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Friday, February 20, 2009

The Amber Room - 8th Wonder of the World


Info for this post is from the Smithsonsian article by Jess Blumberg


Dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World," the room that once symbolized peace was stolen by Nazis then disappeared for good.


While many Americans associate amber with the casing for dinosaur DNA in 1993's Jurassic Park, the stone has enthralled Europeans, and especially Russians, for centuries because of the golden, jewel-encrusted Amber Room, which was made of several tons of the gemstone. A gift to Peter the Great in 1716 celebrating peace between Russia and Prussia, the room's fate became anything but peaceful: Nazis looted it during World War II, and in the final months of the war, the amber panels, which had been packed away in crates, disappeared. A replica was completed in 2003, but the contents of the original, dubbed "the Eighth Wonder of the World," have remained missing for decades.


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