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In this issue:

News on the activities of the PalArch Foundation 2 ‘Scientists don’t know how to present themselves to

politicians’ Boris Dittrich on the ‘Economy of Knowledge’ (H.J.M. Meijer & A.J. Veldmeijer) 5

New Dutch-Flemish Palaeontological Circle (J. van Dam & F. Wesselingh) 7

Egypt as inspiration (A. Engels) 8 Native American Fossil Legends (A. Mayor) 12 Egypt in photographs (Z. Kosc) 18 The Jura-Museum Eichstätt and the natural history

collections of the Bishop’s Seminary in Eichstätt, Germany (M. Kölbl-Ebert) 19 Colophon 21

Edited by A.J. Veldmeijer, S.M. van Roode & A.M. Hense© 2004 PalArch Foundation

www.PalArch.nl Newsletter 1, 3 (2004)

News on the activities of the PalArch Foundation

TRNC

Over a year ago, contacts were established between the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus and the PalArch Foundation. The Foundation offered the responsible authorities to help them to stimulate scientific research on archaeology and palaeontology (see also the first Newsletter of the old series, June 2003). Initially, the authorities were very enthusiastic but, unfortunately, after more than a year of trying to discuss our ideas and proposals, the Foundation decided not to try anymore because no response has been given whatsoever, except for verbal permission given to an intermediary. Obviously, we need written permission by the authorities in order to apply for money and get people and institutes to cooperate with us. Now, it is their turn to take the initiative.

Poster presentations

André and Erno presented a poster of the PalArch Foundation at the IX Congrès Mondial des Egyptologues, Grenoble, France from 6-12 September. A PalArch poster has been sent to Brian Lee Beatty to be used at various meetings on vertebrate palaeontology and morphology in the United States. Finally, a PalArch poster has been presented at The Annual Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy at Leicester, England by Marco Signore (http://www.svpca.org/2004/abstracts/svpca-posters.htm#abst74).

American branch

We are proud to announce that the PalArch Foundation agreed with Brian Lee Beatty (University of Kansas) to establish an American branch of the section of vertebrate palaeontology. The ideas behind this are various and part of the correspondence between the board and the managing editor of the American branch is shortly repeated here.

As the other managing editors, the head of the American branch will be responsible for expanding the editorial board. The Foundation does not advocate restricting inclusion only to

Americans, but more of an international board that amplify the already existing board rather than replace it. Brian will be the person where Americans can send there ms to and he is responsible for the reviewing procedure. Publishing on our website and the keeping the files is still be done in The Netherlands.

The biggest problem for us, as a newly started journal and publisher in a scientific area with many journals (especially palaeontology) is to get people to publish with us; it will take a few years to establish a name. But we have a lot to offer and one of the major tasks is to make people aware of this. Our goal is to publish at least one paper per issue, besides book reviews. Also, the offer of investing money of book sales in research is potentially valuable, but people have to realize it. So, one strategy we employ is writing articles in which we explain who we are and what we are. We constantly have to remind people that we exist. Furthermore, we present posters and, if the organization allows it, submit the article on our Foundation for the congress/symposiums publication. Finally, we mail announcements to the SVP and DINOSAUR mailing lists when new issues are being published! The constant distributing of folders will be of great help too. The possibilities on payment in the States are being explored.

Brian also plans to participate actively in the Newsletter, being one of the editors. Furthermore, ideas on the organization of a PalArch meeting are being worked out. The American managing editor will actively participate in our Centre of Book reviews as well.

We feel that this is an important development for our young Foundation and its scientific work and are looking forward to the cooperation!

New editors

We are happy that we have been able to

extend the editorial board with two new enthusiastic members. Dr. Marcello Ruta’s interests are many as can be seen on his CV, among which are taxonomy, phylogeny, and palaeobiogeography of Permian and Carboniferous tetrapods (land vertebrates) as well as the origins and early evolutionary history of lissamphibians (frogs, salamanders

PalArch Foundation 2

http://www.svpca.org/2004/abstracts/svpca-posters.htm

http://www.svpca.org/2004/abstracts/svpca-posters.htm


and caecilians). Currently he is working at the Department of Geology, The Field Museum, Chicago. Dr Jonathan Jeffery, our other new member has earned his degree on evolution and embryonic development of Devonian and Carbonian fish.

Aligned research units: NPRU

The PalArch Foundation started its first

research unit: the Netherlands Palaeontology Research Unit (NPRU). The idea of such units is to combine knowledge and expertise from all over the world in order to allow for independent, high quality research. The PalArch Foundation offers the possibility of publishing as well as opportunity to publish on NPRU topics independently after consultation with the NPRU and the PalArch Foundation. Currently, the focus of this Unit is on pterosaurs, but in the (near) future also other topics will be worked on. The NPRU has a webpage which is linked to www.PalArch.nl. Here, more information on the participants and the projects can be found.

Paleobiologische Kring (Palaeobiological

Circle) A meeting between the chairman of the

PalArch Foundation and the chairman of the Dutch Paleobiologische Kring (http://www.bio.uu.nl/~palaeo/Paleobiologie/) resulted in the agreement on cooperation, although to what extent exactly still has to be discussed. Anyway, links to each other’s websites has been exchanged. We will keep you posted. More information can be found at page 7.

Publications in the October issue (provided

unforeseen circumstances)

Papers, www.PalArch.nl 3 Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology

Smole, L. 2004. Thutmose III in Nubia. In the

trail of a ruler. – PalArch, series archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 3, 1: #-#.

Tomorad, M. 2004. Egyptology in Croatia and the project Croato-Aegyptica Electronica. – PalArch, series

archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology 3, 2: #-#.

Papers, www.PalArch.nl 3 Vertebrate

palaeontology

Nieuwland, I.J.J. 2004. Gerhard Heilmann and the artist’s eye in science, 1912-1927. – PalArch, series vertebrate palaeontology 3, 1: #-#.

