Central warehouse of amber in the Teutonic religious state was in the castle Sambian Lochstedt. The raw material was stored in barrels of sea water. Hence, the officially supplied the workshop Krolewiec and exported it to the west. Intermediate storage for the Gdansk and Elblag guilds were in the local castles komturskich. It is assumed that the material was coming from there characteristic amber-surrounding areas, and thus for the local production. After 1466, the Teutonic past amber rack from across the property of Polish kings, the Sambia remained in the hands of the Teutonic Knights. After 1525 he became the Regal Prince Albrecht Hohenzollern and his successors. Gdansk city council is the owner of the land resources belonging to the city. There was no shortage of other monopolists, however, the amber trade. Since 1533, a monopoly on the supply of raw amber workshops in Gdansk took the merchant Paul Jasky (Jaschke, Geschke). This is an issue known. I recall, however, that the characteristics of Gdansk requested a number of complaints against Paul, among others to the king himself. Jasky accused of `emu that all the raw materials and ransomed it in stock, and those who asked for the sale, extract inferior species. The better export or transmit his amber jeweler. With this shocking contemporary craft closer to read the opinion of Sigismund Augustus during your stay in Gdansk in 1552. King agreed with the guild. He ordered the mayor and council to force a monopolist to sell half of the stored material masters of Gdansk. However, the characteristics, in order for the future independence from Jasky `s, looking for other sources of raw amber, including in Oliwa. Right there, in the shadow of the walls of the monastery, the monks worked in the care of many serwitorzy not belonging to the Gdansk's guild, which will be loud in the next century. Tezauryzowany amber pomnażał not state whether the treasure of the city council. Stored in poor conditions, such as in a vault with low humidity, greatly lost its relevance to artistic treatment. Amber, which traded, richer the owner, made a boom in demand, it was generally an upward trend.
Indirectly, also found in these sources to clarify some form of miniature mebelków amber in the seventeenth-century cabinets, so. "Doll houses", known in Dutch Interior affluent mansion. Distinct features derived from Gdansk amber workshops, allowing the presumption that the creator of these fun items acquires a master's in Gdansk, from which he emigrated to Amsterdam in search of opportunities to practice his profession, and here he married mieszczkę Amsterdam. Different kinds of old prints make a surprise. "Historyja Słowan Edward Boguslawski, published in Krakow in 1888, was to be an example of a revolution in the spelling of the Polish language. A comprehensive account of the trade of amber contains known from other sources of information, but it certainly deserves to be recorded due to the form of record, "this trade Pocątek Sega predhistorycne casy away." Inexhaustible source of artistic treatment of the history of amber are published and unpublished archival material, including:
records of the treasuries and the royal estates, and ecclesiastical magnates, such as, for example, "Registry of things after the Swedes and Swedish zostających escaping, written in 1661 on 1 December at Wiśnicz" listing only a few surviving after looting, objects made of amber. Once more, so the title register, we turn to inventories and collections of the castle in Skoklos ter in Sweden to find some amber monuments undoubtedly Polish provenance;
relationships travelers and diplomats. Crown example, used in many publications, records are started by the papal legate at the time of King Sigismund Augustus Giovanni Francesco Commendone, but after just a few years is known Diary of trip to Europe in 1652 " Giacomo Fantuzziego - equally valuable for the history of amber in Gdansk
resources of the court records reveal disputes about the purchase and supply of raw materials so abundant in the Archives in Gdansk, only that it may be testimony to the scale, and also difficulties in the development of this branch of artistic craftsmanship;
Various sources that are difficult to acquire a password, which can be valuable references such as the gifts made of amber or natural chunk sent as talismans, or the wishes of good health. So the list, reminiscences, diaries, in which quite accidentally come across a mention notable, are still not sufficiently up ones resources by researchers. And yet it is very important for the history of amber, the young nobleman John Ługowski staying on science in Italy in a letter of July 10, 1660, asks his father for "an object with amber," which would give a certain rzymianinowi as something "beautiful of Polish." Kazimierz Chłędowski recalls in his memoirs (1843 - 1880) neighbors, the Counts of Zarnowiec Mierów "" He was a major in the Austrian army, like a barrel facecjonat obese, always kept his pipe in his mouth for at least five feet long with huge amber cybuchu. "What is the diversity of these relevant to the history of amber trinkets of information, let them serve one more quote from a letter to Zygmunt Krasinski Dolphins Potocka written from Warsaw on August 28, 1845
"The thing I'm sending you a gift consisting of national Shoes, broth, porridge, amber, cumin, Amber and cumin in a leather gift box About one shelf inside their differences The numerals and a black crown thy ... "
There is only one mention of amber in correspondence with Delfina Potocka bard. November 22, 1845, he wrote from Vienna to Dialy "/.../, Dialy - soon we'll be together, tears obleję Thy feet ... They're taking you to amber and cumin and Hungarian wine and broth. In the worst agony I have not forgotten anything, even though blood so he struck in the head, like a certain death. " In these letters amber back a few times, and the context treściowy is proof of their great faith both in the healing power of amber. Selected almost at random from a resource rich source of amber passages quoted above, they testify that it's unusual happens, you can merge these crumbs of information as a mosaic, which forms a very colorful, multi-layered, and yet truest story.
