缅甸琥珀简史（英文）

德道 · 发表于 2010-10-30 22:01:14

本帖最后由德道于 2010-10-30 22:21 编辑

Burmite or Burmese amber has been known since the distance past. This amber is from the Hukawng Valley in Kachin
State the northenmost state in the union of Myanmar formally known as Burma . According to ancient Chinese sources
amber from the Hukawng Valley was mined as early as the first century AD and shipped to Yannan Province in China .
From there, burmite may have found its way along the Silk Road as far west as the Roman Empire , where amber was
highly prized. It is said that that a good piece of amber was worth the price of a slave. The oldest written record referring
to Burmese amber was in the Annals of the Han Dynasty (205-265 AD). Thus, burmite has been known for about two
thousand years. Much of the exquisitely carved Chinese amber has its origin in the Hukwang Valley . Amber was also
used and is still used in Chinese medicine.

The first mention of burmite in the western world by a European was by a Portuguese Jesuit Missionary Father Alvarez
Semedo in 1655. He noted that red amber from Yunnan Province in China . In 1738, there is another brief reference to
red amber from Yunnan Province by Du Halde.

In the 19th Century, there were a series of reports about the location and mining of Burmese amber By Brester (1835)
and Pemberton (1837). Captain S. F. Hannan was the first westerner to visit the amber mines in the Hukong (Hukawng)
Valley. He described the primitive mining method utilized by the miners to recover amber consisting of digging shallow
pits with sharpened bamboo and wooden shovels. Description of the amber mines was given by Griffith in 1848 from the
“Hookhoom” Valley. Some pits, he observed were up to forth feet deep.

In 1885, the British invaded and conquered Upper Burma deposing and sent into exile the Burmese Royal Family to
India . Burma became an annex of India . With the arrival of the British the main trading route in amber went south to
Mandalay rather than to China .  The Geological Survey of India sent Dr. Fritz Noetling to evaluate the resources of
northern Burma in 1892. Amber recovered from the Hukwang Valley was examined by Otto Helm who gave the name
burmite to the amber from that area. Noetling also noted the presence of insects in amber thought to be from the area in
1893.

In the first half of the twentieth century, scientific study and production continues until 1939.  With the advent of the
Second World War, both the production and study languished until the 1990’s. This was due not only to the war but also
internal turmoil within Burma following its independence from Britain in 1947.

Cockerell (1917) published the first scientific paper on insect inclusions in burmite. He considered burmite to be possibly
Upper Cretaceous in age. The Indian Geological Survey published yearly production figures from the Myitkyina District
from 1898 until 1940. During this period a total of approximately 82,656 kilograms of amber were produced from the
Hukawng Valley . Scientific papers during this period include work by Stuart (1922), Cocherell (1922), Williamson
(1932), and Chibber (1934). These authors concluded that the age of burmite was Eocene or about the same age as
Baltic amber. This interpretation was based on a single observation of limestone debris dug from one of the amber pits.
Chibber (1934) contains the most detailed report of the amber mines in the Hukawng Valley during this period.

During the Second World War there was much fighting in the Hukwang Valley between the advancing allies and the
Japanese Army culminating in the fierce battle for Myitkyina  the capital of Kachin State in 1944. The war also saw the
construction of the Ledo Road through the Hukwang Valley from Ledo in India to Mytiknina to Lashio where it connected
up with the Burma Road to China . This road provided a back door to supply China with desperately needed war
material.

Since independence, Burma has been racked by internal insurgencies including fighting between the Kachin
Independence Army (KIA) and the government. It was not until the 1990’s that a peace treaty was signed and limited
access to the amber mine was possible. In 1989, the county was renamed Myanmar , which was the original Burmese
name of the country.

Since the beginning of the Second World War until recently there was been a sixty year hiatus in production. Dr. David
Grimaldi comments in his book on amber published in 1996, “Today, burmite has almost legendary appeal, in part
because the deposits are no longer mined and the supply is generally not available.”

Leeward Capital Corp., a Canadian Mining company began exploration in 1996 in northern Kachin State for gold and
platinum. With the collapse of the junior mining market due to the Bre-X Scandal in Indonesia and the drop in the gold
price, this exploration ceased due to the lack of funding. In 1999, Leeward began to evaluate the possibility of reopening
the amber mines in the Hukwang Valley . Limited production was achieved in 2000, and is currently about 500 kg per
year. The initial 100 kg gathered in the first two years was sent to Dr. Grimaldi at the American Museum of Natural
History in New York for scientific study. In 2000, Zherikjin and Ross of the Natural History Museum , London published a
scientific paper on burmite in which they determined a Cretaceous age for burmite. Grimaldi et al (2002) published a
scientific paper confirming the age of burmite as Cretaceous. Also in 2002, Cruichshank and U Ko Ko published a # `* i" R; w8 I3 e$ ^$ c
description of the amber mines in the Hukwang Valley giving the amber a an Albian or uppermost Lower Cretaceous
( F! ?9 v" i$ Q& p; U& oage. This dates burmite as at between 100,000,000 and 110,000,000 years old. Burmite is thus the oldest locality from
which commercial deposits of amber can be mined. Leeward remains the sole exporter of this rare and precious amber.

Since scientific study of burmite began, there have been numerous scientific papers on the unique biota found in
burmite. This book illustrates the diversity of animal and plant life preserved in this ancient amber.

德道 · 发表于 2010-10-30 22:02:25

实在不爱翻了，大家自己看吧，重点看划线的。

雨衾 · 发表于 2010-10-31 12:11:23

实在是看的太费劲了，还是顶一下吧

赞古 · 发表于 2010-10-31 12:41:12

谢谢你

北方女狼 · 发表于 2010-10-31 21:08:23

俺不认识：是我写的文章不？

磊磊 · 发表于 2010-10-31 21:26:34

谢谢分享~~

德道 · 发表于 2010-10-31 22:14:52

等我抽空把这篇译出来。

毛毛雨 · 发表于 2010-11-1 14:46:11

从头学，也不懂。等译出来吧。

meripihka · 发表于 2010-11-2 02:25:19

谢谢分享。

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缅甸琥珀简史（英文）

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