PalArch Foundation’s centre of book reviews

Clapham, A.J. 2004. Book review of: Mayor, A. 2003. Greek fire, poison arrows and scorpion bombs. Biological and chemical warfare in the ancient world. (New York, The Overlook Press). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Dieleman, J. 2004. Book review of: Matthews, R. & C. Roemer. Eds. 2003. Ancient perspectives on Egypt. (London, UCL Press, Encounters with ancient Egypt. – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Fransen, C.H.J.M. 2004. Book review of: Scholtz, G. Ed. 2003. Evolutionary developmental biology of Crustacea. (Lisse, A.A. Balkema Publishers; Crustacean Issues 15). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Heirbaut, E..N.A. 2004. Book review of: Howard, A.J., M.G. Macklin & D.G. Passmore. Eds. 2003. Alluvial archaeology in Europe. Proceedings of the alluvial archaeology of North-West Europe and Mediterranean, 18-19 December 2000. (Lisse, A.A. Balkema Publishers). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Hense, A.M. 2004. Book review of: Peter Phillips, J. 2002. The columns of Egypt. (Manchester Peartree Publishing). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).


http://www.palarch.nl/

http://www.bio.uu.nl/~palaeo/Paleobiologie/



http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm











Haarlem, van, W.M. 2004. Book review of: Insoll, T. 2004. Archaeology, ritual, religion. (London, Routledge). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Reumer, J.W.F. 2004. Book review of: Rains Wallace, D. 2004. Beasts of Eden. (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, University of California Press), – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Schulp, A.S. 2004. Book review of: Palmer, D. 2003. Prehistoric past revealed. The four billion year history of life on Earth. (London, Mitchell Beazley). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Signore, M. 2004. Book review of: Molnar, R.E. 2004. Dragons in the dust. The paleobiology of the giant monitor lizard. (Indiana University Press). - PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Storm, P. 2004. Book review of: Pasveer, J.M. 2004. The Djief hunters. 26,000 years of rainforest exploitation on the Bird's Head of Papua, Indonesia. (Lisse, A.A. Balkema Publishers). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Storm, P. 2004. Book review of: Finlayson, C. 2004. Neanderthals and modern humans. An ecological and evolutionary perspective. (Cambridge University Press), – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Veldmeijer, A.J. 2004. Book review of: Halbertsma, R.B. 2003. Scholars, travellers and trade. The pioneer years of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, 1818-1840. –(London, Routledge). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Veldmeijer, A.J. & M. Signore. 2004. Book review of: Buffetaut, E. & J.-M. Mazin. 2003. Evolution and palaeobiology of

pterosaurs. (London, Geological Society Special publications 217). – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm).

Zoest, van, C. 2004. Book review of: Jeffreys, D. Ed. 2003. Views of ancient Egypt since Napoleon Bonaparte. Imperialism, colonialism and modern appropriations. (London, UCL Press, Encounters with ancient Egypt. – PalArch, non scientific (http://www.palarch.nl/Non_scientific/bookreview.htm). Finally, we like to thank all persons

involved in presenting the various PalArch posters (Brian Lee Beatty, Marco Signore and Erno Endenburg). Also, we thank E. Heck and A. Mayor for allowing us to use the picture ‘Mastodon bones lashed to a travois pulled by an Indian pony’ as this issue’s watermark.






















‘Scientists don’t know how to present themselves to politicians’

Boris Dittrich on the ‘Economy of Knowledge’

By H.J.M. Meijer & A.J. Veldmeijer

The leader of the Dutch social-l beral party (© E. Endenburg).

i

Saturday August 7 – On this hot summer

day, a delegation of the PalArch Editorial Board went to Amsterdam to meet with the leader of the Dutch social-liberal party D66, Boris Dittrich. D66 (Democrats 66) can be characterized as a left of centre non-socialist party, which favours pragmatism over ideology and has a strong libertarian tradition. One of their focuses lies on the so-called ‘Economy of Knowledge’. According to D66, investments in the Dutch educational system are necessary to ensure the future of our educational system and will strengthen the Dutch economy. The input of Mr. Dittrich on the political discussion in the Dutch parliament (Dutch link: http://www.d66.nl/news/item/Debat%20over%20kenniseconomie%20en%20innovatie/) is focused on technological sciences (ICT for instance) and the interaction with trade and industry. The so-called ‘non-technological sciences’ are almost completely left out, except for a small remark at the end. Does an ‘Economy of Knowledge’, in the views of the Democrats, actually mean an ‘Economy of Technological Knowledge’? And what about these non-technological or so-called ‘soft sciences’? Due to the increasing number of budget cuts within universities and scientific institutes, many scientific disciplines have been forced to cut down enormously the last decades and in many cases, some disciplines have nearly ceased to exist (Egyptology can

only be studied in Leiden) or completely (vertebrate palaeontology for instance). Talented scientists are forced to leave The Netherlands, simply because there are no research opportunities available. An important note here is, that they do not leave for a better salary…but for a job and/or better research possibilities. It is quite remarkable that it has been suggested by the Christian Democrats, the largest political party in the government, to recruit scientists from, for instance India, if The Netherlands are not capable of providing for their own scientists. For PalArch, these were some of the reasons to arrange a meeting with the D66 leading man to discuss the views of PalArch and D66 on (the future of) science in The Netherlands.

Regrettably, Mr. Dittrich was not yet completely informed on the aims and work of PalArch due to constructional work at the ministries internet. Therefore, a short introduction on PalArch was required. Mr. Dittrich also acknowledged one of the main focuses of PalArch, the accessibility of science. According to him, science should be made more accessible to the general public, in order to make science more ‘en vogue’. At this point in the discussion, the point was raised that in order to make science more accessible to a greater audience, more investments in science are needed, especially on the smaller fields of science such as archaeology and palaeontology. These fields, which are not always directly visible to the general public, or have a direct relevance to society, are greatly endangered and therefore should receive more funding.

Dittrich understood our claims, but stated that he thinks that more efforts are needed from within the sciences to make themselves visible to politicians; he had never even heard complaints from the fields of sciences in which PalArch works. However, we know that these protests have always been there (think for instance of the financial problems of the Annual Egyptological Bibliography), but apparently they were not loud enough. In Dittrich’s opinion as a politician, science should serve society in some way in order to receive federal funding. Although this seems to make sense, there are some pitfalls here; small disciplines can hardly make their voices heard compared to big,

http://www.d66.nl/news/item/Debat over kenniseconomie en innovatie/

http://www.d66.nl/news/item/Debat over kenniseconomie en innovatie/


Dittrich, explaining his thoughts on the ‘Economy of Knowledge’ (© E. Endenburg)


money-making technological disciplines who find themselves supported by the industry and might even have professional lobbies. We also feel that there are different ‘relevances’. Even fundamental scientific disciplines that do not have a direct relevance to society will be beneficial to human society in the end, and not only by simply expanding our knowledge. Although disciplines such as Egyptology and palaeontology are perhaps not financially relevant for The Netherlands, they do give a lot of prestige to a country in terms of scientific research. Furthermore, the relevance should also be sought in the joy many people have in learning about ancient civilisations and evolution (in the case of the latter, it means a counterweight in the increasing support for creationism in the world); think of all the amateur palaeontologists and archaeologists. In addition, archaeology of North West Europe even studies our own existence and cultural heritage, which is something that can hardly be ignored. However, with the current federal policy, these smaller sciences, that do not necessarily have the relevance mentioned by Dittrich, are very likely to be neglected.

