Existing comment:
Skeleton of the Mastodon
excavated 1801–02 by Charles Willson Peale
Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany
When this mastodon was excavated, some of the bones were missing or damaged. Moses Williams, a free man of color working for Peale's Museum, carved the missing bones along with Peale's son Rembrandt and Philadelphia sculptor William Rush. Mastodon tusks did not always survive excavation. Though Peale found a five-foot-long tusk, it broke into several pieces and was too fragile to be repaired for display. As a result, the tusks on Peale's skeleton were made from papier mâché. |