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Return of dinosaur bones to Mongolia


Canberra Times (June 19, 2002) reported that Tyrannosaurus Bataar bones may be returned to Mongolia after they were detected allegedly stolen and smuggled in America. The United States Government said the bones were allegedly stolen from Mongolia and smuggled into the US - the smugglers claiming that they originated in the United Kingdom. The smugglers originally stated that the nearly complete skeleton was worth $15,000 on the customs forms, and then sold it at auction for $1.05 million on May 20.

The auction proceeded even though the president of Mongolia obtained a restraining order in a Texas court, stating that the skeleton was stolen from the Gobi desert. The government’s palaeontologists concluded that the bones were native to the Gobi region and could only have been discovered there. The Tyrannosaurus Bataar lived about 70 million years ago and were first discovered in 1946. From 1924, the Mongolian government enacted laws making any dinosaur bones or skeletons found in the region to be government property.

Currently a lawsuit is in progress.

The UB Post in Mongolia, an English-language newspaper, stated that the skeleton was 75% complete according to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas. It is two and a half metres tall and seven metres long, and slightly smaller than the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

When President Elbegdorj was informed of the auction in Texas, he notified the Minister of Education, Culture and Science. Under Article 175 of the Mongolian criminal law, the export of dinosaur bones and fossils is a criminal offense. The Mongolian government’s lawsuit is to compel Heritage Auctions to disclose the name of the winning bidder and to seek custody of the skeleton (the final sale is contingent upon the outcome of the lawsuit).

UB Post also stated that palaeontologist Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who has worked in Mongolia for 22 years, said in a letter to the auction house: “As someone who is intimately familiar with these faunas, these specimens were undoubtedly looted from Mongolia.” He also expressed outrage that the specimen was being sold at auction “with no associated documents regarding provenance.” The Director at the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs and New York Representative of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, M. Bolortsetseg, has asked the auction house to halt the sale until the skeleton, and several other fossils, are identified and their origins are determined. In addition, the Mongolian Embassy in the USA has notified US Government agencies of the situation.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/the-battle-for-tbar-1m-dinosaur-stolen-from-desert-20120619-20lj8.html#ixzz1yEPVWy3a

http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/index.php/2011-07-03-14-21-08/88888938-domestic/7255-tyrannosaurus-skeleton-auctioned-off-for-105-million-

(I took the photographs in Mongolia at the Dinosaur Park about an hour drive from the capital, Ulaanbaatar.)


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