This river was called the Eridanus and carried with it huge amounts of amber-tree trunks that settled in the delta of the river and formed deposits of amber. But that's not the end of the journey of amber, it is true the vast majority remained in the area of the delta sambijskiej but small amounts have been moved much further, and now you can find single specimens of amber in almost all Polish. Baltic amber has about 40 million years, so the myths about the DNA code contained on this resin, we can confidently put the cartoons. Sam amber is a resin similar to that which we can observe the "skaleczonych" trees just a little bit older (40 million years difference is not much life from the perspective of the Earth). Despite the fact that man knows the amber from ancient times, this aggregate is still a lot of secrets are closely guarded. Although you can often find pieces of amber with embedded fragments of the tree that gave him life it still do not know what kind of tree was the source of this precious stone. The secret is the reason for the rich "bleeding" trees, perhaps in the prehistoric forest lived a mysterious beast that for some reason okaleczało trees causing them to release abundant resin?. Of course, where the science does not meet our imagination and looks at mythology, people have tried to explain the origin of amber. One of the myths told about the mysterious island Serita which was to be "woody species of cedar, amber, from which flowed onto the rocks." Only in the nineteenth century German botanists have identified a group of trees that could produce resins of Pinus succinifera. However, this argument was undermined by the Polish palaeobotanist M. Kostyniuka in 1961, who described the group of trees that spring was Aghatis australis amber, which today are covered with Australia and New Zealand. Kostyniuk built his theory on the basis of chemical composition of the resin. But you can not say unequivocally that the assertion is true, because the research is proving the old theory of the German. Currently, ongoing studies and their results provide arguments against a pine tree, well, scientists still do not know exactly what the tree gave birth to amber and probably not soon prove with certainty that it is one and not another group of trees. We do not know exactly how was this precious resin, but we were brought from as far north in areas which currently is extracted. Long ago, our region looked very different on the Polish coast of the present had its mouth of a mighty river which was the source in what is now Scandinavia, and flowed right through the measure of today's Baltic Sea. This river was called the Eridanus and carried with it huge amounts of amber-tree trunks that settled in the delta of the river and formed deposits of amber. But that's not the end of the journey of amber, it is true the vast majority remained in the area of the delta sambijskiej but small amounts have been moved much further, and now you can find single specimens of amber in almost all Polish.
In periods of stationary glacier water flowing from them resulted in the formation of ice deep valleys and the elevation of material on their backlog. In this way amber along with the entire mass of earth and stones, flowed to the south. However, the travel conditions were completely different from those prevailing in Eridani, this time not amber floated in water but in a huge mass of mud, which brought with it everything that was under a glacier. Pieces of amber were crushed, ground in a natural way. Amber in the fields plotted by the glacier is very small. Pieces of amber can be found almost everywhere in Poland, this is the same amber which we extract the delta Eridani. Over millions of years due to many factors individual specimens were transferred outside the delta, however, the biggest hike of amber was relatively recently. Over the past one million years the Earth has witnessed huge fluctuations in climate that led to the great ice age. In periods of stationary glacier water flowing from them resulted in the formation of ice deep valleys and the elevation of material on their backlog. In this way amber along with the entire mass of earth and stones, flowed to the south. However, the travel conditions were completely different from those prevailing in Eridani, this time not amber floated in water but in a huge mass of mud, which brought with it everything that was under a glacier. Pieces of amber were crushed, ground in a natural way. Amber in the fields plotted by the glacier is very small, and if we are dealing with a larger specimen it is usually crippled or shaped and polished, it is impossible to meet the lump about the natural shape. During the four glacial movements have significant quantities of raw material, but no way to determine which of them escaped from the delta most of the resin. Despite such drastic conditions of transport of the largest block of Baltic amber comes from glacial deposits. Amber found in 1860 near Kamien Pomorski weighs 9.75 kilograms, and is owned by the University Museum of Natural History. Humboldt. Beautiful Baltic amber specimens can be found at the Amber Museum in Gdansk, which would encourage a visit.