Vintage Handmade Polish Graduating Amber Segment Necklace 113.8g Length 80 cm
Extremely beautiful handmade naturalistic style necklace featuring delightful natural shaped semi-polished amber bead sections. The amber beads are strung on silk thread with individual knots in between each piece of amber. The necklace is made up with lots of different tones and has amazing swirls of opaque butterscotch amber, mixed in with clear amber and some pieces with inclusions and abstract patterns. The inclusions look like some kind of organic material. The rich cognac and honey tones are so warm and the amber is naturally shaped. The necklace is great length to just throw over your head and enjoy.
Dimensions are as follows:
Smallest bead 1.3 cm x 8 mm- largest 3.5 cm x 2.2 cm
Length of necklace 80 cm
Weight 113.86 grams
A Little History of Polish Amber
Polish amber Jewellery had a major resurgence from the 1960s onwards. Though historically, the oldest traces of amber workshops on Polish soil date back to over 6000 years ago. Examples of which were found in the Niedźwiedziówka settlement, near the coastal city of Gdańsk. Ambers origins were a mystery at that time and could only be explained with a myth.
This myth became a popular Polish legend that the amber nuggets found washed up on the beaches were actually debris from the sea goddess Jurata's underwater palace. Her residence had been destroyed, in a fit of jealously by a mighty god called Perkin, who was infuriated by her relationship with a fisherman. She dared to fall in love with a mortal and he sent a lightning bolt from the sky, sadly killing her and shattering her amber palace into pieces.
from Lucjan Siemieński, Polish, Ruthenian & Lithuanian Legends and Tales, 1845
It is more widely known about the origins of amber today, that before it washed up on the shores of the Black Sea, it originated from a coniferous tree called 'Araucarias of the genus Agathis' in what we now call Scandinavia. These trees were prolific producers of liquid gold tree sap that fossilised into precious amber over 400 million years. The trees produced the sap to protect from boring insects and heal injuries. The name Amber is essentially restricted to fossil resin of Baltic provenance.