In order to solve the problems, various ideas were suggested. In the view of Dittrich, scientists do not know how to present themselves to the politicians; most of the time talks that are meant to convince politicians of

the relevance of their subject area, end up as a technical and scientific report on their research. Especially smaller areas of expertise and soft sciences, like palaeontology and archaeology, need strong arguments to convince the government that these areas deserve the funding they need to survive. ‘Science should become sexier’ according to Dittrich. But the PalArch representatives argued that the ‘soft sciences’ not only start with a backlog due to the above-mentioned problems but also because of the decades of budget cuts. However, one way to achieve this, Dittrich suggested is the use of scientific competitions, like recently done by Dr. Wubbo Ockels, lecturer in Aerospace Sustainable Engineering and Technology at the Technical University of Delft. In this competition, students were encouraged to write a research proposal. The best proposal was selected and the student was enabled to perform the proposed research. Also, in presenting science by means of games, people learn that science is fun…a view shared by PalArch, which spends a lot of effort to make science available to the non-scientific person by free scientific papers and a Newsletter with ‘behind the scenes’ articles on science.

Another interesting thought presented by Boris Dittrich was the establishment of centres of certain disciplines in Europe, thereby limiting the number of disciplines at one university. In his input in the discussion in Dutch parliament, Boris already had suggested to apply this idea to The Netherlands. But the PalArch delegation put forward strong arguments against this. The main obstacle here is that universities are not

Dittrich was pleasantly surprised with the first two Newsletters the PalArch representatives gave him as a present (© E. Endenburg).


willing to give up a successful discipline, not even when they will have the opportunity to expand one of their other disciplines. Furthermore, what about the scientists? Will they accompany the discipline leaving the country or will they just be fired and replaced by people from the country where the discipline has moved? Dittrich’s comparison with the United States, where it is completely normal to study in a state at the opposite side of the country, is not valid here: Europe is not one country but consists of many different countries with often different, longstanding tradition in the science they house. Despite the efforts of a united Europe, the situation here is not comparable to the United States.

For centuries, science and knowledge have meant power and influence. If things continue this way in The Netherlands, will that still hold true? Hereby we invite the reader to send their reaction to , [email protected] we will publish, in the next Newsletter. Please, mark your mail in the heading of your mail with ‘Science and society’.

New Dutch-Flemish Palaeontological Circle

By J. van Dam & F. Wesselingh

Palaeontological research in the low

countries is mostly carried out by small isolated groups at universities museums, and other institutes, without many mutual contacts. For this reason a new platform is created where Dutch and Flemish (semi-) professional palaeontologists (including students) can meet on a regular basis. A related aim of the Palaeobiogical Circle is to safeguard the general interests of the field of palaeontology in the low countries. A preliminary board has been established in December 2003.

Concrete activities include a yearly symposium around a broad theme, a yearly excursion (including presentations), and ad hoc visits to field exposures, current museum exhibitions, etc. The Palaeobiological Circle is formally linked to the Dutch society of professional geologists (Koninklijk Nederlands Geologisch en Mijnbouwkundig genootschap, KNGMG), and aims at establishing ties with Geologica Belgica and The Netherlands Institute for Biology (NIBI).

A successful Palaeontological Circle depends on the contribution of its members. Therefore, do not hesitate to provide us with remarks and suggestions. For information and membership form: see http://www.bio.uu.nl/~palaeo/Paleobiologie/

Kick-off symposium Paleobiological Circle

Paleobiological research in the low countries:

past, present and future

8 December 2004 (NITG/TNO, Utrecht) The program is as follows:


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.bio.uu.nl/~palaeo/Paleobiologie/



11.00 Coffee 11.15 General assembly 12.00 Lunch 12.45 Introduction to the symposium by Jan

van Dam 12.50 Welcome on behalf of NITG/TNO by

Oscar Abbink 13.00 Lecture by Bert Boekschoten

(VU/RUG): “Palaeobiology in The Netherlands. A history of affection at a distance”

13.45 Lecture by Jimmy Van Itterbeeck (KUL) “New developments in integrated palaeobiological research in Belgium“

14.30 Lecture by Bert van der Zwaan (UU): “Biogeosciences in The Netherlands. A case of successful evolution“

15.15 Postersession and tea 16.00 Umbgrove lecture at the department of

Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, by Niles Eldredge (American Museum of Natural History): Herschel's "Mystery of Mysteries": The crucial role of paleobiology in the future of evolutionary theory".

Symposium/Excursion Palaeobiological Circle

New advances in understanding the patterns of mass-extinctions

15 -16 April 2005, Natural History Museum

Maastricht

This meeting will be organised in and around Maastricht and consist of presentation (15th of April) and an excursion (16th). During the excursion the ENCI quarry and the caves of the Geulhemmer Berg will be visited. At the latter site the K/T boundary is spectacularly exposed.

Egypt as inspiration

By A. Engels1

Astrid Engels is a world famous Dutch artist, who has exhibited in art galleries all around the world. The works of art develop from her fascination for and knowledge of ancient civilizations and cultures. While travelling, she gets her inspiration from long gone (or sometimes still existing) rituals, objects, religions and legends from other continents. Her paintings and lithographs have a magical spiritual veil, which, in their turn, inspire others. In a masterly way, she uses ancient sources of inspiration to bridge present and past, reality and fiction. We are proud that Astrid Engels is willing to tell us how Egypt has inspired her works and to show some of her works of art in this Newsletter. More about the artist and her work can be found at http://www.astridengels.nl/homened.html.

PalArch Foundation, Amsterdam

Spirits of the orient (© A. Engels).

1 This article is a translation by the PalArch Foundation of the chapter ‘Egypte’ written by Astrid Engels in ‘Astrid Engels schilderijen. Een penseelstreek als een fluistering uit een ver verleden’ by Bert Honders (Tirion, Baarn; ISBN 9043902195).

http://www.astridengels.nl/homened.html



Thirty-five years ago I visited Egypt for the first time. I was invited by and met at Cairo Airport by Professor Hassan, then conservator of the Antiquities Museum in Cairo, and a very kind man.

