The Dinosaur Museum - Sauriermuseum Aathal

The Dinosaur Museum
in Aathal, Switzerland
And
(Sauriermuseum)
Dr. Hans-Jakob Siber
Figure 1 (right). The main hall at the
Sauriermuseum features a number
of dinosaurs collected by Kirby.
From left to right on the back wall:
Camptosaurus (“Arky”), Allosaurus
(“Big Al Two”), and Camarasaurus
(“E.T.”). In the foreground is a cast
of Diplodocus (“H.Q. One”). The
actual dinosaur is displayed on the
floor behind this replica.
Figure 2 (below). The Siber brothers
converted a defunct textile factory
into a dinosaur museum in Aathal,
Switzerland.
JOHN S. WHITE
PO Box 332
Stewartstown, Pennsylvania 17363
[email protected]
John S. White, a consulting editor of Rocks
& Minerals, operates Kustos, a museum/collector consulting business. Now retired, he is
the former curator-in-charge of the National
Mineral and Gem Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy Sauriermuseum
56
ROCKS & MINERALS
H
idden away
in the modest
mountains along a rural road in Aathal, Northern Switzerland, less than a half-hour’s drive
from Zurich, is, in my opinion, one of the most extraordinary museums ever created. It is, to a very large extent, the
product of the exceptional efforts of one remarkable man: Dr.
Hans-Jakob “Kirby” Siber. (The name Kirby is an Anglicization of his Swiss nickname Köbi.) Kirby and his father, Hans
(1905–1979), started a natural science business, Siber+Siber
Mineralien und Fossilien AG, in 1964 by opening a shop in
Zurich. Kirby had already long been collecting “rocks,” and
he was able to get his father interested in them as well. Mostly
through the efforts of Kirby, with support from his brother
Edy beginning in 1967, the business gained international
stature. After twenty-eight years in the business, Kirby’s true
obsession had switched to unearthing dinosaurs and other
large vertebrate fossils. He began in 1970 by digging Eocene
fossil fish in Wyoming, then joined dinosaur excavations in
the northern United States; he developed his dinosaur digging skills in 1985 in coastal Peru where he unearthed several
immense whale skeletons. In 2014 Siber+Siber celebrated its
fiftieth anniversary, making it one of the oldest mineral enterprises still in business.
In 1989 Kirby returned to Wyoming and began excavating dinosaurs at the Howe Ranch, near the small town of
Shell, Big Horn County. He knew about this site from a book
written by R. T. Bird, Bones for Barnum Brown (1985). Brown
was a paleontologist
from the American
Museum of Natural History (in New
York City) who led
a team of American scientists and
volunteers on a sixmonth dig at the
Howe Ranch in 1934
(Bird 1985). They
retrieved some four
thousand dinosaur
bones that were sent
back to New York
to be studied, about
90 percent of which
were destroyed in a
fire at the museum.
When Kirby returned to the site, he had no idea if he would find more dinosaurs, but if he did, his intention initially was to sell some
and to keep the rest.
Digging at the old Howe quarry was not very productive,
so Kirby’s team prospected the area and discovered another
site 450 meters away that was rich in fossils; this became
the Howe Stephens quarry. Between 1990 and 2003 Kirby
and his colleagues found nearly fifteen skeletons, five of
them complete, plus a number of separate bones in the area
around Howe Ranch. The major finds included eight sauro-
Figure 3. Dr. Hans-Jakob “Kirby” Siber started out as a mineral
dealer and later became interested in paleontology. In 2010, the
University of Zurich, Switzerland, awarded him an honorary
doctor’s degree for his outstanding work with dinosaurs.
pods, two ornothopods, three stegosaurs, and one theropod.
As it turned out, he soon began to realize that what he really wanted to do was to be able to display what he collected,
and at that point the idea of a permanent dinosaur museum
was born. Kirby still has a team that works in Wyoming every summer, since 2010 in the Dana quarry, near Ten Sleep,
Washakie County.
