Giant dinosaur jigsaw puzzle
Sedgwick Museum's dinosaur reinstalled after 'make-over'
After seven weeks of painstaking work by staff and volunteers the dinosaur Iguanodon
is ready for re-installation in the Sedgwick Museum.
Standing more than five metres tall, Iguanodon is a giant jigsaw puzzle of bone casts. Each part of this 120 million year-old giant has been cleaned and repainted by hand using colours that more closely represent the original fossil, to enhance the specimen as a teaching aid and bring the dinosaur to life.
The dinosaur will be reassembled in the Sedgwick Museum between Monday 16th and Wednesday 18th August. The Museum will remain open throughout giving visitors a unique opportunity to witness the 'building' of a complete dinosaur by Museum staff.
The restoration of the dinosaur is the latest event in a major new phase in the redevelopment of the Sedgwick Museum. The next phase of the project is the renovation of displays about Cambridgeshire's ancient past - featuring a hippopotamus, parts of giant elephants and other extinct animals - due for completion by December 2004.
Sarah Finney, the Museum's conservator, has been managing the project:
Painting Iguanodon has been like constructing the world's biggest Airfix kit - with no instructions! Working with small artist's brushes we've used 5 colours to enhance the three-dimensional form of the bone casts. There are more than 30 pieces, some are enormous and all of them are intricate and fiddly. I'm immensely grateful to all the time and effort put in by a wonderful team of volunteers. This has been a real Museum team effort.