Professor Hassan took me on an enchanting journey through the land of miracles and mysteries; to the cultural heritage of the pharaohs with its monumental architecture, for-ever captured in the veils of mystery and mathematics. My host took me to the holy places, covered with magic signs and spells; petrified books which shared their secrets for centuries with the gods and priests, coloured with natural pigments as a gift of evolution.

My host took me deep under the ground, to the rock cut tombs of the nobles, who owe their fascination to the touching wall paintings which played such an essential part in their search for eternal life; the silent poetry in transparent hues as children of the light, satisfied by the wisdom that they will never keep on living without the vibrations of the light that contains all colours.

My host took me to the colossal statues, which endure throughout eternity and are immortal with features that radiate not only superiority but, with their smiles, also mildness and a sense of beauty.

At this very moment, the gold mask of Tutankhamun is still clearly etched in my mind, with its eyes that follow and fathom you;

Enigma (© A. Engels).

Warriors (© A. Engels). Not in the same way as an arrow does but rather as the warm beams which seem to give new energy every time your eyes meet his.

In order to being able to look through the window to this other world, imagination is indispensable and Egypt opens this window for you. The symbolism of the enchanting Egyptian riot of colours penetrates into your deepest being and even further. It is not strange that Egypt is the spiritual mother of all civilizations because she is born from the soul of the people, in the light of the sun and the glitter of the Nile. And that old soul still wanders in this living past; I met her at a ritual offering place far off in the desert, on the last

The awakening (© A. Engels).



Soul-mate (© A. Engels). day of my visit. Close to 5 o’clock in the morning, we left the Western plateau of Giza. The visible darkness of the jet-black Egyptian sky with its thousands and thousands of stars faintly revealed the contours of the vast city of the dead. We drove at the edge of civilization, as it were, passing the gigantic triangles, the pyramids, which join earth and sky as antennae. We passed the mysterious keeper, the sphinx, who has seen Cleopatra, Alexander the Great and Napoleon. We continued east, in deep darkness and deadly silence, only interrupted by the thudding sound of the horse’s hoofs in the loose desert sand. Finally we arrived at the ruin, to which the wind, sand and time steadily did their grinding work.

At the end of the plateau, a natural ridge protruded from the face of the rock 5 metres above. Professor Hassan pointed up, without saying a word, and I started to climb the slightly crumbled rocks, hesitatingly lit by the pink red dawn as primitive steps to an unknown sanctuary. At the top, I carefully stepped onto the small protruding ridge and, scared, pushed myself to the face of the cliff. And then it happened…at that very moment the sun peeked above the horizon and set the Egyptian day on fire. The sky coloured from magenta to sky-blue with a heavenly stroke of the brush. High in the intense blue sky, two falcons soared in circles down to the peach-coloured desert and I looked out over the city

Queen of clubs (© A. Engels).

waking up with its millions of citizens, all of a sudden brightening in a fan of colours. At my feet, an oval tray of about 1 metre in diameter, without any inscription or decoration, was hewn out of the rock. A few dew-drops, glittering like slowly fading diamonds, lay in the centre of the tray. I was as if I was imprisoned in a mysterious magnetic field, enchanted by a touch of magic of a consecration and an intense feeling of pleasure came upon me at the moment that the golden light of the sun touched my face.

I don’t know how long I stood there. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, but suddenly I noticed being down again and we drove silently back to reality.

Hathor (© A. Engels).



The pyramid circus had already started, featuring the souvenir stands and busses crammed with tourists. Back in the Mena House, the place where the most delicious oriental coffee in Africa is served, Professor Hassan asked, “Do you know where you have been?” “No,” I said, “but of all wonders you have shown me, this was the most magical moment of all for me.” “Well,” Professor Hassan continued, “you stood on a centuries-old ritual offering place. The builder of the great pyramid, Chephren [sic], together with his high priest, came here each morning at sunrise to bring a libation to the holy falcon, symbol of the sun and new life, of fresh Nile water. An offering to the benevolent sun who each morning again triumphs over darkness and the chaos of the night by means of her riot of colours.”

Often, I returned to that holy place; it gave me rest and inspiration up to five years ago. Then it was gone, fallen prey to the tyranny of the march of civilization. Now, a curving asphalt road at the edge of the plateau is used by the 15 million citizens of Cairo, chaotically and noisily. Disillusioned and sad I returned to my hotel, convinced I had lost my muse.

But sometimes moments in life appear turning points in one’s existence and you discover that the initial disappointment can be

Hathor (© A. Engels).

altered positively. The key to this was given to me the same evening by my Oriental friends at a dinner party at their place. I told them about my disappointment and they made me aware of their specific way of thinking, in which the search for harmony and balance between the inner and outer self are focal points for their philosophy of life. We, Westerners, predominantly hold the view by which we try to attain material comforts, but spirituality stays forgotten and untouched at the bottom of our souls. The insight in spirituality we do not know or do not use, through which the equilibrium gets unbalanced and eventually leads to discord.

Now, in reference to my disillusion at the spot itself, I only lost the tangible reality, but the other reality, the faint echo of the immense distant past, remained audible. The only thing I had to do was to open the door to that space, in which it is still possible to sweep the cool laws of human common sense with the dust clouds of your dreams. Only then one can understand where the light which colours your dreams comes from.

Afterwards, this was the inspiration for the painting ‘The inner eye of the Sfinx’. In the same way, many portraits of goddesses, which do not need a striking look to show their expressiveness but had to show universal emotion, tied to the spirit and the earth, are evolved. Meanwhile, their gaze is turned inside contemplatively, like the weathered statues and fresco’s [sic] from the past. Battered by time, they still bear a supernatural and metaphorical load even though the light vanished out of their eyes centuries ago.

More on Astrid Engels and her work can be found at her websi e: t

.http://www.astridengels.nl/homened.html

http://www.astridengels.nl/homened.html


Native American fossil legends

By A. Mayor

Long before scientific investigators became interested in the palaeontological treasures of the New World, Native Americans were familiar with the remarkable remains of extinct creatures. What did American Indians make of the mysterious stone skeletons they observed in their lands? How did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils?

