Behind the scenes, hard work is being done on the Camarasaurus: Naturalis' iconic sauropod. Do you remember it standing in our old museum? It stood on the first floor, sticking his neck through the ceiling and looking into the eyes of our visitors on the second floor. That enormous is it. Our new exhibition 'Dino Age' 12 meters high for good reason!
Years ago this skeleton had been mounted in the museum itself. A geart solution at that time, but it turned out to be a problem during the demolition in 2016. The frame with which the bones were kept in place consisted of one piece. The only thing we could do was ... to cut the skeleton in pieces.
Currently the frame is put back together with much love and craftsmanship by the Leiden Instrumentmakers School (LIS). And it is getting better than ever. And futureproof. In the future, it must be able to neatly assemble and disassemble. Should the Camarasaurus ever have to leave its place again, we will be fully prepared!
But how do you explain to the friendly welders and engineers of the LIS what you want and expect? "Can you make an extremely sturdy frame for us for a dinosaur that can also be separated?" After the first surprised faces, it took one word to describe exactly what we wanted from them: "Can you IKEAficate the frame?" -"Consider it done!". Thank you LIS for the nice cooperation.
To be continued!
Martijn Guliker
Preparer, Naturalis Biodiversity Center.
How to explain to the friendly welders and engineers of LIS what you want and expect?
