Natural Chiapas Amber from Mexico
- Natural Chiapas Amber from the TowerCrystals internet collection
Mayan Red Amber is extremely rare and difficult to mine. This extraordinary red amber is only found in Chiapas, Mexico. Rare examples of this amber have a green or blue sheen. This amber was still sap in the Miocene era, specifically the Oligocene era, 23.8 to 33.7 Million years ago. The tree that produced this is the leguminous Hymenaea courbaril, a close relative of the Hymenaea tree which produced the Dominican variety. Sometimes bugs, dirt, or leaf matter was trapped in the sap and fossilised inside of the amber.
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Mayan Amber Dragon Guarding the Solar System
The carvings were carefully crafted by skilled artisans in Bali working with this raw amber. The amber free forms are polished from the raw amber in Mexico. Only a small percentage of this amber is red. That is because the red is only skin deep, the inside is a brilliant gold. If it is carved too deep it is no longer red amber. At certain angles the light bouncing off the surface of this red amber gives it a green sheen.
Up to two thirds of the original raw amber is lost to the carving process.
