pieces.

The artefact collection documents a wide range of the designs used in amber craft from prehistory up to the present day, in Poland and abroad. This collection was accumulated with special emphasis on the burgeoning post-war Polish amber industry. These times are represented in the collection by mass-produced pieces, ornaments made by craftspeople, folk artists and the work of jewellery artists. The collection has been meticulously described in two catalogues covering its entirety (1996, 2005).

Amber imitations are collected by the Museum in order to recognise the changing range of materials imitating amber available on the market in the past and today and to examine their physical and chemical properties in order to identify forgeries.