For a scholar of natural history legends, these questions offer a new approach to the history of science, a way of understanding the earliest antecedents of scientific inquiry in pre-Darwinian cultures. I had explored similar questions about classical Greek, Roman, and other ancient cultures' interpretations of the fossils of enormous extinct beasts buried around the Mediterranean and in Central Asia, in my book "The First Fossil Hunters: Palaeontology in Greek and Roman Times" (Princeton University Press, 2000). For that project, I began by collecting extensive but widely scattered literary, archaeological, and historical descriptions of ’the bones of giants and monsters.’ Scholars had long dismissed these ancient accounts as mere fictions. But by referring to modern palaeontological evidence first collected in the early nineteenth century, I was able to show that many of the ancient accounts of observations of gigantic remains were not imaginary, but based on genuine fossil discoveries in antiquity. When I mapped the ancient find-spots and compared them with the locations of prolific bone beds around the Mediterranean and central Asia, the sites were congruent. It turned out that the ancients had created some coherent and insightful narratives to understand the perplexing bones of dinosaurs and early mega-mammals.

Encouraged by the results of my research into pre-scientific fossil interpretations in classical texts, I turned to the New World, wondering how indigenous peoples had explained the remains of dinosaurs and bizarre mammals that they encountered in their lands. But my new project entailed a very different approach. In this case, the locations of the palaeontological riches of the Americas were

very well-known, and I needed to uncover little-known Native mythology related to fossils. I gathered obscure and often fragmentary oral traditions for "Fossil Legends of the First Americans" (forthcoming Princeton, spring 2005). Beginning in eastern North America, with its Ice Age monsters, moving clockwise through Mexico and South America, and ending in the American west, where dinosaurs lived and died, I examined Native American interpretations of fossils of all kinds and descriptions of the use of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, tools, and spells. I learned that well before Columbus, Native Americans had observed the fossilized remains of huge, extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the skeletons of mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Giants, Grandfathers of the Buffalo, Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters. Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries.

Drawing on historical sources, archaeological evidence, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews with Native Americans, I analyzed the fossil traditions of the Aztecs, Incas, Iroquois, Navajo, Apache, Cheyenne, Sioux, Pawnee, Blackfeet, and many other tribes. The stories reveal how humans made sense of fossil evidence, from trilobites and petrified wood to mammoths and dinosaurs, before the development of formal evolutionary theory.

I found plenty of archaeological evidence for the keen interest in fossils among palaeo-Indians. Crinoids, ammonites,

Arrowhead made from fossil-bearing stone, 500-1000 years ago, Kansas, Uni ed States (© M. Everhart).

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Crow Indian amulet, ammonite rubbed with red ocher strung on rawhide with blue trade beads, Wyoming, Uni ed States, about 1850 (© A. Mayor).


Ar owhead made from fossilized palm wood, Texas, Uni ed States (© R. Stanford).

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belemnites, trilobites, and fossil shells were collected and made into amulets all across the Americas. Rock art depicts dinosaur tracks and giant reptiles. Palaeo-Indians knapped flint containing fossil inclusions and petrified wood into arrowheads. Mastodon ivory and large vertebrate skulls and bones rubbed with red ochre have been found in ancient dwelling sites and burials. The huge teeth of extinct giant beavers were used as chisels to hollow out canoes, and gastroliths (stomach stones) of dinosaurs were employed as pottery burnishers and hammers.

Although the archaeological evidence for the ancient interest in prehistoric remains is eloquent, it is essentially mute since we have no way of knowing what kinds of stories were told about the fossils. To learn about pre-scientific interpretations of fossils, then, we must turn to oral legends, some dating to before European Contact passed down over thousands of years. Keeping in mind that many myths about giants or monsters have nothing to do with fossils, I define a ’fossil legend’ as a

traditional account or belief about extraordinary creatures that refers directly to physical evidence of bones or other fossil traces.

To open a window onto how the First Americans interpreted mysterious fossil remains of creatures no longer seen alive, the following pages present a few examples of pre-scientific encounters with the strange bones of extinct creatures, by the Incas of South America; the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico; the Apaches of the American Southwest; and the Pawnees of the Great Plains in North America.

Fossil legends of the Incas

The Spanish conquistadors recorded the oldest documented American fossil legends, beginning in 1519 with the arrival of Hernando Cortes in Mexico. After the Conquest, Spanish colonists in the Inca Empire (Ecuador and Peru) learned that the Native people identified colossal animal skeletons buried in their lands as the vestiges of dangerous giants of the distant past. The explorer Pedro de Cieza de Leon traveled in New Spain from 1532 to 1550. His ”Chronicle of Peru” (1553) described the natural history of the land, as well as Inca customs and beliefs. In his discussions with Incas and other Natives, he wrote down fossil traditions that “had been received from their ancestors from very remote times.” Ages ago, they told him, giants had appeared at Santa Elena (a barren peninsula on the north coast of Ecuador). So huge that an ordinary man was only as tall as their knees, these giants had long hair and were covered in skins. The colony of giants put great pressure on the resources of the region, consuming all the food and water.

The evil giants were “detested by the natives,” who fought the invaders in vain. At last God intervened and while the giants “were all together . . . a fearsome and terrible fire came down from heaven with a great noise. In one blow, they were all killed, and the fire consumed them.” After the great fire, all that remained were bones and skulls of the giants, which the Incas believed were left "as a memorial of God's punishment.” Cieza de Leon noted that in Ecuador and Peru, "the Indians have found, and still find, enormous bones, skulls, and teeth." Cieza de Leon himself had

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Native of South America showing a mastodon femur to Spanish conquistador (© E. Heck). examined an immense tooth weighing “more than half a butcher’s pound” and a shin bone of marvelous size.

The Jesuit missionary José de Acosta also recorded legends about fossils in Inca territory. He too heard about giants, three times the size of ordinary men, whose bones came to light at Manta and Puerto Viejo, on the coast about 100 miles north of Santa Elena. According to the local Indian traditions preserved by Acosta, “the giants came by sea to make war” but they were destroyed en masse "by fire from heaven.”

In 1543, an important landmark in the history of palaeontology took place in Peru. The governor, Juan de Olmos, undertook the first palaeontological excavation on record in the New World, in order to verify Inca legends about extinct giants. Olmos and his men dug pits in a valley near Truxillo, south of Santa Elena, where the Natives claimed that giants had been destroyed. The workers unearthed huge skulls, thigh bones, vertebrae, ribs, and enormous teeth so ancient they were mottled like tortoiseshell. Olmos sent specimens from the excavation to several cities in Peru for display. “From that time on, the Native tradition was believed,” remarked Agustin de Zarate, in his “Historia del Peru” (1555).

