Re: Overview of the cast Vs real bone thread

["Steve Brusatte" <dinoland@mailcity.com>]

Yeah, there are plenty of museums where you can go up and touch the mounts, 
especially over there in Europe (I went to a couple of these and they don't say 
anything if you touch the bone, but if you touch the glass display cases you're 
screamed at).

Chris Brochu also mentioned the excitement he felt when looking at the original 
Beowulf manuscripts, while looking at a copy is an everyday, normal feeling.  
The same can be said about another recent Field Museum exhibit, the Dead Sea 
Scrolls.  Before Sue was mounted droves of people came out to the Field to see 
many of the original scrolls.

I myself have copies of some of them in encyclopedias and other books.  And, of 
course, we can read translations in parts of the Bible, but seeing some of 
these original documents, not paper 'casts,' was what brought millions of 
dollars and thousands of people to the museum.  

I don't mind cast dinosaurs personally, but one of my favorite aspects of the 
Florence Museum of Natural History was that EVERYTHING was original.  Every 
single mount (with the exception of a cast Gallimimus skull that was stuck in 
the corner).  It was all real-and told the story of Italy's prehistory.  But, 
what really got me about some of these exhibits, as Sam mentioned, was their 
HUMAN history.  Georges Cuvier examined and studied many of the bones that are 
on display at the Florence Museum.  In fact, by studying many of them he named 
the Villafranchian fauna.  F. Nesti found several of the invertebrate fossils, 
including the first fossil ever found in Florence-an ammonite.  This is 
exhibited to, and as I looked at it I couldn't help but imagine the human 
history involved.  

Sue isn't much different.

Steve
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Steve Brusatte-DINO LAND PALEONTOLOGY
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