Amber Filled with Epoxy Resin
Amber prayer beads are very popular in the Gulf countries. Due to this high demand, the Dubai Central Laboratory receives many of them for identification. Recently we noticed that a majority of the amber rosary samples received for identification contain an epoxy resin filling. These fillings are seen in cavities of different sizes but sometimes show up in tiny veins.
The fillings are not always easy to detect without magnification because of the nearly identical luster of both amber and epoxy, but sometimes they are obvious, as shown in figure 1. Occasionally gas bubbles can be observed in epoxy fillings by microscope. Fillings may show a mixed reaction under both long-wave and short-wave UV radiation, and the fluorescence is more intense in long-wave UV. Filled beads can be inert under UV or show weak to strong white or blue fluorescence (figure 2).
To identify the fillings, we observed the rosary under the microscope, marked the suspected areas or spots, and analyzed them by Raman spectroscopy to confirm the presence of fillings. The spectra were compared with those of amber and epoxy reported previously in G&G (figure 3; see Fall 2013 GNI, pp. 181; Summer 2021 GNI, pp. 179–180). Nowadays, having an amber rosary tested by a gemstone laboratory before buying can avoid a costly mistake.