What was the true identity of the giants in the Inca Kingdom? As the sea erodes the barren coastal deserts of Ecuador and Peru, the collapsing shoreline reveals the massive fossil bones of Pliocene and Pleistocene mastodons (Dibelodon bolivianus, and the gomphothere Cuvieronius) and gigantic sloths the size of elephants (Megatherium, Eremotherium). In 2001, I visited the Peabody

Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut, to view some impressive limb bones and teeth of these behemoths, excavated by Yale palaeontologists in 1869-1940. Most of the fossils came from the oil-seep deposits on the coast and in the mountains of the old Inca Empire.

Natural details were incorporated into the Inca myths. The limb bones of the extinct mega-mammals do resemble giant counterparts of human anatomy, and mastodon molars are cusped like human molars. For the Incas, the presence of these huge skeletons on the barren beaches inspired the idea of a colony of invading giants from the sea. The notion that the giants rapaciously consumed the water and food of the region helped account for the desolate coast of Peru and Ecuador, the world's driest desert. What about the giants’ destruction by fire? I think that imagery was related to the hot tar pits of Santa Elena. The fossils that emerge from the oil seeps are blackened and look burnt, similar in appearance to the Pleistocene fossils at the La Brea tar pits of Los Angeles, California.

Yaqui and Apache legends of Giant Birds

As the Spanish expanded their empire north in the 1730s, they encountered the Yaqui Indians living in adobe pueblo cities in Sonora, northwestern Mexico. The Yaqui legend of ’Skeleton Mountain‘ told of an enormous bird in the old days before pueblos, when the people still lived in crude mud shelters. In those days, according to the Yaqui legend, there were animals with hooves and stupendous birds, but no large predators with claws.

Every evening, a giant bird of prey carried off a villager to the slopes of Skeleton Mountain in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental above the Rio Yaqui. On the hillside, people found great heaps of the victims' bones. A Yaqui boy vowed to hunt down the fiendish raptor. He set off alone with his bow and arrows, dug a hole in the bone field, and hid. At dawn, the bird swooped down on the pit and the boy killed it. The feathers of the great bird were transformed into all the birds we see today, and the flesh became present-day animals and large land predators "of the claw." Only the bones of the dreadful bird remained on Skeleton Mountain.



The boy returned home and led a party of elders and warriors from the Yaqui villages to see the proof that the giant raptor was dead. He showed them the pit he had dug and the bird’s skeleton. According to the tradition, when “the men saw the bones of the big bird, they went away contented," and in the villages there was rejoicing. "We no longer have to fear the predator of the sky," warned the boy, "but now we must watch out for the predators of the claw here below."

This indigenous Mexican fossil legend realistically portrays the Yaqui ancestors living in primitive shelters. This detail indicates a time before European Contact, since when the Spanish arrived the Yaquis were living in sophisticated pueblos. Earlier people in Sonora would have feared immense raptors, now extinct, which overlapped with humans. In the legend, the giant birds' disappearance ushered in a new era characterized by new fears of dangerous land predators. The concept of a progression of ages marked by diverse kinds of fauna (in this case, giant birds and hoofed herbivores succeeded by large, clawed predators) is a striking element in a pre-Darwinian myth. The Yaqui tale was verified when villagers traveled to an excavation amid heaps of jumbled bones and skulls on a hillside to view the remains of a great bird, the last of its kind.

In the 1970s, Mexican and American palaeontologists discovered abundant fossils of Pliocene and Pleistocene elephants, bison, and other large animals along the Rio Yaqui. The fossils wash down from the western slopes of the Sierra Madre and are frequently found by local people today. Higher up, more complete skeletons erode out of the mountainsides (and patches of Jurassic-Cretaceous remains may also exist in the Sierra Madre). The Yaqui tale of the giant bird from primitive pre-pueblo days probably conflated ancestral memories of very large living raptors with later observations of petrified skeletons of extinct raptors and their nests. Today's eagles have 8-foot wingspans, but giant California condors, with wingspans of 10 feet, attack prey as large as deer and their nests are filled with bones. California condors ranged in northwestern Mexico until fairly recently. Moreover, in the Sonoran desert, the remains of larger Ice Age condor species and

Teratorn (top) compared to a condor (center) and an eagle (bottom) (© R. Spears). their nests are preserved in dry caves. The nests contain the bones of mammoths, camels, bison, and horses, carried away as carrion. Familiarity with living condor behavior and occasional finds of larger, petrified condors and nests containing large mammal bones would influence legends about gigantic birds that carried off people.

But the Yaqui ancestors would also have feared an even bigger bird before the development of pueblos. The great raptor of the Pleistocene and Holocene, Teratornis, had a wingspan of 12-17 feet, and coexisted with humans as recently as 8,000 years ago. The heavy bodied teratorns had very long, strong hooked beaks for grabbing up prey, which could include deer and small humans. Teratornis remains have been found across the southern United States and northern Mexico and the remains are usually found in human occupation sites. If a large, long-beaked teratorn skull and parts of the large wing structure and talons had been discovered by the Yaqui among the Pleistocene fossils at Skeleton Mountain, it certainly would have contributed to the tale of a monstrous bird.

In 1898, in the southwestern United States, an Apache storyteller recounted a similar tradition about the Giant Eagle. Like the Yaqui tale, the Apache version linked the giant



raptor to remarkable skeletal remains, this time observed in the desert of New Mexico.

In the early days, began the Apache storyteller, animals and birds of monstrous size preyed on people. A brave youth set forth to kill the Giant Eagle, which carried off men, women, and children of the tribe. During his quest, the youth was snatched by the Giant Eagle and dropped into its nest on a rock ledge. But the boy clubbed the huge bird to death with the horn of another monstrous animal and it plummeted to the earth. The Giant Eagle's nestlings became the smaller eagles of the present day.

The enormous wing of the Giant Eagle had "bones as large as a man’s arm," declared the Apache storyteller. He knew this because "fragments of this wing are still preserved at Taos." He authenticated the old myth by referring to fossil evidence that one could see and touch.

The giant bird wing displayed at Taos, New Mexico, more than a century ago may have been a naturally mummified specimen found in a dry cave. Palaeontologists have discovered well-preserved teratorn raptors from 12,500 years ago in desert caverns littered with fresh-looking dung pellets and the bones of extinct mammoths, horses, and camels. And archaeologists have found offerings left by palaeo-Indians in caves containing large vertebrate fossils. According to Pleistocene bird specialist Tommy Tyrberg, a Teratornis carcass preserved in a dry desert cave would have cartilage and feathers and the bones would be as large as a man's arm.. “Even a wing of Gymnogyps (californianus) amplus, the large Pleistocene subspecies of the California condor (mentioned above), could be described as having man-sized bones," noted Tyrberg. Remains of this bird have been found in at least six New Mexico caves. The Apaches apparently discovered remains like these and saw them as proof of their legend of the Giant Eagle.

