gems, amber, amber identification, analytical, Europe, Baltic, Sicily, Croatia, Rome, Romans, glyptic, engraved gems, ancient gems, antique gems, ancient jewelry

The topic—amber from Aquileia and Split—is truly vast: both centers have yielded numerous artifacts made from the precious fossil resin. The extraordinary quantity of finds from Aquileia has long been known and is now fully illustrated in the very recent catalog by Carina Calvi, which gathers amber from Aquileia housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia itself, the Civic Museums of Udine, and the Civic Museums of History and Art of Trieste. But the real surprise is the quantity and quality of amber objects preserved at the Arheološki Muzej in Split—almost one hundred seventy cataloged by Jagoda Mardešić. These come largely from burials excavated in recent years in the vast western necropolis of Salona, and they are preserved together with the other items found in the grave goods, which often allows for precise dating. The amber pieces from Aquileia, on the other hand, were mostly excavated much earlier, between the mid-nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, in various Aquileian necropolises; today, they are mainly divided among the museums of Aquileia, Udine, and Trieste, whose amber collections consist largely of donations and acquisitions from private collections: those of Eugen von Ritter in Aquileia; Francesco di Toppo in Udine; and Vincenzo Zandonati in Trieste. Unfortunately, these amber objects are now for the most part separated from the materials with which they were originally found. In this regard, while little can be gleaned from Francesco di Toppo’s On some excavations carried out in Aquileia, published in 1869, useful information is instead found in the handwritten catalog of the Eugen von Ritter collection, compiled in 1901 during negotiations for the sale of the von Ritter collection to the Museum of Aquileia. This catalog also lists other objects that were part of the grave goods containing amber. Further associations are reported in the writings of Giovanni Brusin and, naturally, in the numerous excavation reports by Luisa Bertacchi and Franca Maselli Scotti, as well as in the meticulous inventory studies conducted by Annalisa Giovannini.