Museum
Royal Belgian institute of Natural Sciences
Natural history museum famed for a herd of complete Iguanodon skeletons pulled from a coal mine.
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Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences traces a discovery three hundred and twenty-two meters underground in a Bernissart coal mine in 1878, when miners hit something that glinted like gold and turned out to be bone. It follows technician Louis De Pauw's crew as they cut dozens of complete Iguanodon skeletons into plaster-wrapped blocks and hauled them up past the constant risk of gas and flooding, and scientist Louis Dollo's years spent piecing the giants back together in Brussels. A pose Dollo chose for them made headlines in 1883 for reasons the guide gets into.
This audio guide was created using AI.