Pawnee fossil legends

An old Pawnee medicine man named Young Bull (1835-1916) described the history of the ’Stone Medicine Bone Lodge‘, a society of traditional healers whose special powers came from a giant's bone discovered in

Kansas before contact with Europeans and the first arrival of smallpox in the 18th century. The Pawnees were semi-nomadic Plains Indians who ranged over Kansas and Nebraska, prime fossil hunting territory. According to Young Bull, the originator of the Stone Medicine Bone Lodge had deliberately excavated a gigantic femur from a high bank in western Kansas, after a giant man had appeared in a dream-vision and told him that such bones had healing powers. The Pawnee transported the heavy bone many miles east to an earth lodge where the relic was venerated for centuries, until the Pawnee tribe was decimated by disease and dispersed by the Indian Wars and forced migrations of the late 19th century.

According to the Pawnee oral tradition, the big thigh bone had belonged to one of the giant people who had been wiped out by a great flood in the deep past before the appearance of present-day people. In the Pawnee healing ceremony, ’dust‘ or powder from the ancient giant's bone was used to make a curative tea. The stony white femur was inscribed with carved images of a man and a woman, a human skull, a bow, stars, and the moon, with a sunburst design around the joint. It was kept in a medicine bundle, wrapped in a buffalo hide.

Other Pawnees recounted their traditions about the enormous skeletons that weathered out on the prairies. Young Bull's grandmother, born in the late 1770s, told of

The Stone Medicine Bone of the Pawnees (© P. Faris).




"wonderful giants who had drowned long ago in a big flood, before we lived upon this earth.” As a girl she had observed many giant bones emerging from the hills of Nebraska and Kansas. As early as 1750, the Pawnees had called a tributary of the Loup River in eastern Nebraska, ’Wonderful Bone Creek‘ because of remarkable bones discovered in the streambed.

One version of the Pawnee legend, narrated by a storyteller named Buffalo, explained that as these giant creatures drowned in the high waters, some were stranded on steep hills, while others sank down into the muddy earth and their bones lodged in stream banks. As the waters rose, "the great people sank down in the mud and were drowned." In about 1880, Pawnee elders described their fossil investigations: "In deep canyons we have seen big bones underground,” and these “convince us that the giants sank into the soft ground in the past. After the destruction of the race of giants, the Creator created a new race of men, small, like those of today.”

The Pawnees believed that some of the great powers of the giants remained with their bodies. "The Creator promised that we would find these bones and that they would contain curative power for the sick.” The Pawnee fossil medicine tradition reflects the widespread Amerindian belief that one could somehow tap into the strength and vital forces of such obviously powerful, unknown creatures whose bones had hardened into rock in the deep past. Interestingly, a tea made from fossil bone powder would contain calcium, a nutritional supplement.

Mastodon bones lashed to a travois pulled by an Indian pony (© E. Heck).

Evidence of the Plains Indian practice of collecting large fossil bones to make medicine powder also comes from William Webb, the surveyor who escorted the pioneer palaeontologist Edward Drinker Cope on an expedition in 1871. At Fort Dodge in southwestern Kansas, Cope heard that some Indians had passed the fort dragging large mastodon bones lashed to their ponies, taking them to an earth lodge to be ground up into medicine.

The Pawnee myth incorporated details and insights based on careful observations over generations. The rolling terrain of Kansas and Nebraska was indeed covered by a vast and shallow inland sea during the Cretaceous period (144-65 million years ago). In the chalk bluffs of the Niobrara Formation along rivers and tributaries in Kansas and Nebraska lie the petrified remains of marine creatures, enormous mosasaurs, long-necked plesiosaurs, huge sea turtles, palm-sized shark teeth, and countless seashells. Alluvial Miocene to Pleistocene mammal deposits also dot western Kansas and Nebraska: mammoths, mastodons like Stegomastodon and the four-tusked Amebelodon, rhinoceros and camel species, and giant sloths. In the upper Republican River drainage, where the Pawnee Stone Medicine Bone was discovered, Pleistocene mammoth fossils emerge in bluffs above the river valley, while the river cuts through Ogallala Formation bedrock containing the bones of earlier Miocene mastodons. Since the Stone Medicine Bone was thought to be that of a giant man, it probably belonged to an ancestral elephant whose limb bones resemble those of humans.

Unlike the Inca tradition of giants destroyed by fire and many other Amerindian traditions of giants killed by lightning, the Pawnee tradition attributed the demise of the giants to a watery death. In the arid High Plains, geology and palaeontology reveal the obvious evidence of the sea that bisected North America in Cretaceous times. The Pawnee observers correctly understood that water once covered the prairies, because of the conspicuous petrified clams, fish, turtles, and other out-of-place sea creatures scattered across the landscape. When they spied the skeletons of massive creatures poking out of ravines, they accurately envisioned ’giants‘



sinking into the soft ground so long ago that the mud turned to stone.

These diverse cases, from South America, Central America, and North America, exemplify how pre-Darwinian cultures interpreted the fossilized remains of extinct creatures, with surprising insight and logic. The myths contain genuine natural knowledge grounded in observation over time, a keystone of scientific investigation. Several significant concepts emerge from these traditional fossil legends. Observation of fossils over many generations led to theories based on physical evidence. The fossils were recognized as the organic remains of extinct land and sea creatures of the remote past. The myths reflect rational attempts to imagine the mysterious creatures' appearance, behaviour, and habitat, and to account for the creatures' disappearance by catastrophe. They envisioned different ages in the past history of the earth, characterized by different climates, landforms, and species. Several traditions even demonstrate a realization that some creatures known only from fossils were somehow related to today's species. Natural

details about the fossils' condition and their context were assimilated into the mythic explanations. And chance discoveries were followed up by deliberate investigations of bone beds and purposeful excavation, comparison, display, and use of fossils.

These pre-scientific interpretations of the meaning of fossils by the Incas, the Yaquis, the Apaches, and the Pawnees were expressed in mythological language and their fossil discoveries do not constitute formal science. But the ancient sightings over time, the explanatory stories, the extinction scenarios, and the reliance on fossil evidence to authenticate old traditions; these activities represent early stirrings of the scientific impulse. The First American fossil hunters were driven by the desire to comprehend puzzling natural phenomena, by the same compelling desire that would later evolve into modern paleontology.

