“ It belongs in a museum ! ” It ’s a common chorus among archaeologist who are passionate about preserving artefact for next generation . But anyone who ’s experience the remainder of the 1981 documentary Raiders of the Lost Ark know that treasured relics can beeasily forgottenonce they make it into storage .
Okay , Indy ’s not real . But it turns out the sempiternal overlooked boxes mob up as the course credit rolled hinted at a truth that is — if not quite stranger than — pretty bloody close to that fable . There have been a surprising number of big - meter , actual - living discovery made at museum themselves , when mislabeled , mishandled , or misplaced archaeological , palaeontological , and extremely illogical clay are set up , as if by chance , in storage on - situation . Here are five late finds .
Found: A 6,500-year-old human skeleton
Where : Penn Museum , Philadelphia
When : 2014
How : When professional at Philadelphia ’s Penn Museum begin the process of digitizing the collection , project manager William Hafford realized that some of the notes describe a full frame find on a 1930s - earned run average exploration of Sumeria were overleap the agree bones . As it turns out , Janet Monge , chief conservator of cultural anthropology , sleep with of an unlabeled corner with human remains that she had n’t been able to ID for over three decades . And hey hey — it was a couple ! Monge deem the exceptionally old swell a “ tidy soul , ” and a rare , well - preserved discovery for the place and clock time catamenia . [ The Guardian;Associated Press ]
Found: Barosaurus bones
Where : Royal Ontario Museum , Toronto , Canada
When : 2007
How : When David Evans got a gig as Associate Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2007 , his first order of business was source a long - neck , long - tailedSauropodto display in the Modern dino wing . He explore ; and he searched ; and he searched ; until he was circumstantially tipped off to the existence of a 150 - million - year - honest-to-goodness Barosaurus frame — at the ROM . While catching up on some light in - flight of stairs reading in the contour of an academic journal he brought on the planer , he noticed a honorable mention of some bones acquired by his institution way back in the 1960s that had all but go away from the archive ; upon further investigation , it grow out there were hundreds of isolated specimens on - site that had n’t been right logged . staff member had just enough time to construct “ Gordo ” theBarosaurus — one of two full show in the humanity , and the most complete skeleton of its kind — for the august first step . [ Museum Secrets;ROM ]
Found: Electrotettix attenboroughi, a new species of grasshopper
Where : Illinois Natural History Survey at the University of Illinois
How : Amber is really friggin honest-to-goodness tree resin . When it was tonic and sticky eons of years ago , it would ensnare tons of live things — everything from mallet to bees and flies to flowers — that were then preserved integral . In the 1950s , bugologist William Sanderson collected 160 pounds of the stuff and nonsense from what is now the Dominican Republic . He check out a ( very ) small sampling of the itty bittie piece for ancient treat , then stow the whole collection away in a few big buckets under a sink at the University of Illinois . These were forgotten about until four decades by and by , when they were come about upon by Sam Heads , a paleontologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey . foreland teamed up with lab tech Jared Thomas , and together they took on the painstaking task of studying the clay — which included a trade name new specie of 20 million year old flightless grasshopper with vestigial wing . They list it Electrotettix attenboroughi after blue-blooded - voice acquaintance of vegetation and fauna David Attenborough . [ Washington Post;ZooKeys;News Bureau Illinois ]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN8pGc3-odY
Found: Alfred the Great’s pelvic bone (probably)
Where : Winchester City Museum
How : Today ’s ( living ) British royal house are well set up in Buckingham Palace , but corpse of rulers from the past are continually being unearthed all over the sceptered islet . Alfred the Great was in charge of the commonwealth back in the later 800s , but the whereabouts of his torso was a whodunit to archaeologist , presumed to have gone from two cathedrals in Winchester to Hyde Abbey and then — who experience . After a hopeful lead that he was located in an overlooked grave at a church cemetery turn out to be a dead end , a pelvic bone establish earlier this year in a Winchester City Museum storage box has all the right features — radiocarbon dating , proper age at time of death — to belong to the former King . And if not him , then expert think it ’s his Logos or bro ( keep it all in the folk ) . [ Scientific American ; epitome , University of Winchester ]
Found: Venice: the Molo from the Bacino di San Marco by Canaletto
Where : Denver Art Museum
When : 2012
How : The Denver Art Museum did anentire online seriesthat chronicled the find of a reasonably beat up painting by Venetian artistCanaletto , which was hidden in storage for years before the thrifty preservation exertion that finally guide to the artwork ’s first appearance . “ Yes , even unknown works by old master creative person can be found in museum storage areas , ” explained Timothy J. Standring , who approved the piece ’s acquisition forms in 2001 but did n’t quite realize what he was handle with until track down the misfiled paperwork all that time by and by . [ Denver Art Museum ]
ArchaeologyCollectionsPaleontology
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