Details

LOT 0443

Spectacular Woolly Mammoth Tusk Pair

PLEISTOCENE PERIOD, 2.6 MILLION-11,700 YEARS B.P.

59 1/2 - 62 5/8 in. (24.85 kg total including stands, 151-159 cm long (outer edge)).

A high quality pair displaying beautiful brown, green and cream colouring, from a young female Mammuthus primigenius; accompanied by custom-made display stands; some restoration. [2]

Provenance

From the Siberian Tundra.
Ex Arctic Antiques, Germany.
From the private collection of Commander Michael J Norman OBE AFC RN, Somerset, UK.

Accompanied by a copy of a certificate of origin from Germany.
Accompanied by a copy of the original purchase invoice (17,838.00 Euros).
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate no. 12353-225019.

Literature

See Guide to the Elephants (Recent and Fossil) in the British Museum (Natural History), BM, 1922, pp.35-47, for discussion.

Footnotes

Both tusks were recovered from the same place in the Siberian permafrost in 2016. The left tusk weighs an impressive 6.2 kg and the right tusk 6.02 kg.

The mammoth lineage branched from the Asian elephant around 6 million years ago, and later on the Woolly Mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius, evolved in eastern Siberia. Woolly mammoths, being slightly smaller than living African elephants, were foragers and ate grass, as well as small, nutritious flowering plants that flourished in the environment where they lived. They may also have used their curved tusks to dig through snow and eat plants that other foragers couldn't get to.