{"id":16913,"date":"2014-05-19T12:34:11","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T10:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.amber.com.pl\/co-warto-wiedziec-o-inkluzjach-rozmowa-z-elzbieta-sontag\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T17:46:14","slug":"what-is-worth-knowing-about-inclusions-an-interview-with-elzbieta-sontag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/aktualnosci\/co-warto-wiedziec-o-inkluzjach-rozmowa-z-elzbieta-sontag\/","title":{"rendered":"What is worth knowing about inclusions \u2013 an interview with El\u017cbieta Sontag"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a result of the huge demand for Baltic amber, significantly more of its imitations and fakes have appeared on the market in recent years. Can the same phenomenon be observed in the case of inclusions in Baltic amber?
<\/strong>
Imitation and forged inclusions have been on the market forever, though I haven't noticed there being more of them nowadays. Perhaps that's because I most commonly encounter commercial inclusions at the Ambermart and Amberif fairs, and through direct contact with collectors and buyers. I haven't recorded a case of a forgery for a long time \u2013 until last week, when a tourist came to me who had bought two \u201einclusions\u201d: nice ones, in amber, set in silver. In one piece there was a perfect lizard, in the other a shell of about one and a half centimetres surrounded by moss. As it turned out, a shell with a hermit crab living in it. Two nicely made imitations, but I found it hard to believe you could buy a hermit crab in amber!!! They were apparently expensive, but how expensive, I don't know \u2013 the buyer was a tourist from Asia who spoke neither Polish nor English. He bought them in Gda\u0144sk, on the street, of course without any proof of purchase, which makes any complaint impossible for him. <\/p>\n

How not to get scammed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To buy inclusions, you need to have at least a minimal knowledge about them, as well as about amber. Purchases should be made in a shop, and the receipt must include information that it is an inclusion, either plant or animal, and in what kind of amber. After all, we wouldn't buy a ring with a large diamond from a random person at a market, but rather in a jewellery salon, where we would also demand a quality certificate for the stone. As long as buyers do not become conscious customers and do not ask for a proof of purchase, fake inclusions will continue to be present on the market. <\/p>\n

For what reasons do people buy inclusions? Are they treated as an investment or rather as a \u201egame\u201d for collectors?
<\/strong>
That is already a question for collectors. When studying inclusions, I rarely ask whether they are for commercial or collecting purposes. Most people around me are collectors and scientists, so inclusions are a passion for them \u2013 sometimes combined with earning money, of course. In my opinion, inclusions are difficult to treat as an investment, because the first inclusion is always the most valuable \u2013 the more of them there are, the more their value drops. So the first louse found in amber will be the most expensive, but once a second is discovered, the value of both will fall. The second reason is weathering: inclusions are much more susceptible to damage than amber. As a result of weathering, the appearance of the surface of a piece of jewellery simply changes: its colour, lustre, etc. Just an ageing effect, which may even increase the value of the jewellery \u2013 as is currently the case. In the case of inclusions, however, air that gets inside destroys them. After a dozen or so, sometimes several decades, it may turn out that instead of an animal inclusion, we are left with only weathered channels.

How should they be stored to avoid this unpleasant surprise?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything depends on the state of preservation of the inclusion. Heat must certainly be avoided, and preferably air as well. I suspect that sealing it in a vacuum container would be safe, but that is not a proven method. A proven method is embedding it in Canada balsam and mounting it under a microscope coverslip, which we use in the case of our most valuable specimens \u2013 holotypes.<\/p>\n

Which inclusions in Baltic amber are the most common and which are the least common?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Animal inclusions dominate, while plant inclusions, such as leaves, flowers or twigs, make up only about 3 % of all organic inclusions found. Among the animal ones, invertebrates are most commonly found, but the lucky ones can count on traces of vertebrates - lizards, bird feathers and mammal hair. Invertebrates are dominated by arthropods, but molluscs, annelids and roundworms are also found. Arthropods are most numerously represented by insects, and least by crustaceans. Among insects, flies are the most numerous, and fleas are a rarity.<\/p>\n

How often do spectacular inclusion discoveries happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our Department alone, 6 new species and two new genera of Diptera in Baltic amber were described in 2013. From a scientific point of view, discoveries of inclusions are quite frequent; every year a few or even a dozen or so new fossil species are added to science, new species common to Baltic amber from the Baltic, Ukrainian and Bitterfeld deposits are found, but will they be spectacular to people loosely connected with the subject? For the authors who described them and the collectors who donated them to museums, certainly yes. They are the first, sometimes the only ones, they prove something, they contradict something, they are another very valuable piece of palaeontological information. As I have noticed, being spectacular has nothing to do with uniqueness. The amber community was stirred a few years ago by Gabriela Gier\u0142owska's lizard, even though it was not the first lizard in Baltic amber. Later, a lizard with a tick appeared, which should have been more spectacular because it was the first and probably the only evidence so far of haematophagy, or blood-feeding, but as just another lizard it didn't make such an impression. At the Amberif fair, probably in 2006, another lizard was presented, and in 2008 the world's ninth scorpion and a real gem \u2013 the second solifugid in Baltic amber. This year, for the second time, a spectacular inclusion in Dominican amber was presented: an ant queen during copulation, in 2012 a fragment of a bird's egg, and in 2013 a fragment of a bee honeycomb. The mentioned invertebrate inclusions in Baltic amber or inclusions in Dominican amber are rarer than lizards, but on non-collectors they do not make as much of an impression as the lizards that are closer to us. Collectors are waiting for Amberif, for well-known collectors Jonas Damzen and Doug Landberg, <\/em>who always bring back some \u201egems\u201d. <\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>What was the absolute highlight this year?  
<\/strong>
<\/em>The first adult cicada in Baltic amber, brought by Jonas Damzen. <\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Does the trade in inclusions really pose a threat to scientific research? <\/strong>

<\/em>I invite you to a public lecture during the annual meeting of the World Amber Council. On the one hand, many, probably interesting specimens adorn rings and other jewellery, but on the other hand, we must be aware of the fact that were it not for the trade in inclusions, we would not have so much material for research. It is thanks to conscious \u201einclusion traders\u201d that we have a good number of new amber species.<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Dr El\u017cbieta Sontag is an expert on amber inclusions, an academic at the Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Parasitology of the UG, and the curator of the Amber Inclusion Museum. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interest in Baltic amber \u2013 primarily as a lucrative form of capital investment \u2013 is currently huge. Can the same trends be seen in the field of amber inclusions?<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":16912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Co warto wiedzie\u0107 o inkluzjach \u2013 rozmowa z El\u017cbiet\u0105 Sontag - Amber Portal","description":"Interest in Baltic amber \u2013 primarily as a lucrative form of capital investment \u2013 is currently enormous. Are the same trends visible in the field of inclusions?"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_sekcja":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[148,151,156,157],"sekcja":[245],"class_list":["post-16913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wywiady","tag-amberif","tag-inkluzje","tag-bursztynowa-komnata","tag-ambermart","sekcja-ludzie-opinie"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16913"},{"taxonomy":"sekcja","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sekcja?post=16913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}