A Year in Pictures – Amber Fish

[swan_tower]

This work by http://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

I actually can’t say for certain that these fish and discs are carved out of amber — they’re awfully white. But they were in the Amber Museum in Gdańsk, and that’s good enough for me!

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[mme_hardy]

Gaming counters -- which is what the fish are -- were usually carved out of mother-of-pearl or bone. The sheen in your picture makes me pretty sure that they're mother-of-pearl. (I'd think it very likely that the bars and coins are gaming counters, too, but I'm sure of the fish.)

[swan_tower]

Someone else suggested mother-of-pearl, yeah. You're probably right, based on appearances -- but it's weird, because EVERYTHING ELSE in that museum was amber.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Here via sartorias. That looks like mother-of-pearl from the photo. They might have been gaming tokens, depending on the era.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I would think so . . . except that everything in the display cases was amber, or stuff for working amber, or settings for amber things. It still might be mother-of-pearl, but if it is, it's very much an anomaly in their collection.

[squishymeister.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan! They don't look like any amber I've ever seen... but I'd hardly discount it, as it's a very variable material.