.jpg "Reading culture in the digital age")
.jpg "What to see in Hai Duong newspaper on April 21?")
-a9f705f0fc2bb442b889e7ca8cfb4e9f.jpg "Prime Minister directs early payment of pensions in May")
.jpg "Parishioners joyfully celebrate Easter at Hai Duong Church")
Submit a comment
On October 21, the largest triceratops skeleton ever excavated in the world was auctioned in France for a price of up to 6.6 million euros (more than 7.6 million USD).
Expensive 3-horned dinosaur skeleton
The skeleton, also known as "Big John", is 66 million years old and 8m long. Big John was excavated in South Dakota (USA) in 2014.
Experts in Italy then assembled the bones and completed about 60% of the skeleton when it was put up for auction. The skeleton was sold to an American collector at Drouot's auction for 5.5 million euros before fees, much higher than the initial estimate of 1.2-1.5 million euros.
So, after the auction in France, "Big John" will return to the US with the anonymous buyer to become part of this person's personal collection. This buyer had to overcome 10 other bidders, especially the last 3 who were the highest bidders for this skeleton.
Alexandre Giquello - the auctioneer, said this was a very impressive price while archaeologist Iacopo Briano, who also supervised the auction, was surprised by the price of more than 6 million euros.
According to experts, Big John lived during the Late Cretaceous period, the last era of dinosaurs, and died on an alluvial plain, the layer of mud that buried his body also helped preserve the dinosaur's body better.
According to scientists who analyzed the skeleton before the auction, Big John has a skull 5-10% larger than any other Triceratops ever discovered. Triceratops are one of the most recognizable dinosaurs with three horns on their heads, one on their noses and two on their foreheads.
Although the auction price set a new record in Europe, the amount was still far from the $31.8 million paid for a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton at an auction in New York last year.
In addition, at these prices, museums are unlikely to be able to compete to buy rare dinosaur skeletons for public display. Auction house Drouot said the buyer of the triceratops skeleton may want to give Big John to a museum or gallery, but the buyer has not yet announced specific plans.
The Drouot auction house held two dinosaur bone auctions in 2018, each worth 1.4 million euros. Dinosaur bone auctions are often unpredictable.
Several auctions in Paris failed in 2020 when no buyer paid the minimum bid, while some experts fear that putting dinosaur skeletons up for auction could result in important finds ending up in private homes rather than on public display.
According to VNA
