Amber has long intrigued me as a geologic specimen (which I certainly am), at least since I first read Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, in which dinosaur DNA is extracted from the ancient fossilized resin. I was surprised then I had not heard of it before. However, there is a reason Jurassic Park is fiction. For although it is entirely plausible for a mosquito to bite a triceratops, become stuck in amber, and be preserved for eternity, DNA is nowhere nearly as durable over time. The oldest recovered DNA is about a million years, while dinosaurs have been extinct for than 65-million years.
Before we lament the frailty of our genetic material, we can first take heart that the products of our genes, the sum of our work—in this case pine resin—endures. The amber of Chiapas dates from about 25-million years, so, again, no luck with the dinosaurs. But in terms of production, the nearby Simojovel Mine is rivaled only in Indonesia and the Dominican Republic.
Specimens from Simojovel are on display at Museo del Ámbar, and they include many animal intrusions. Scorpions, lizard skeletons, beetles, spiders, and, of course, mosquitos are found captured in the frozen syrup, in colors ranging from yellow to red to green. It is easy to imagine these transparent stones contain gifts from the gods. The Maya certainly did, and they carved beautiful art pieces from them, taking advantage of the amber’s softness and lightness. Indeed, its density is so unexpectedly low that raising a larger piece actually causes my hand to levitate. In the dark, it can crackle with static charge, while in the fire it melts with ease. It would seem the stuff of magic.
Sitting next to my favorite shaded park in the city, Museo del Ámbar is housed in the 16th-century convent of La Merced, on Calle Mazariegos, formerly, El Camino Real. This walled fortress once formed the western border of the the old city, and its imposing ramparts inspire awe even today. Yet, La Iglesias de la Merced, the Church of Mercy, has a very checkered history. The Catholics were booted from the place in the 19th century, after the secular reforms of the Juarez Era, and the nunnery was converted into an army barracks. During this time, a stone tower was installed that today gives the park next door a castle-like enchantment.
In the twentieth-century, the Church of Mercy was mostly abandoned and fell into ruin. From 1960-1993, La Merced suffered its final ignominious descent to become the city prison. The large cloistered courtyard, beside the tranquil pines of Cristobalito—where the Sisters would pray and meditate, and perhaps secretly fear that the throng outside might get in—was the central jail yard during the years leading up to the Zapatista Uprising. The first action of the guerrillas, upon entering the city on January 1, 1994, was to free the prisoners. If they came looking for them at La Merced, they were too late.
The second story’s wide balcony extends around the interior of the courtyard. This is where the nuns lived. Almost half of the interior perimeter balcony has fallen away. The caretakers did a nice job walling off the remaining balcony, although a sign on the cement warns visitors not to lean. La Merced has been on the mend since Museo del Ámbar took residence, and Sunday masses continue unabated. These are testaments of time, the amber and the adobe, of what is preserved and what is lost.