Website: NATIVE AMERICAN FOSSIL LEGENDS http://www.hometown.aol.com/afmayor/myhomepage/writing.html.

Egypt in photographs

Z. Kosc

Islamic Cairo is an historic area of the city, surrounded by medieval walls, which in earl er times was regarded as the cul ural, intel ectual and religious centre of the Arab world. Photography Z. Kosc © 2004 (See also:

it l

/http://members.ams.chello.nl zkosc/index.html).

From their website http://www.noorderlicht.com/eng/fest04/index.html:

Nazar – 11th Noorderlicht Photofestival

http://www.hometown.aol.com/afmayor/myhomepage/writing.html




http://members.ams.chello.nl/zkosc/index.html

http://www.noorderlicht.com/eng/fest04/index.html



Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, 5 September through 24 October ...The Arab world through Arab eyes... ...The Arab world through Western eyes... ...Back in time with historic photos from Western and Arab archives... This year the Noorderlicht photofestival focuses on the most talked-about region at the moment. Under the title Nazar - Arabic for seeing, insight, reflection - the Arab world of then and now, as seen through

Arab and Western eyes, will be shown in a photographic triptych.

The Jura-Museum Eichstätt and the natural history collections of the Bishop’s Seminary in

Eichstätt, Germany

By M. Kölbl-Ebert

Located in the heart of Bavaria, Eichstätt

sits in the Altmühl Nature Park, one of the largest nature parks in Germany. The idyllic landscape around the Altmühl Valley is an all-time classic among geological regions. It is in this region that the famous Solnhofen Limestone, still quarried manually today, yielded the world-known Archaeopteryx fossils. Fine palaces and castles, elegant churches, convents and monasteries are testimonies to a long history and rich cultural heritage, and make this region one of the most beautiful holiday areas in Bavaria.

Eichstätt has a long tradition in natural history. Already in the early 17th century, the prince-bishop of Eichstätt, Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, kept a cabinet of natural curiosities in his castle Willibaldsburg, named after the first bishop of Eichstätt St. Willibald.

In 1773, the Jesuit and professor of mathematics Ignatz Pickel presented his collection of minerals and fossils to the Collegium Willibaldinum, i.e. the Eichstätt Bishop’s Seminary. Together with 19th century

The Eichstätt specimen of Archaeopteryx (© Jura-Museum E chstät i t).

The Eichs ätt castle Willibaldsbu g (© Ju aMuseum Eichstät ).

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additions of minerals and stuffed birds from South America, which had been collected by the Dukes of Leuchtenberg, they formed the basis of the teaching and research collection at the Bishop’s Seminary. The collection was enlarged by several curators whose varied interests contributed to different areas. It contains a valuable herbarium, beautiful shells, many exotic butterflies and beetles, as well as numerous fossils, mainly from the lithographic limestone from around Solnhofen and Eichstätt. Among these are such important specimens as the Eichstätt specimen of Archaeopteryx .

After a reorganisation of theological instruction in the late 1960s, natural history was dropped from the theological curriculum, and the Bishop’s Seminary endeavoured to find a new purpose for its teaching and research collection. In 1972, cooperation between the Seminary and the Free State of Bavaria, represented by the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History, was established with the purpose of opening a public museum. This museum, the Jura-Museum Eichstätt, (that means Eichstätt museum of the Jurassic), was opened in 1976 as a ‘joint venture’ between state and church. Alongside the


Nautilus in the aquariums of the Jura-Museum Eichstät (© Jura-Museum Eichstätt)


View of the permanent exhibition of the Jura-Museum E chstät (© Jura-Museum Eichstät

i t t). public exhibition, the collection continues to serve as a research tool mainly for palaeontologists and attracts many scientists from all over the world.

The Jura-Museum Eichstätt is housed in the castle Willibaldsburg high above the Altmühl Valley. A great attraction for schools and tourists, it welcomes about 80.000 visitors every year. The bulk of its permanent exhibition consists of the fossils from the Solnhofen limestone, collected from the numerous quarries of the region. The fossils open a window on the past, some 140 million years ago, when the region around the Altmühl Valley was a tropical landscape of islands, reefs and lagoons, inhabited by ichthyosaurs and crocodiles, coral fish and prawns, ammonites and squid, insects and pterosaurs. The most impressive of the fossils in the museum is undoubtedly the original specimen of the Eichstätt Archaeopteryx.

Fossil of horseshoe crab (Courtesy of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt, © E. Endenburg).

Large tanks with live reef corals, colourful fish and ‘living fossils’ such as horseshoe crabs and nautilus offer a lively impression of the colourful diversity of coral reef inhabitants in the Jurassic sea around Eichstätt.

Currently, the museum staff is working towards a complete refurbishment of the permanent exhibition, scheduled to be completed within the next decade. We set out to replace the traditional, taxonomic arrangement of our gorgeous fossils with more ‘dynamic’ displays that provide an understanding of the ecosystems in which organisms once lived.

The exhibitions will be constructed as a journey through a ‘time-machine’, which will transfer our visitors some 140 million years into the past onto an island in the Jurassic sea. Here, they will familiarize with the land animals and plants as well as with the landscape and climatic conditions of that epoch. From this

Jura pterosaur Pterodactylus elegans (© Jura-Museum Eichstät t).t .



Fossil shrimp (Courtesy of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt, © E. Endenburg). tropical island, visitors will walk down into the sea where they will be presented with different submarine ecologies and environments. We aim to convey the illusion of walking underwater through special lighting.

Living fish and invertebrates in the fish tanks will be placed close to the fossil exhibition to enable visitors to draw direct comparisons between ancient and modern seascapes.

A special section of the permanent exhibition will be devoted to the flying animals of the Jurassic time, Archaeopteryx, pterosaurs and insects. Bird origin and evolution, and the physical and biomechanical requirements of flight will be illustrated together with examples of how different animals got airborne. This part of our plans is well underway and we hope to open this section of our exhibition in summer 2005.

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in summer, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in winter. More information can be found on the museum’s web pages: http://www.jura-museum.de.

Fossil fish (Courtesy of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt, © E. Endenburg).

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PalArch Foundation and is edited by A.J. Veldmeijer ([email protected]) and S.M. van Roode ([email protected]). The illustration editing is done by A.M. Hense (www.egypt-archaeology.com/, [email protected]).

The Newsletter is offered for free to the supporters of the Foundation (see http://www.palarch.nl/information.htm, 3.6 Membership); back issues will be offered for sale at the website (www.PalArch.nl) at 5 euro each (excluding dispatch costs) .

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