Saturday, December 18, 2004

samson's skull

at the carnegie museum of natural history in pittsburgh, pa yesterday, i missed seeing the actual skull of samson, the t-rex that belongs to this museum... instead, i got to peruse a long lists of posts with photographs of samson's skull being wrapped for shipment to be CT scanned i think in alabama... if i understand this, samson's skull is in need of reconstructing because our knowledge has changed so much that his skull must be deconstructed then reconstructed based on this new knowledge from more intact examples such as sue... see my previous post on "sue"...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey! it's Erik. Samson's skull sounds interesting. Was it a model that they made or an actual skull? How was pits.? Have you ever gone to the.....Red......Red.....Red something, but it's like a giant food mall cramped into a small space, it's cool.....that might've been in Harrisburg...i forget...anyways I hope your having fun where you are! Merry Christmas!

Carley said...

hi erik! thanks for visiting. no, samson's skull was crated up and shipped off to alabama for a C.A.T. scan... i believe his skull is in bits and pieces that have been puzzled together, so to speak... so, his skull was not there; but it will be eventually. however, i did get to speak to one of the preparers. she is a volunteer, and she stepped out to talk to me while i watched another preparer "jackhammering" rock off a fossilized bone from a sail-backed dinosaur... forgot the name... he was a small creature, around 5 or 6 feet long...

have you ever seen "sue"? she is worth the trip! her skull is essentially intact; and samson's skull's reconstruction will be based, i am certain, on "sue"! and other more intact t-rex skulls...

i just drove over from bedford, and drove back...so, i did not get to see much more than the carnegie...