Sotheby's Paris to auction off complete Mammoth skeleton in sale of items from Japanese museum
September 20, 2012 - 3:39 PM
PARIS - Looking for that must-have ornament for a cavernous living room or backyard lawn? Perk up, Sotheby's is putting a complete Mammoth skeleton up for sale in Paris.
The auction house plans the Oct. 2 sale as part of a collection of fossils, skeletons, meteors and minerals — and even a dinosaur egg and woolly rhinoceros skeleton — from the Kashiwagi museum in Japan.
Sotheby's said in a statement Thursday that the skeleton of Mammuthus primigenius, from Siberia, dates to the Middle Paleolithic period when Neanderthals roamed the earth. The house estimates it will go for more than €185,000 ($240,000).
The Mammoth skeleton, which has been arranged in a bit of an upward-facing pose, measures 3.5 metres (11 1/2 feet) in height — just slightly taller than it is long.
News from © The Associated Press, 2012