Once Kirby decided that he wanted to create a museum,
there was no stopping him. He was
able to acquire a
large vacant factory building (fig.
2) in Aathal, directly
across the road from
his mineral, gem,
and fossil business,
Siber+Siber, and in
1991 the doors of
the new museum
opened to the public.
Through the years
the exhibit has been
anything but static. It
has evolved through
the continuous upgrading of the exhibits and the addition
of new discoveries.
The Museum
In the museum there are nine fully mounted dinosaurs,
soon to be ten, several of which are immense. The two largest are Diplodocus (17 meters), and Camarasaurus (10 meters). All but one of the nine were recovered in the field by
Kirby and his team. The dinosaurs are anywhere from 50
to 95 percent actual bone, and the Allosaurus, which is 95
percent complete, is the most complete example of this diVolume 90, January/February 2015 57
Figure 4. For more than twenty years Kirby Siber participated in and organized dinosaur digs. Here he is with his group of diggers in
2013 at the Dana quarry near Ten Sleep, Wyoming. Othmar Zeder photo.
Figure 5.
Kirby’s pride
and joy is the
25-foot-long
skeleton of
an Allosaurus
named “Big
Al Two.” It is
more than
90 percent
complete
(actual fossil
bones) and
has attracted
the attention of the
international
dinosaur
community
as well as
the scientific
world.
58 ROCKS & MINERALS
Figure 6 (left). This skeleton
of a 17-meter-long Diplodocus was excavated in 1991
by Kirby and his team at
the famous Howe quarry in
Wyoming.
Figure 7 (below). The general museum map (drawn by the well-known cartoonist Marcel Vanek) shows the different sections of the
museum, which consists of two halls with original dinosaurs, all collected by Kirby and his crew, plus fifteen dinosaur-related special
exhibits including dinosaur footprints, dinosaur extinction, dinosaurs of Switzerland, and other European dinosaurs as well as exhibits
about flying reptiles and extinct marine reptiles of the Mesozoic. The museum also features a preparation lab, a room showing amber
with inclusions, a children’s play area, a cafeteria, and a large museum shop. (1) Ancient sea monsters; (2) Dinosaurs of Switzerland;
(3) Masterpieces of nature; (4) A whale from the desert; (5) Dinosaur diggers at work; (6) Dinomania pavilion; (7) Brachiosaurus from
Tendaguru; (8) Evolution of the dinosaurs; (9) Ankylosaurs; (10) Eggs, embryos, and babies; (11) Footsteps of the giants; (12) Demise
of the dinosaurs; (13) Feathered dinosaurs; (14) Punk in dinoland; (15) Howe Ranch dinosaurs; (16) Dino Giardino playground; (17)
Dinosaurs in the movies; (18) Skulls of the giants; (19) Flying reptiles; (20) Preparation laboratories; (21) Kids’ dino test corner.
Volume 90, January/February 2015 59
tech equipment. So, for the most
part, once a skeleton has been exposed, sections of it are isolated
in large blocks, often reinforced in
plaster, and then these blocks have
to be shipped, in this case, to Switzerland. With a large dinosaur this
can involve many tons of material.
The museum employs as many
as six preparators, at times, and the
laboratory, the Präparatorium, in
which they work, can be viewed
behind glass on the second floor of
the museum. These highly trained
specialists also participate in extracting the dinosaurs in the field
along with Kirby and, very often,
a sizable group of volunteers. The
Figure 8. Kaatedocus siberi was named in 2012 to honor Kirby for his efforts to collect, premuseum has fourteen permanent
serve, and display dinosaurs and for making his finds available for scientific studies. Kaatedostaff members.
cus siberi means “the little Diplodocus of Siber.”
