AMBER: the Nordic Gold, Amber School, Copenhagen Amber Museum
Denmark has one of the unique museums in the world: Copenhagen Amber Museum. A museum for amber? Yes. At this museum of amber one can learn how amber was formed 30-50 million years ago, and to explore the history of amber. Amber was, and is, the precious Nordic Gold. During summers, the museum also conducts workshops on amber.
Amber is a natural product of nature but takes millions of years to form. Amber is created by resin as a result of pressure in the seabed and the pressure in the soil. The beauty in ambers is teased out when it is worked on it by a jeweller. The jewellery made of amber such as pendants and bracelets, chains and rings are sought after especially among the Nordic countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland).
AMBER MUSEUM:
Copenhagen Amber Museum, located at one of the oldest houses in the Danish capital on Kongens Nytorv, run and owned by House of Amber the amber jewellery chain of stores. The museum has amber antiquities, amber artefacts, biggest amber find (amber rock caught by a fisherman instead of fish) and entombed insects or insects trapped in resins. One of the prized collections of the museum is a large piece of amber weighing 47.5 kilos dating back to 15-25 million years and it was found in Dhramasraya, West Sumatra, Indonesia.
AMBER SCHOOL:
For those interested in learning to make jewellery out of amber, there is a school that teaches how to make beautiful jewellery or ornaments out amber but the requirement for the course is PATIENCE and ‘a minimum of FINGER SKILL’. Rav MadsHus’ at Blåvand in Denmark teaches how to work on amber to make jewellery. Mads Frederik Augustenborg Madsen was an oldest amber grinder in the world when he was alive but he died in 1954. On the Danish west coast, Mads Frederik Augustenborg Madsen was known as ‘Rav Mads’ and ‘Amber Mads’. He devoted most of his life to extract the beauty out of ambers, and he did made a living by selling the amber ornaments from his studio and by selling the amber jewellery from his bike. However, since the master grinder’s craft in amber is shared to others at the amber school in the village called Ho near Blåvand in Denmark.
AMBER & JEWELLERY:
At a shop in the Frederiksborg Castle near the Museum of Natural History next to the historic gate to the Baroque garden in Copenhagen, one can buy handmade high quality natural amber and designer silver jewellery.
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