[MSN] A Bone to Pick: Paleontologists Attack Christie's Fossils Sale

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

A Bone to Pick: Paleontologists Attack Christie's Fossils Sale 

By Gregory Viscusi

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Visitors to Christie's International's Paris auction
hall are being greeted by the upright skeleton of a 2.3 meter (7 1/2 feet)
prehistoric cave bear, poised to strike with his four fangs and full set of
eight molars. 

The bones of the creature, which lived in what's now Siberia before the last
ice age ended about 10,000 years ago, will be auctioned April 16 along with
those of an even larger mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros, and about 80 smaller
fossils. 

Paleontologists are taking a similarly aggressive stance about the sale, the
first of its kind for France and Christie's. 

``When you sell a skeleton in an auction, you are taking something away that
should be available for science,'' said Jean-Louis Hartenberger, a professor
at the University of Montpellier. ``You encourage looting.'' 

Christie's estimates the bear will sell for 20,000 euros ($26,900) to 25,000
euros. The mammoth, which stands 3.8 meters tall and is 4.8 meters long with
his tusks, may fetch 150,000 to 180,000 euros. The rhino, whose resin horns
aren't original, may go for 55,000 to 65,000 euros. All three were found in
Siberia. 

Those prices aren't worth paying given that the origin of such skeletons is
dubious, said Michel Guiraud, curator at the National Museum of Natural
History in Paris. 

``Specimens sold in these sort of sales are usually not from scientific digs
and there's generally no documentation about where or how it was found,''
Guiraud said. ``The scientific value of natural history specimens resides in
the information that accompanies them.'' 

Export Licenses 

Guiraud said there's no way to tell if the skeleton is from a single animal
or a composite. 

The pieces come from ``European collections,'' aren't composites and have
Russian export licenses, said Eric Mickeler, Christie's scientific adviser
for the sale. The buyers will receive official documents with details of the
digs. The smaller fossils come mostly from the collection of Jean Bouhanna,
a veterinarian from Nice. 

``It's alarming and dishonest to say every mammoth must be in a museum or an
institution,'' Mickeler said. ``There are already plenty, and all that can
be said or written about them has been.'' 

The sale record for a prehistoric creature's bones was $8.4 million for the
largest Tyrannosaurus Rex found, a 90 percent complete skeleton dug up in
South Dakota. It was bought by Chicago's Field Museum with backing from
McDonald's Corp., Walt Disney World Resort and private donors. Called
``Sue,'' it has been on display since 2000. 

Smuggled Fossils 

``Although laws in France allow for scientists to rely on benefactors and
private funds for their purchases, they maintain a conservative and passive
attitude,'' Mickeler said. ``It's a shame that once again France is
behind.'' 

The U.S. isn't spared from similar polemics, said Roger Thomas, secretary of
the Paleontological Society and a professor at Franklin & Marshall College
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

``There's no doubt that high prices paid for fossils encourage theft from
museums and university collections,'' he said. There is ``a vigorous
black-market trade in fossils smuggled out of countries like Canada and
Germany where fossils are treated as antiquities.'' 

There is a long tradition of museums buying at auctions, starting with the
British Museum acquiring the first specimen of the fossil bird
Archaeopteryx, discovered in 1860, Thomas said. 

Meteorites and Butterflies 

``The commercial market does from time to time cause important specimens to
be lost to science,'' he said. ``On the other hand, it also encourages
discovery of specimens that might not otherwise have been found.'' 

The April 16 sale has about 500 lots, including meteorites and butterfly
collections, ceramics and porcelains from the 17th to the 20th centuries, as
well as tapestries, furniture and some minor old-master paintings. 

Still, 14 of the 15 highest-estimated items are prehistoric, including a
mammoth tusk for 8,000 to 12,000 euros. At the other end of the scale are
fish fossils starting at 400 euros. The most expensive non-prehistoric item
is a Louis XIII ebony cabinet estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 euros. 

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at
gviscusi at bloomberg.net 

Last Updated: April 11, 2007 01:30 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/