One small gallery that stands
out in my memory from my October 2013 visit, even given the excellence of all of the others, is
nosaur ever found. One of the dinosaurs, Kaatedocus siberi
the “Masterpiece Gallery.” Here are displayed approximately
(which means “the small Diplodocus of Siber”), was named
fifty exquisite individual fossils. In many instances there is
after Kirby. With fourteen perfectly preserved vertebrae, the
only one stunning large fossil in each wall case (figs. 9 and
recently named specimen’s neck is reportedly the most in10), and each is indeed a masterpiece, surely one of the finest
tact of its kind in the world and has brought international
assemblies of individual fossils that one can hope to see, all
renown to the Aathal Dinosaur Museum (fig. 8). Included in
acquired by Kirby over many decades.
the display is a partially exposed skeleton of Othnielosaurus,
The labels in the museum are all in German, but visitors
with the bones still mostly embedded in matrix.
can obtain printed guides upon entry with translations in
Recovering dinosaurs that are embedded in tough rock is
French, Italian, and English.
much more complicated than simply removing the bones in
Although the vast majority of Rocks & Minerals readers
the field and shipping them back to a museum. The bones
are primarily interested in minerals, I suggest that this mucan be delicate, making bone extraction a difficult and teseum is so very exceptional that most mineral collectors will
dious job; thus most of it is done in a laboratory with high-
Figures 9 and 10. Two excellent specimens seen in the gallery called “The Masterpieces” are a spectacular ammonite (Placenticeras
meeki) from South Dakota and a charming coral fish (Mene rhombia) from the famous Eocene locality of Bolca, Italy.
60 ROCKS & MINERALS
VISITOR INFORMATION
Address:69 Zürichstrasse, Aathal,
Switzerland CH-8607
Website:www.sauriermuseum.ch
Hours:Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.;
closed Mondays
Admission:A modest fee is charged (in Swiss
francs), with reduced rates for
children, the handicapped, and the
elderly
Arrival by car:The museum is on the main road
between Uster and Wetzikon. Free
car and bus parking.
Arrival by train:Aathal can be reached by the S-Bahn
(S14). Trains leave every half-hour
from the main station in Zurich.
After debarking, follow signs to the
museum, a ten-minute walk.
including a fine assortment of Swiss quartzes, and finished
jewelry that are for sale. Next to this building is the “gem
house” where one will find everything from rough gem material to cut gems and lapidary equipment.
What Kirby has created in Aathal is a world-class dinosaur museum; it is world class in every sense of the phrase,
and it was done without any public funding! Many large institutional or municipal museums have spent millions on
their dinosaur halls, but none that I have seen come close to
what Kirby has achieved with the Sauriermuseum.
Kirby was awarded an honorary PhD from Zurich University in 2010 for his outstanding work with dinosaurs. In
the words of Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischer, rector of the university: “I am convinced that the faculty made a happy choice
in nominating you. I heartily congratulate you. The honor
acknowledges your great achievements in the field of prehistory research.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Urs Moeckli, Sauriermuseum in Aathal, for providing most of the excellent photographs, except where noted, and
to Kirby Siber for helping with the manuscript, making certain that
all of the facts are correct. William Besse provided the map showing
the location of Aathal and adapted the Marcel Vanek drawing of the
museum map for publication.
REFERENCE
Bird, R. T. 1985. Bones for Barnum Brown. Austin: University of
Texas Press. ❑
find it well worth a visit if traveling in Europe. The educational content is brilliantly done, but there also are minerals
to be seen. For much of his life Kirby, with his brother Edy,
collected gold specimens, and his gold collection is superb
(fig. 11). It can be viewed in a small gallery in the Siber+Siber
building across the road from the museum. This building
also houses an excellent inventory of worldwide minerals,
Figure 11. The Siber gold collection is housed just opposite the
Sauriermuseum in the Siber+Siber mineral, fossil, and gem
building. The gold collection is an attraction by itself and features crystallized gold and gold nuggets from around the world,
notably from California and various European localities, including gold from the Alps.
Volume 90, January/February 2015 61