hello out there,

the amber room is most likely lost. however, its disappearance has
little to do with the 'siege of leningrad', as it was in the castle
of kalinigrad, then koenigsberg, which until 1945 was a german city.
during the war it had been packed in crates and had been stored in
the cellars of the castle, from where it was to be removed once the
soviet army was approaching. there are many conflicting accounts of
what happened, several eye-witnesses saw the crates burn away in the
courtyard of koenigsberg castle (with a slimy green mess coming out
of them!), others saw them being driven away by the germans, and some
saw the treck being captured by the soviet army. whatever the story
is, there is not the slightest evidence of it having survived the end
of the war.

however, there are still cohorts of people about who are searching,
following similar evidence than the guy who waits for the monster of
loch ness to appear.

german tv showed a documentary last year on the amber room, and
reported on a group of restorers who are recreating the lost treasure
(there is one set of colour photographs around and several b/w). over
several years, they managed to create *one* panel, which looked very
stunning on screen. this might be on view in kalinigrad, together
with some kind of documentation.

regarding the theory about the amber room having been cut up and
re-used for jewellery, i do doubt it. not every pebble on the baltic
coast is amber, ok, but there is still plenty around - just pay a
visit to poland (not all of them are fake). and as i have understood
the construction of the amber room, it was made out of very thin
layers of cut amber, which would not be very useful for jewellery
anyway. apart from that, there would have been much more money in
selling a relic from this 'wonder of the world'.

best wishes

axel lapp
department of art history and archaeology
university of manchester

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