The Amber Museum Colți

The interest aroused by the existence of amber deposits in the area, the residents' concerns for the exploitation and processing of this fossilized resin determined the organization of the Colţi Museum Collection, inaugurated on June 14, 1980.

The initiative to establish this collection dates back to 1973, when the construction of a building in the architectural style specific to the area began, a study was drawn up regarding the exploitation and processing of amber and, at the same time, the collection of nuggets, instruments and tools used by locals, as well as documents related to the history of the area and the village of Colţi. Unique in the country due to the variety and size of the amber exhibits, the collection was inaugurated with the resumption of the Floare de Colţi folklore celebration and reorganized in 1983, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. From October 2020 it is called the Amber Museum.

After the rehabilitation of the building, the museum reopened in August 2020, in a new exhibition concept, presenting to the public the amber collection: nuggets of different sizes, jewelry (rings, earrings, pendants, strings of beads, etc.), extraction and processing tools amber (wooden lathe, hammers, lamps, pickaxe).

The Amber Museum is unique in the country due to the variety and size of the amber exhibits and is housed in a building erected in 1973 in the architectural style specific to the area, which was rehabilitated between 2019 and 2020 with 100,000 euros. Amber nuggets of various sizes, jewelry (rings, earrings, medallions, brooches, strings of beads, cigarette holders, etc.), tools used in prospecting, extraction and processing of amber predominate in the exhibition. The museum has innovative technologies: smart showcase with touch screen that allows the visitor to explore in detail the objects it contains; automated showcases, with synchronized LCD displays and an intelligent lighting system that discreetly guides the visitor's route, live 3D edge furniture, a touchscreen monitor that allows users to access touristic and historical information related to all the rock monuments in the area. The visitor's experience is augmented by a soundscape and archival films illustrating the methods of amber extraction and processing captured on film in 1934.

The museum includes 5 exhibition halls

The first room "Grota de la Nucu-Bozioru" presents, in the form of a photo exhibition, a unique monument in Romania and in South-Eastern Europe that has stood out since prehistoric times and the Middle Ages as a place of spirituality and sacredness. In Colți there are 8 cave settlements, small churches and cells dug into the rock, all related to the beginnings of Christianity and monastic life in the Buzău area. The cave at Nucu-Bozioru, closed to the public for conservation reasons, presents engraved weapons from the Bronze Age that refer to the initiation ceremony of young men who were supposed to become warriors. The grotto features various symbols incised on both walls from the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Middle Ages.

Room 2 "Prehistoric tusks" presents paleofauna elements from the Buzău area, the bones of gigantic Quaternary mammals, now extinct.

On the first floor there are three rooms dedicated to the collection of amber and mine flowers where 266 objects are exhibited.

Hall 1 presents a theme related to the extraction and processing of amber. A separate exhibition segment is dedicated to the scholar Gheorghe Munteanu-Murgoci (1872 -1925) who produced a monograph on amber (succin) deposits, which was also the first teaching thesis of the University of Bucharest (1903). He demonstrated that among the 162 shades of amber known in the world, the Romanian one from Colţi, unique for its black color, is the most valuable for its rarity. During the interwar period, approximately 2000 kg of amber were systematically extracted in Colți commune.

Hall 2 is entitled "Amber. History and refinement" and the third room presents, in an innovative museological formula, mine flowers and mineral samples from various areas of the country.

The uniqueness of this small and charming mountain museum is highlighted by the variety of amber exhibits with translucent, transparent, opaque forms, of various shades that go from yellow to reddish-brown or green-black, in the raw state, processed or in the form of ornaments (necklaces, rings, earrings, pendants). In the history collection of our museum there is the largest Romanian piece in the world, a lump of amber, weighing 3,480 gr, which is on display at the headquarters in Buzău.